I think it matters that God wears sandals.
I used to wear sandals all the time. Way back in my San Diego worship leading days I wore sandals every day and especially at church. Over thirteen years later I have not kept up the habit. Not only because it is cold outside but because sandals hurt my feet.
And it’s not just that. To be honest, I feel exposed and susceptible in my naked feet. I am more open to the outside world than I would like.
(That was probably more information than you wanted. Let’s move on!)
It’s painful for me to wear sandals, let alone think about God wearing them. I’m good in my Hokas. When I read about Jesus wearing sandals I want to offer him my Hokas. I want something better for Jesus. (More on that on a later day.)
John the Baptist, the key figure of Advent, points to Jesus and his footwear, at the beginning of the gospel of Mark.
“He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals’” - Mark 1:7
When John gives this proclamation he is acknowledging his own “lesser than” status. But as he says it, he is also drawing attention to the fact that Jesus appears on the scene lesser than one might expect from an expected Messiah.
If the sandals don’t give it away, consider who leads the procession and who follows.
Mark says that the One more powerful than him is coming after him. This is something to consider.
The all-powerful “Coming One” is One who is led. Jesus is the follower and a follower of someone who never really follows him.
Except for the resurrection, John the Baptist nearly always goes before Jesus.
He shows up in his mother’s womb before Jesus arrives in Mary’s. He shows up in the wilderness preaching before Jesus begins his ministry. He announces the arrival of Jesus and God lets him write the script. He goes to prison before Jesus. He dies before Jesus. There are some in church tradition that suggest that John the Baptist even goes to Hell before Jesus. He was, they say “the Forerunner of Christ in death as he had been in life.” The voice preparing the way for Jesus even among the dead. When Peter mentions that everyone will be judged by the Lord, he adds, “For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead.” It would make sense that John the Baptist was and is still leading the way for God’s appearing.
And when Jesus arrives, following behind the locust eating wilderness preacher, He is wearing sandals.
My own, over shared vulnerabilities make me wonder. Should we also consider that the sandals draw attention to the vulnerability of God? That He came exposed? Do they themselves point to His own susceptibility to rejection, pain and the humility of death?
The key difference between me and Jesus in sandals is that I am fearfully reluctant to being open to the world. But Jesus comes fearlessly and joyfully open — in the exact way we need Him to come.
That Jesus came, as the Apostle Paul says, as one who emptied Himself, does not mean he came less than himself. He is not God in exception, He is God exposed. As Father John Behr says, “He shows us what it is to be God by the way He dies as a human being.”
Jesus is not God in exception, He is God exposed.
Sandals don’t suggest that God took off his real shoes to be a man. Sandals are God’s preferred footwear. I’m guessing that if I offered Him the comfort of my Hokas, God might refuse. He came as a sandal wearing man because He is a sandal wearing God. I cannot make things better for God but His sandals suggests that he walks a path to make things better for me.
The sandals point to the Chief Shepherd, who in His coming dresses us with our own clothing of humility. (1 Peter 5:3-5)
The sandals point to the One who came to be last and a servant of all, who invites us to walk the same path. (Mark 9:35)
The sandals point to the feet that need to be washed. Remembering the way Jesus knelt down to wash the feet of those who followed Him will invite us to imitate the same posture.
The sandals point to the King who appears in glory. Even before being born as a man, God was the serving God. The humble One who arrives in a manger, dies on a cross and rises to appear to us again will never not be the King who comes to serve.
Look for the King wearing sandals. He is the One we wait for in Advent.