By all means people get to Jesus.
Our God is an awesome God and desires to restore us and to make us whole. Each of us comes as women and men broken, blinded by our challenges and need to touch the healing hand of Jesus. Today the Word of God leads us to seek out the personal and direct encounter with Jesus Christ.
We are encouraged by the prophet Jeremiah, a prophet of the Babylonian Exile. When the people of Israel had again been removed from their land, who found themselves captive and oppressed, he gives them a message of hope. In the midst of there suffering and oppression the prophet speaks these powerful words.
“Shout with joy for Jacob,
exult at the head of the nations;
proclaim your praise and say:
The LORD has delivered his people,
the remnant of Israel.”
To see beyond their oppression and see the great and awesome power of God. That although seemingly at the lowest place in their lives, a message of hope opens their eyes to see that what they are going through is not where God is taking them too, rather not only will he deliver them but he will return and restore them to the land the place of His promise.
In the Gospel we see a man blind who is ready to step into his healing and restoration. Having lived in darkness and blindness he heard of someone who could restore him and make him whole again. The commotion around him he saw as his opportunity to experience the great power of the one he heard so much about. He steps into his healing by throwing of the very symbol that identifies him as blind his cloak, he calls out, rather cries out to Jesus to have pity on him. As others attempted to quiet him, he shouted even the more. He stepped toward Jesus and is healed, restored and made whole. He stepped into his blessing by all means possible.
We learn that by any means possible come to Jesus, not to let the doubt or voices contrary to what God can do to alienate and keep us from His power, but to step into our blessing. You see we have to act like it’s so, although we might seemingly be lost and left to the demise of our situation, Christ is always there to heal us, to lift us up and restore us to our rightful place.
We live in a time where we see hatred, despair and division unlike we’ve known for many years. We despair as we listen to the news and read the papers and wonder what will happen to us next. I believe as true people of faith we must bring our society, our nation and world to the power to restore that comes from Jesus. We must start with our lives as individuals, families, parish and neighborhood and step toward Jesus.
On Monday we have a chance to stand up and step into our blessing as we come together in prayer at the F.A.S.T assembly. Through our gathered faith, prayer and commitment together we recognize that God desires to restore us as a city and community to a place of great blessing. We stand for our youth, our mentally ill, those suffering from addiction and are in need of healing for their lives. Let’s bring our very lives to Jesus so that he can make us whole and restore us for His glory.