@RoyalFamily My young niece was so excited after being there today, and has been blessed in her literature by Queen Camilla’s reading room initiative 👏🏼
Today we remember that God washes our feet.
The fingers that crafted the universe scrub scum from between toes.
The hands that painted the cosmos wash feet painted with dirt and sweat.
The One before whom all angels bow gets on his knees to labor as a slave.
We become clean, he becomes filthy.
In doing this, Jesus our God gives us a humble epiphany, a revelation of who he is. He is the God who makes his glory visible in lowliness and servitude.
He is the God who gives
-his cheek to the betraying lips of Judas
-his face to the slapping hand of the high priest
-his countenance to the spit of the Sanhedrin.
He is the God who gives
-his head to the thorns
-his feet to the spikes
-his side to the spear.
He is the God who embraces rejection, shame, torture, and death, to give himself to you.
And here is why: because that’s who God is. He is the God who is love. Therefore he loves you by giving to you. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. What he gives you is nothing less than himself.
God gives, you receive. This is everything.
He not only washes your feet; he washes you clean, body and soul, through the holy bath in his name. He fills the baptismal font with water from his spear-pierced side and kneels there to wash off the dirt and sweat and grime of your evil.
He feeds you himself, his body, his blood. Every natural food we take into our bodies is transformed into our bodies. We don't become corn on the cob or hamburgers. But the supper of our Lord is different. This food transforms you into that which it is. You, the church, are the body of Christ. You are what you eat.
So, come and eat. Come and drink. Come to the lowly God who has joined you in your lowliness that he might exalt you in himself.
On Maundy Thursday, let us recall, with thanksgiving, how fitting it all is:
How fitting that humanity, which plunged into death by eating forbidden fruit, should receive life and immortality by a meal provided by our Savior, the Last Adam.
How fitting that sinners, their unity rent asunder by hatred and violence, should be gathered into one communion by partaking of the one loaf, baked from many scattered grains.
How fitting that we, who are hard pressed and beaten down by evil, should be comforted and uplifted by drinking from the Lord’s cup, filled with the blood of grapes that have been trampled and pressed underfoot.
How divinely and beautifully fitting, on this holy Thursday, that we have our feet lovingly washed by the very God from whom we once ran in terror and shame.
Here is our God, Jesus Christ, who comes not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
BSPD is pleased to present the new LAC Oral Health Toolkit which supports ICBs, ICSs & stakeholders to identify & plan for oral health needs for LAC. Written by a self-appointed expert group with practical egs & we support its publication: https://t.co/7aVcipUFti
Things don’t turn out the way we imagined they would. Dream jobs can be a nightmare at times. Even Love Boat marriages can go the way of the Titanic. No one in Hollywood or Nashville knows our name. We never bask in our fifteen minutes of fame. Instead, we settle into a decidedly predictable life that is sometimes happy, often hard, and occasionally quite brutal.
In other words, our lives are exactly the kind of lives that God gets excited about. The more unimpressive our jobs are, the more lackluster our bio, the more we feel like we’re just a name on a list or a face in the crowd, the more we are the perfect venues for God’s ongoing work in this world. If God is anything, he is a God who has a thing for the normal.
The Scriptures are packed with illustrations of this tendency. To begin with, God goes out of his way to handpick the wrong people for his most important missions. The Bible is like the HR Handbook from Hell. Here’s everything you should not do when looking for the perfect candidate for a position.
Need a woman to become the mother of a promised son? Instead of choosing a robust twenty-five-year-old, the Lord taps a post-menopausal, wrinkled, ninety-year-old named Sarah for the job.
Need someone to lead the emancipation of slaves from the most powerful nation on earth, as well as to serve as the spokesperson for these oppressed people? Rather than choosing the ancient equivalent of a Navy SEAL or a quick-tongued Secretary of State, God handpicks a stuttering eighty-year-old shepherd named Moses who’s been on the lam for forty years after beating a man to death.
Book after book, from Genesis to Revelation, the Lord sends men and women on errands they are ill-qualified to fulfill. And nothing has changed in today’s world. He continues to buck our manmade religious systems by inserting men and women into them who don’t meet our qualifications. But they meet God’s. He’s delighted to use them in his kingdom to show all of us that it’s not by brainpower or brawn but by the Spirit of love that the Father gets things done.
-Excerpted from Your God Is Too Glorious (2nd Edition), available at https://t.co/Tc3bvc4WDB or https://t.co/ilKapFuHYd
@ValaAfshar I see your good intentions here, but even just the one instance of the person working 60+hours a week to pay the bills, in a job that is back breaking and unappreciated, and makes them mentally and physically exhausted - this statement now adds “unsuccessful” to their day...
@Judith_Husband@BADT1963 Indeed, with no contract and a backlog of dental neglect caused by government failings. Looking forward to working in this environment of extreme dental need, dental nurses who have been overlooked in the reform completely, and dentists who could understandably resent this..
@RishiSunak A change in secondary school maths would perhaps be better. The first 3 years in the curriculum as it stands, then the final 2 years tailored; one strand for those requiring maths for careers such as engineering/actuaries etc and another for everyday life skills as @MartinSLewis
Did you know there is such a thing as an electric suction toothbrush? The G100 is the world’s first electric suction toothbrush which is perfect for use at home, in care homes and in hospitals.
#dementiacare#specialcaredentistry
Bradford Babies Bin the Bottle campaign had a fantastic day yesterday at Barkerend Family hub. Parents/carers came to bin their baby’s bottles and swap it for a feeder cup, some little ones even had a dental check 😊 https://t.co/CpO3fyYXPY #BinTheBottle@BDCFT/@BetterStartBfd