Daily Prayer: a resource of Forward Movement

The Forward Day by Day Meditation for July 15, 2015

We post a Forward Day by Day Meditation for every day of the year - and we invite you to consider them and talk about them here. If you'd like to comment, you can log in to Disqus with your Facebook, Twitter, or Google account; just click "Login," or the appropriate logo below. Or, you can sign up for a Disqus account; just use the entry form below, or click the "D" logo to start the process. You can find the past week's Meditations in the box at right (or below, for mobile users), or search for previous entries on the Archives page.

Please note: you won't be able to use the Comment feature unless you enable Javascript in your browser. In general, your overall experience on the Daily Prayer site will be greatly enhanced if you enable Javascript.

WEDNESDAY, July 15

Mark 2:16 Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?

One of the things I am most sure about in this life is that Jesus loves sinners. He loves us in the midst of our brokenness and determination to be difficult on general principle. And he doesn’t just love the hope of the resurrected version of us. He loves us in the very present moment of our sin, in our reluctance to be vulnerable to our Creator.

We don’t get to hide disarray from Jesus. Jesus sees our sin, our hurt, our shame, and refuses to compare, quantify, or qualify it. There is no ranking order of sin. Jesus simply knows it is there, wants to take it away, repair the breach, raise what was dead to new life. He sits with each of us—taxers of emotion and prostitutes of productivity, murderers of hope and addicts of power. Instead of being ashamed of us, Jesus calls us his friends and keeps coming to find us, no matter where we are or what names people call us.

Jesus loves us. And this passage of Mark challenges me to think that Jesus might love the biggest messes among us the very most. Jesus realizes that lifting us up, helping us hold his love in our lives, is a labor of such magnitude that he would die and rise again to help us learn it.

PRAY for the Diocese of Phulbani (North India)

Ps 38 * 119:25-48; 1 Samuel 20:1-23; Acts 12:18-25; Mark 2:13-22