Isaiah 52:7 | Romans 10:11-15 | John 4:31-38

To have "beautiful feet" is to be cleansed by Christ's humility and commissioned by His love to carry the beautiful message of the Gospel to a world in desperate need of good news.

Before there were wires and towers, news traveled on feet.

If your city was at war, you had no way of knowing how it had gone. You waited. Somebody stood on the wall and watched the ridgeline for days, and everything depended on what came over it. When a messenger finally appeared, the battle had already been decided one way or the other. Whether that was the best morning of your life or the worst depended entirely on what he was carrying in his mouth.

That is the picture Isaiah hands us.

"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'" (Isaiah 52:7)

Feet back then walked dirty, dung-filled roads all day. They were not beautiful feet, and Isaiah knew that better than we do today. He calls them beautiful anyway, and he does it because of the news those feet were carrying.

And that news is the Good News of Jesus Christ, not just any news, but transformative, life-altering truth.

But why feet? Why not, "How beautiful are the ministers, or the pastors, or the missionaries who bring good news"? Why feet? Because we all have feet! And Scripture makes sure to let us all know that we are included and needed to be those who bring good news.

What made the news good?

The word translated into English as "gospel" or "good news" was in common use in the ancient Middle East and Roman Empire long before it was adopted by the New Testament writers. Its meaning, however, was quite different from its later Christian usage. In the Greco-Roman world it was a political and military term, used to announce events of great public significance:

A major military victory. A messenger would run ahead of the army to a city to deliver the good news of a decisive battle won. This was a message of peace and salvation for the citizens of that city, as it meant the end of conflict and a new era of stability.

The accession of a new ruler. The birth or coronation of a king or emperor was considered good news for the empire. It signified the beginning of a new reign and a new era of prosperity, order, and salvation for the people under his rule. A famous inscription from around 9 BC, known as the Priene Calendar Inscription, refers to the birth of Caesar Augustus as the beginning of the good news that came through him to the world.

The decrees of the emperor. Imperial edicts and proclamations, especially those from a powerful figure like Caesar Augustus, were also called good news. The emperor's announcements were seen as bringing order and peace to the known world.

Now read Luke's account of the angels over the fields at Bethlehem, and read it with Roman ears.

The angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people. For there is born to you today, in David's city, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 2:10-11, 13-14)

Good news. A birth. A new ruler. Peace on earth. Every one of those was Caesar's vocabulary, and heaven used all of it in a field outside a village that did not matter to Rome at all.

Jesus takes up the same word when He opens His ministry.

Now after John was taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Good News of God's Kingdom, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and God's Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News." (Mark 1:14-15)

So, when the early Christian writers used this term, they were not inventing a new word. Instead, they were deliberately using a powerful and familiar political term to make a very specific claim. They were announcing a new king, Jesus, whose birth, life, death, and resurrection were the true good news for the world. In this context, the Gospel of Jesus was a direct challenge and counter-narrative to the gospels of the Roman emperors. It was a declaration that the ultimate king and true source of peace and salvation was not Caesar, but Christ.

The feet He washed

If the message is a royal announcement, you would expect the King to hand it to somebody impressive.

Instead, on His last night, He got down on the floor.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:3-5, ESV)

Read verse 3 again, because John put it there on purpose. Knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands. That is the sentence right before He picks up the towel. All authority, and the first thing He does with it is kneel down at the level of the dirtiest part of a man.

And then, a few sentences later in that same chapter, He says this:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." (John 13:20, ESV)

Washing, and then sending. Same room, same night, same feet.

I do not think the order is decoration. Paul asks in Romans, "How will they preach unless they are sent?" (10:15), and every one of us who has tried to carry good news to somebody knows the importance of being sent. When a king sent you, you were carrying his authority and his validation, not your own. The feet that went out to the ends of the earth were feet the King had washed first.

Feet that were already tired

Go back further, to the middle of the same Gospel.

Jesus is sitting on the edge of Jacob's well in Samaria at noon. He has been walking since morning. He is worn out, He is thirsty, and He has nothing to draw with. His disciples have gone into town to buy lunch, and when they come back and press Him to eat, He says something they cannot follow:

Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." (John 4:34)

Something fed Him at that well, and it was not bread. He arrived empty and He is not empty anymore. Whatever else "beautiful feet" means, it starts here, with a pair of feet that walked into Samaria because the Father wanted somebody there. And then the feet of a woman with a sketchy past, running to proclaim that Good News to the whole town.

And then He tells them to look up.

"Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already. He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit to eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true, 'One sows, and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you haven't labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." (John 4:35b-38)

The one who sows and the one who reaps rejoice together, at the same moment, which is not how farming typically works. And verse 38 says you are reaping something you did not labor for. Others did. The Father and the Son had been working the ground in Samaria long before the disciples showed up with lunch and noticed nothing. Your field is no different, and it was being worked long before you learned the person's name.

Which takes the pressure off and allows us to take His yoke upon us, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

His government of peace

So what exactly are these feet announcing? Isaiah told us seven hundred years early:

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. (Isaiah 9:6-7, NKJV)

Of the increase of His government there will be no end. Not a rescue operation that evacuates a few and abandons the rest of it. A reign that keeps expanding.

The Gospel is not only the good news that our sins are forgiven and that we'll one day go to heaven, but also that we've been redeemed and invited into a co-laboring partnership with the King, to bring heaven to earth and see His government of peace increase in our generation.

God has made us right (in right standing with Himself). And then He invites us into His project to make the world right. That's co-laboring. He has washed your feet and set them on the path of a chaotic world to go proclaim His reign of justice and peace.

The world needs your voice! It needs your feet to be upon the mountains!

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible unless noted.