Engaged with the world

In The Witness magazine Sarah Dylan Breuer writes,

Jesus isn't some kind of heavenly Rapunzel, letting down those flowing straight blond locks the cheesy European and American paintings give him so we can climb up to join him in his elevated but isolated tower. Jesus is engaged with the world. He is the Word who was with God in the very beginning, and whose love was present in the world's birth. He is the peasant child who knew and loved the earth he walked and all those who walk with him. He is the naked, vulnerable and tortured man nailed to immovable wood and still moved with compassion for his torturers. He has died, and he is risen, and yet he comes again, to touch doubters and healers, soldiers and peasants, persecutors and apostles -- who are sometimes the same people, after all … especially after Jesus' touch.

Jesus comes to the women at his tomb and his followers huddled in fear. He comes to those who confess him and those who grieve him, miss him, or doubt him. He comes to those who love him and those who hate him. Jesus comes and he comes and he comes to this world because he is not done with this world, no matter how many times people of this world say they are done with him, or with the way of peace and compassion he walked and walks. Jesus is not done with any of us, and never will be, until we know in our heart of hearts, experience in the deepest part of ourselves, and are bursting alongside the whole of creation to share the wealth of love and generosity for which we and the world was made.

We may grow weary, but Jesus will not grow weary of us. We may close our eyes and forget to dream, but Jesus is alive, and still dreams with and for as well as through and among us. God is redeeming the world God made and loves, and we may as well accommodate ourselves to the love that is the most basic force of the universe. The Christ has died, the Christ has risen, and the Christ WILL come again.

The whole article is online here.

Note:
Our once a month healing service will be this evening at 6 p.m.