Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-24 (day three)

“He is the image of the invisible God.”

It’s not uncommon to hear in evangelical circles that the way to know God is through Jesus Christ. Often a person will mean by that statement that Christ is the way one gets to God, as in, begins a life of friendship with God. This passage of scripture also has another dimension to it. It is this: when you wonder what God’s character is like, what he thinks about, how he lives, whether he notices you, or wants you near him, or considers your longings important, or pays attention to the things that break your heart, look at Jesus Christ. You can’t just take God in and discern his person. That’s all too much, too big, too high for you. But you can take in Jesus. You can behold him, the man. That’s God.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 12:1-2  (day three)

“Do not be conformed to this world…”

Only so many possibilities can be imagined within this age. Everything else gets assigned to the category of the impossible. But Jesus began to reveal that there exists more to reality than people had heretofore seen. The physical environment, the human body, relations between people – each of these domains can function only in the ways that are possible, and what’s possible had been, until Jesus, dictated by the conventional understanding of the world passed down by human civilizations. The classical philosophers had attempted to expand that understanding, and, through the prophets, God prepared Israel for what was to come. Finally, God’s Son provided the transformative power for people to see what heaven sees. Jesus said, “With God, all things are possible.” Following his Lord’s lead, Paul urges us to open our eyes to what’s really real.

Re:Verse passage – Proverbs 31:8  (day three)

“Open your mouth for the mute,
For the rights of all the unfortunate.”

To speak on behalf of those who have no standing, no access to power, is an endeavor fraught with nuanced hazard. To use your standing in such a way is to act as a representative – one who amplifies the will of the overlooked or ignored. The danger is that you will come to view such a role as a means to make a statement or prove a point or perform penance or demonstrate your worth. When such is the case, the one who can become forgotten amid all those motives is the one on whose behalf you’re supposedly working. It’s easy to cross that line. Jesus, in his dealings with people, showed us how to keep the “mute and unfortunate” front and center: keep drawing near to their experience.

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 139:13-16 pt. 2 (day three)

“I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Would you want you as a friend? Would you want you as a romantic partner? Are you thankful for you? You want to be, perhaps, or maybe you even want to want to be. It’s possible you believe you should think of yourself in a grateful or appreciative way, but that’s not the question. The question is, do you? You might find it easier to criticize yourself for your actions – even to equate yourself with your actions – than to regard yourself with empathy. The writer doesn’t evade the issue by saying, “God loves me in spite of who I am.” Rather the statement is, “I’m glad for the me you’ve made.” To express this kind of full-throated thankfulness is to be relieved that God is so good.

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 139:13-16 (day three)

“For you formed my inward parts…”

Your body is quite hardy. It endures injury, stress, mistreatment, sleeplessness, infection. It’s designed to tolerate adverse conditions with resilience. Yes, eventually, these afflictions might lead to death, so your body is not invulnerable. Wouldn’t imperviousness to harm have made more sense, though? Well, consider a possible consequence arising from your body’s inability to experience pain, never knowing wounds or exhaustion or sickness. Would you then give care and tenderness to your body or the bodies of others? Would you learn to regard your “human being-ness” or anyone else’s as sacred? One day, the bodies of all who count on Christ will be raised. In that day, they will be, finally, immortal. Each person raised will have learned to care for and love all bodies profoundly. That’s when a person will be ready for immortality.

Re:Verse passage – John 9: 1-3 (day three)

“Rabbi, who sinned…?”

Whose fault is it? Who’s to blame? Who did it wrong? These questions say more about the one asking than the one asked about. A marginalized person – one who does not fit with the norms of the group, one whose voice is ignored, who possesses no power, no sway, and is relegated to “the least of these” – such a person poses a question that is hard to ignore. The question is this: “How will you love this person?” If you can identify some kind of moral or character-based deficiency in that person, it’s easier to turn down the volume of that question. And then, you have a justification for avoiding it altogether.

Re:Verse passage – Revelation 5:9-10 (day three)

“They will reign upon the earth.”

What kind of God creates people and then fits them to have say over his creation forever, exercising authority over the vastness of the riches of the universe? What kind of God does that? The God who is does that. That is the destiny for which God made each human person. Each person has a future that is full of more glory than one can imagine. And this destiny only magnifies the unfathomable catastrophe that occurs when one has lost one’s way, following a path that leads away – infinitely – from all that is good and beautiful. To help all people understand and grasp this future is the kind of work that takes seriously the catastrophe of such loss.

Re:Verse passage – 1 John 4:19–21 (day three)

“We love, because he first loved us.”

What is the origin of love? Aquinas’s famous definition of love – “to will the good of the other” – is not the origin of love, but an attempt to put into human language its glorious essence. How did it start, though? One might say that God invented love, or that love began when God began to love. But the Bible teaches us something more fundamental. God did not invent love. God did not begin to love. Otherwise, God would have existed without love until he devised it, or until he commenced loving. If God is love, as John says, that cannot be. God is not God unless he loves. For God to live is for God to love. Human beings found out about love from the one who has always loved.

Re:Verse passage – Jeremiah 29:10–14 (day three)

“When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you, to bring you back to this place.”

When every conceivable calamity has crashed down all around, when waking up doesn’t end the nightmare, when nothing remains of all you called valuable, when people you have loved the most have become the source of your deepest heartache, when you have asked yourself how you got to this place of misery – hope itself seems like an exercise for fools only. Has God too lost track of you? It feels like it, and no word to the contrary from well-meaning folks will change what you feel all the way to your marrow. You need others to sit with you until your dying day if need be and quietly hope when you cannot do so for yourself.

Re:Verse passage – John 10:10 (day three)

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Thievery occurs when there is shortage, and shortage occurs when people are attempting to gain power over one another, and power grabs occur when people are insecure about their existence. There is no thievery in a way of life in which people are counting on God, because there is no insecurity. Jesus lived with complete confidence in God, and he teaches you his way of life so that you can do the same. A life in the way of Jesus is a life in which there is no shortage because there is complete security. That reality gets muddled by so much heartbreak – cruelty, abuse, trauma, etc. – and those feeling the weight of that distress need tenderness from the church.