 Yes,
they came to Him in their pain; crawling through the dirt, lying on a
mat, begging in the street; torn, rejected, used, afraid—they came, and
He healed them.
Can
you imagine? He stops, turns from the crowd, and looks right
into your eyes—the Son of the Living God. It's as if your heart
and your history lie bare before Him. The speech you'd prepared
and rehearsed suddenly gets swallowed beneath the tidal wave of
acceptance that spills from His gaze, and your lips mumble words so
simple, so unsophisticated, so gloriously childlike: "Lord, if
You are willing, You can make me clean." Your face drops in
shame at the sound of them; tears leak from your eyes. What
could I possibly have been thinking? He's the Son of God—what
could I possibly mean to Him? And
immediately crushing that lie of lies, a voice—tender and
quivering in tears of its own, in heartbreak over your heartbreak—unequivocally responds with the impossible, "I am
willing. Be clean." It's
His voice! Oh, yes! And it's His body that
moves toward you and drops into the dirt beside you; His hand that
reaches out and actually touches you; His love that explodes through
your spirit, soul, and body, squalling up like a mighty wind and
blasting away every tatter and tear, every compromise and confusion,
every rejection and rebellion from yesterday and today to beyond the
beyond.
Yes, it is His love that makes Him stop everything He's
doing; His love that makes Him turn all of His attention on
you.
 It
is the mystery of mysteries, the reality of realities. It is
the one constant, the solution to it all, clawing for air beneath
the mudslide of human foolishness and self-seeking. It is the
most precious, most maligned, most longed for, most fundamental,
most pushed away, most sought after, most mistrusted, most cherished
mystery/reality in all of human history:
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Text and photos taken
from
Jesus...Yesterday, Today, Forever, by Bruce
Marchiano (p. 58-61). In Jesus...YTF, you'll taste what only a
handful of people tasted 2,000 years ago as Jesus walked among His
most treasured, beloved creation: people. Filled with
breathtaking color photos from The Visual Bible™'s "Matthew."
Jesus...Yesterday,
Today, Forever. Copyright © 1999 by Bruce Marchiano.
Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402
and Visual Entertainment,
Dallas, Texas 75248. Used on www.LoveLavished.org
by permission.
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