I Give My Heart To

I Give My Heart To 

“On the evening of the first day of the week Jesus stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he showed the disciples his hands and his feet.”  He then told them that he was sending them out as the Father had sent him, and here is the important part, “He breathed on them and said, ‘receive the Holy Spirit.’”  Not a bad gift to receive from Jesus on the day of His Resurrection. 

“A week later he appeared to them again, and Thomas, who had not been with them the first time, was there with them. If you remember the story, you remember that Thomas had boasted that he would not believe until he put his fingers in the nail holes and his hand in the hole in Jesus’ side.  When Thomas saw Jesus, his response was simply, “my Lord and my God.”  Jesus’ response was important not only to Thomas and the other disciples but to us as well. “You believe because you have seen, but more blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” 

As God sent Jesus to bear witness to God and to lead us back into right relationship with God and Each other, Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit to empower us to lead others back into these two right relationships, to by co-workers with Jesus in building the kingdom of God on Earth as it is in heaven.  This is truly our calling to be the Body of Christ in the World.  To do the business Jesus did in the world.  And what is that business?  Do you remember what the 12 year old Jesus told his parents when they finally found him in the temple?  That’s right, “Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?  And what is that business?  The prophet Micah tells us that that business is “to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.” 

This business involves speaking “truth to power,” as Jesus did, because the truth is the “Good News,” the Gospel which Jesus came into the world to teach, but more importantly, what He came into the world to do and to show us how to do.  Our business as the body of Christ is to move ourselves and others from lies to truth, from greed to generosity.  Living into this truth can be difficult or dangerous as we see in the life of Jesus, but it can point the way to many wild and exciting possibilities.  

It may mean standing up to our government, to our churches and other religious institutions and to our friends who do not understand us or why we are doing what we do.  The truth to which we are led by the Holy Spirit will allow us, or perhaps force us, to let Jesus out of the box we sometimes put him in.  This truth will prevent us from creating God in our own image so that God hates the same people we hate and likes the same people we like.  This truth will take us back again and again to Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown Synagogue. 

            The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to

the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the

blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’(Lk 4:18-19) 

The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, but it also appears that this truth involves right living and right acting as well as, or more so, than right thinking and right believing.  Truth involves the true meaning of the Latin word for belief; Credo, I GIVE MY HEART TO.