“When Jesus went to teach the disciples to love, he washed feet. The Apostle John records his actions with seven verbs, but the first two are the hardest: he 'rose from supper' and 'laid aside' his outer garment. What we often feel in our internal resistance to rising and laying aside is our self-will – our desire to seek our own way.” – Paul Miller, in Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller Podcast, “Footwashing and the Mechanics of Love” (releases 5/20/2026)
For a few years when my daughters were younger, I biked them to school on a long tail cargo bike. It was such fun! We took a path along the Schuylkill River into Center City Philadelphia. With no electric motor to boost my input, I took care to build up momentum on the one big descent along the route, which helped carry us up the corresponding ascent.
Except for one day when a meandering pedestrian crossed right in front of us just as we began the uphill climb. I had to bring the bike to a full stop to let him pass – losing every drop of momentum we’d built up. Cold starting with all 3 of us was not an option, so I grumpily walked us up the hill before resuming our ride.
The call to love sometimes leads to a total loss of momentum.
That experience gave me a visceral feel for the cost of lost momentum. So when we recorded our podcast on Jesus’ footwashing for the new Wonder series, I recognized that the challenge of the first two verbs Paul mentioned, “rising” and “laying aside,” are related to momentum. The call to love sometimes leads to a total loss of momentum, like in my bike story. Loving my neighbor meant stopping! Sometimes the problem is that there’s no momentum at all – for example, if we’re sitting on the couch and relaxing, but the dog suddenly needs to be taken out. We know in our bodies the “ugh!” of these moments.
In the new Wonder series, we pay attention to how Jesus lives as a human, and how we are to live like him. Some of what we watch in him is what I would call the simple “physics” of love – what following Jesus tells us to do with our energy, momentum, and movement. We notice how the physics of love run counter to the physics of the flesh (where, for example, an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion) – and, as Paul observed, how we often feel that in our internal resistance.
We notice how the physics of love run counter to the physics of the flesh.
I invite you to learn and wonder with us! The series launched on April 8, and we’ll release a new episode every two weeks. And next time someone crosses in front of you on the bike path, or the dog beckons when you are reclining – remember how Jesus rose from the table and laid aside his outer garment, and practice the physics of love as you go and do likewise.
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