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Tag Archives: Jesus
Glimpse of the Philosopher King
There is a story Luke tells about Joseph and Mary assuming somehow that Jesus was in their large family group as they returned from Jerusalem the year he was 12. It is the last chronological reference to Joseph. It raises legitimate questions about either their parenting or the point at which a boy was considered an independent in their culture. Both probably.
But more than that it was a handful of days where the Messiah was the Messiah in full public views. He said and did and was who he always was and always would be. Luke writes that the people he interacted with acknowledged his mastery of the subject at hand.
Why is this story here? Why aren’t there a million others? I want to know what Jesus ate for breakfast every day, not to mention what he said those days, years before his public ministry.
And I want to know more about his interlocutors. What did they gather from their
Brief encounter with the Philosopher King?
Jerichos
Long before her son’s whirling and untimely demise, my paternal grandmother believed in her traction with elected officials. I remembered this belief upon my first campaign, which was, parenthetically, about the loss of a single child and an unjust judge.
Who save me
would draw a line between Mamaw and the rise and fall of Hasmonean kings?
Amidst all this talk of unjust judges and rising kings
I tell myself there must be
sycamores in Jerichos still
Awaiting His return
Rapture
Waited in the animal clinic
(It was touch and go those days)
looked up at the plastic picture fitted
over the flat fluorescent light
A joyful tangle
of cats, dogs, suitcases, lamps, unicycles
Bowler hats and other ephemera
as though a world populated entirely by domestic animals had
Lost its purchase on gravity
Things rise in a riotous jumble
Rapture, I think
One day we will
Rise and float
Balloons in blue sky
When the cool kids leave town
I told myself I would
Swim the coldest days
Knowing the river runs
Warmer than the air making it
Rise in Holy Ghost waves
I turn to watch the tide
Tell me you remember
Every day you stayed with me
When all the cool kids
Left town
Tethered
In the end, I picture you
Crossing paths unexpectedly with someone much like me only nicer
Between trains in a crowded station
She is going one way, you the other
And she knows there is only one minute left
Amidst the noise, the crowd, the excruciating sound of braking
To say something
To change the course of your endless
Destination
There is no end of the line?
Who will meet you at the station?
Jesus, the ticket pressed into your hand
The only way home
Lazarus
He walks into every room looking for someone who might comprehend
what it is
he has seen and heard
He weighs their solemn waiting-room-faces
Do they have
Better memories now? Do they still need to write things down or
Know every word by heart?
Are all the lambs among them and
can we see their scars?
Who can end this waiting
By calling us out
Out into life
My Covid Story
Around Thanksgiving I got Covid. I work in a doctor’s office, so eventually all of our staff got the disease as did our immediate family.
Symptoms and severity sorted out by age. The youngest two had the mildest symptoms, the oldest–me, ended up in the ER for a day, facing a diagnosis of damage to my heart and lungs.
First, let me say, that I am mending. I am the recipient of miracles and healing.
But the 24 hours leading up to the ER visit were really scary. The day in the ER was a gift. The oxygen machine they sent me home with was a gift.
And my current pulse, O2 stats, and general health–belong to the grace of my Ransomer.
Jesus gave me miracles, as He has done my whole life.
Covid is a really scary disease. It leaves some scars. It leaves fear and memory of the pain and uncertainty.
But Jesus is bigger than mountains. Jesus is bigger than tiny killer viral agents.
And Jesus never walks away from us.
I know I have been saved and given the gift of my life back.
I will do what I can to praise the One who saved me.
And I will use these beautiful lungs to pray for all of us.
That we feel him there with us,
No matter what.
The Namesake Dilemma
I have been waging a Sisyphean campaign to draw scrutiny to a large business deal.
One of the companies involved has clearly secular goals which are in frank opposition to the stated identity of the other.
The other bears the name of a good friend of mine. My best friend–
It troubles me that in recent years this second company seems to be more concerned with monetary transactions than honoring the name applied to its legal entity.
It is a good reminder for me–if I want to mark my life, my identity, my business, my things, with the name of my Beloved, well
I better make sure
They all really belong to Him
And we both know
He is my best friend, my boss, my king
Savior, Redeemer, Lord
God’s strong right arm.
Revelation 12:17 NIV
[17] Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.
Lazarus was at the table
John 12:2-3 NIV
[2] Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. [3] Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
What do you or I know about spikenard? It is named for a place or places, it grows in the Himalayas, it came from afar, a pint would have been a fortune, an amount of almost incomprehensible treasure.
I say almost because Mary knew what she was doing.
The incomprehensible treasure was the Man at the table.
This scene so similar to the earlier one–
Martha served
And Lazarus was at the table
Only we know now, what Mary knew then–
He is the perfume that fills the house
Dead raised to life, his life for mine,
Nothing will ever
Be the same
Carrying Light 