PODCAST
Where’s Waldo?
March 10th, 2011
Matthew 4:12-25
We like to think that when God comes into the world, he comes for fine church-attending, tithe-paying, do-gooding religious folk like us. But the list of listeners in Jesus’ typical crowd went more like this: those afflicted with disease and pain, epileptics, and paralytics. Sounds like Jesus would have been much more at home in the local rehab center than in the local sanctuary.
This Jesus has always been more interested in what lies beyond the walls of our churches than within them. Granted, we cannot know this Jesus apart from the teaching and formation of the church, but to think that figuring Christianity out in the safe confines of the local church is the goal is to miss the point of Jesus. Jesus lived in proximity to human need.
Jesus is hard to spot in the world because he is surrounded by so many people with so many issues and so much need. He is there, however. And if we are his followers, we will be too.
