Matthew 9:35-38 (ESV)
I love these verses. But it’s easy to gloss over them if you’ve heard them so many times.
If only we had been born 2000 years earlier, we may have seen this first-hand. Geologically speaking, if you consider how old the universe is, we really only missed it by a moment.
God walked among us. Emmanuel. He went throughout the cities and villages. San Diego, California to Portland, Maine and all the tiny towns between. Those fly-over places that you stop in only to get somewhere else. Those places were His destination, too.
Each town, each city, connected by a road that connects everyone to somewhere else. You and I, we are so connected. There is a path that will lead me from my driveway directly to yours. Therefore I am my sister’s keeper and she is mine. Accountable to take care of each other until the day we must give an account of how well we took care of each other.
He went to those places looking, searching up and down. Finding the broken, lost, lonely, sick, dead. His sandals walked the dusty dry ground and up the steps to the synagogues and His voice filled the air. “The Kingdom of God is here. Repent and believe.”
The Gardener walked through the flaming swords and out of Eden. The King stepped down from His throne.
Child, come home.
He gathered us, His beloved. His bride. He attended the weddings and the funerals and dinner with our ancestors. He accepted every invitation. His mission is to accept invitations. To be with His people, to show them this new way of living. I have come to give you a new life through Me. Choose me.
The reward for choosing Me is Me.
It wasn’t about church attendance or how good you were, or how guilty you felt for not being good. It was about Him and His love: I have a love for you if you’ll experience it.
His healing was practical and miraculous.
“Courage, daughter. Your faith has healed you.” to our shunned sister who was out of options.
“Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” You, my child, are not too far gone.
The distance home is never as long as the road we travel that takes us away.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-30
Amen, my friend.
Here’s why this matters:
He’s a Leader worth following, worth betting our life and death on. He’s the only One who searches the synagogues and towns, the formally religious places and the formally secular places, because He wants us all. Those who are in the pews and those who aren’t. All of us are His, all are precious. All are created in the imago Dei.
I love you, friend. I love you because Jesus loves you. He knit both of us together, calls both of us worthy, calls both of us Mine. We are so kindred.