Tuesday, March 30, 2010

March 31 – Just Another Day





In Jerusalem, those two thousand years ago, along with the political unrest and the national enthusiasm over the greatest holiday in Israel’s year, there was a peculiar condition in the land. It was remarkable in one sense, and negligible in another.

The rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, had both made a name for himself and had become something of a fixture in the land. Everyone knew someone who had been healed by his ministry. The scribes and the Pharisees were continually chafing because of his words and the way he backed them up with . . . miracles. He traveled with a band of itinerant followers, and that was not so unusual either, but that there was always a cataclysmic DIFFERENCE wherever he went.

Prostitutes went home to their families forever after an encounter with him, tax collectors left their booths, local VIPs climbed trees to get a glimpse of him, and the tormented refuse of a population without asylums and treatment centers . . . did not need special care anymore.

What would happen if one such man walked in our world today? Everyone in the village would know about him. Soon, everyone in the state would know his name. The focus of a nation would be upon him. Every talk show, every media source, would be pulling out all the stops to get an interview. Was he commonplace in his day?

Jesus lived and walked among the Jews, and most were more glad to have him than not. They were easily swayed, however.

In Cor Unum, He dwells in our spirits. He walks . . . where we walk. More than that, we may walk where He would go. He gave us power. He said much about it. It isn’t a commonplace strength, and we may, by faith and obedience, do things that are not commonly done in the earth, by a power rooted in compassion and truth, a power not our own.

It’s just another day. Many are more glad to have Him than not, but they are easily swayed. We, in the monastery of the heart, will learn to hold Him, to cleave to Him in that uncommon faith and obedience, and we will learn never to let Him go until He blesses us, every day. (Genesis 32:26)


"Just Another Day"
photo by Kerry

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