As I read
from the Acts of the Apostles today, I encountered a story of healing and
resurrection [Acts 9:31-42]. The
characters were the paralyzed, bedridden Aeneas, the deceased Tabitha, and her
friends, the "saints and widows".
Only weeks removed from Christ’s own death and resurrection, I can’t
help but be pulled back to the crucifixion scene with the women, including
Christ’s widowed mother, standing at the foot of the cross. My mind naturally played on to the following
morning when again it was the women who were the first to come to the tomb.
I’ve been
thinking of late that we’ve come to departmentalize things. We call them issues. We have the gender issue, the race issue, the
capital punishment issue, the abortion and assisted death issues. Not to forget the international issues. The list is endless. In trying to cope with all these issues, I
think we may be reading into scripture what may not be there. When we encounter scripture in fragments, we
tend to lose focus of the big picture.
Christ’s message, His dream, and that of the apostles was the issue of
inclusion; one family, one community, love, compassion, and mercy—for one and
all.
For me this
makes the "issues" of the present day at once more of a mental
challenge, but at the same time somehow easier to hold in my heart. It’s extremely difficult to exclude anyone
when love and mercy is the ultimate goal.
"I walk before the Lord in the Land
of the living." (Psalm 116)
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