Jesus’ Footprints
A late 19th-century artist, James Tissot, is among the possiblyably thousands who have depicted the Ascension. But his approach is unique as far as I can tell.
In the picture, Jesus is rising up as the disciples watch him disappear into the clouds. If you look closely at the picture, not in the clouds, but on the ground, you can see footprints on the earth. The artist has carefully etched Jesus’ footprints down on the level where the disciples are standing with their mouths open looking up to the sky. Perhaps the artist was simply imagining a homey detail that isn’t in the text. Or, perhaps, the artist is pressing us with the old question, “Why do you stand looking up into heaven?
His emphasis sets my mind exploring. Maybe we should not be looking up to the heavens. Shouldn’t Vincentians be looking for his footprints on earth today? Apparently, I am not alone in exploring this question.
Blessed Rosalie Rendu certainly looked for Jesus’ foot prints in the streets of Paris.”I never pray so well as I do in the streets!” Mary thought Jesus was “just” a gardener. Long before them Jacob “when he awoke from his sleep shouted “You were here all the time, and I never knew it!” (Genesis 28:16).
Jesus’ footprints in the pages of the Bible
Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad writes
- Can you see Jesus walking on the wrong side of the street with the wrong people?
- Can you see Jesus walking up to a sycamore tree, then looking up at Zachaeus, the tax collector, perched in the branches? “Come down, Zachaeus,” Jesus said, “let’s walk over to your house for dinner.”
- Can you see Jesus walking, then riding, into Jerusalem?
- Can you see him stumbling toward Golgotha, loving us to the very end?
Jesus footprints in our world today
Deacon Greg Kandra takes looking for the footprints of Jesus a step further.
I’ve come to realize that the most enduring footprints of Christ are not to be found on a pebbled hilltop in the Middle East. They are not on stone or clay. I’m not sure you can even take a picture of them. They are the footprints he has left on lives. And they are everywhere — too numerous, really, to count.
- You will find them in New York City, at the Catholic Worker, where volunteers ladle soup every day to dozens of homeless men and women. His footprints are there, in the soup line.
- You will find his footprints on the marble floors of great cathedrals and on the plain planks of roadside chapels, where believers of many faiths gather to sit and kneel, to listen and pray.
- You will find them on the floors of nurseries where mothers walk all night caring for their sick infants, and on the coffee-stained carpets of church basements, where weekly AA meetings are held; they are found in velvet-draped reconciliation rooms where burdens are emptied; they are in diners and laundromats, in bus stations and on train platforms, in crisis centers and nail salons.
Look carefully. You might even find them in your own living room.
Vincentians looking for the footprints of Jesus
- Have I been looking for the footprints of Jesus today?
- Do I recognize them when I see them?
- Do I accept that I am the footprint of Jesus today?
PS For a complimentary take on Footprints visit the Wiki article on the poem “Footprints in the Sand
While I am thankful for John having called my attention to the artist’s inclusion of Jesus’ footprints and the value of reflecting on Jesus walking, I barely got beyond the inclusion of so many, many disciples in this painting. I haven’t made a study of paintings of the Ascension but, I most frequently picture a kind of re-do of da Vinci’s Last Supper: same cast of characters, the apostles (minus Judas, plus Mary); and change the scene from the upper room to a mountaintop and you’ve got it!
I love the ecclesiology embedded in Tissot’s painting which has Jesus’ final message delivered not to a select few but to a huge crowd. . .who went out and told the story, shared their faith. . .down to the current day. It wasn’t just the reorganized 12 who made that happen.
Jesus’ footprints are big, way too big for my small feet! Yet I still have to step into those footprints. They are there, though, so that I may step in. “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
I think Jesus’s footprint can be like those we may leave on a sandy beach. The sad part is they are erased by the next big wave unless we leave the footprint farther inland, where it mat last longer. I believe this Covid pandemic has left us with a footprint on how important it is to return to our families and friends, how we cannot place a dollar sign on this missing part of our lives. Is there something to be learned from Covid on how we should be living our lives? Is there an example of how a global connectedness can and should look? Let’s hope that anything Jesus is trying to leave with us during this pandemic is not simply erased when the waves get higher.
Jim, Your post got me thinking of disciples on the road to Emmaus. Confused fearful, wondering what God was trying to say. Thank you for triggering this.