On Bring A Channel For God
TEXT:
“While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately, the leprosy left him”. Luke 5:12-16
Additional Scripture Reading: Philippians 1: 20 -30
We must prepare to use every means to ensure that the Gospel remains ‘The Living Word.’ ‘The Word’ became flesh’ and dwelt among us’ must forever be the distinguishing quality of this glorious Gospel.
Therefore, we are to
-Approach it with a poet’s heart.
– Understand it with a philosopher’s Spirit.
-And imagine it with the unimpeded faith of a child.
The New Testament is not a linear expression of historical data. The entire Bible is a unique expression of the vicissitudes of human development in relationships with the Divine.
Here, there is a moan of pain.
There is a song burst of victory.
This page is wet with the tears of a suppliant!
Here, the hills are alive with the sounds of worshippers singing.
This meditation calls for your participation. Bring with you the gift of your imagination. And then, please God, as a result, you will become another channel through which the Living Word will again come into the world, now waiting in longing and hope.
“Hello, my name is Jesse!
Luke doesn’t tell you that. I only wish he had!
You see, a person’s name is the most important thing about him. It is the one thing that is especially his own!
The last tragedy to befall anyone is for them to lose their name!
Tragic it is to lose your health.
Tragic to lose your family and your friends.
But when a man isn’t worth remembering by name, that is the worst tragedy of all.
I lost my name the day that it became evident that I had contracted leprosy. See these hands? They did not always look like this! Once, they held our newborn baby. My skin was as clear as hers! And with my finger, I felt her first tooth!
My dim, old eyes were not always this way! Once, I looked upon the face of the most beautiful woman in this world. I watched the embers of the day glow; I watched the white dawn chase the grey from the morning sky! Then people heartily greeted me: Good morning, Jesse; may the Lord, Jehovah, go with you today, Jesse”.Then leprosy! And they all appeared to be searching for something lost in the cobblestones under their feet, and a deathly silence stole the sound of my name on their tongues. To this very day, I am introduced to you as “a man covered with leprosy”. But I want to cry out,” Look again! I am more than what you see with your physical eyes! Like us all, there is an inwardness to each of us that is far more important and potentially more complete than what our outward bodies reveal.
Please, don’t overlook that I have an inwardness which this leprosy, nor will anything else in all creation ever destroy. During the dark nights of despair, when sleep refused me respite, I felt an indomitable hope that everything would one day be better.
This inwardness is the home of that HOPE that one day I would meet someone who would see beyond my leprosy. So that I could show the world there is more than what we presently experience. There has to be someone out there who loves us, who cares about who We are and What we may yet become.
That day, I met a man called Jesus. And His Spirit met with my Spirit. I knew He saw farther than my physical impairments to deeper longings and aspirations. I tell you, at that moment, I recognized the footfall of God inside me. Without further thought, I uttered: “Lord, if you are willing, You can make me clean”. He responded with love and compassion. ” I am willing, be clean”.
For each of us, the consideration is not whether He is willing to free our shackled spirits but whether we are eager for that to occur.
A Prayer To Follow This Meditation
Merciful God,
You long for us, like the Father, whose son, yielding to the tempting promises of a far country, assigned his beloved father to an unending watch for his return to nobler things.
You have much greater expectations for each of us than those realities in the world that persuade us to be satisfied and at ease amid greed, corruption and division.
Father, Your Son taught us to pray, “May Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”. Give us the Grace and the Courage to say again, ” I will arise and come to my Father. Use me as a channel of Your Peace and the conveyor of Your Love and Mercy to all I meet. Then live with this assurance that Our Father’s response will be, ” You are my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased, welcome, thou, into my Kingdom! We pray in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Make Me The Channel Of Thy Peace.
Acknowledgements
The photo is of Porterville United Church Of Canada, on the Lewisport Pastoral Charge, Newfoundland. I am personally indebted to my friend Dennis Porter for this beautiful photo.