Yet, in the gloom a light glimmers and glows. We have received an invitation. We are invited to make a pilgrimage - into the heart and life of God. The invitation has long been on public record. You can hardly look anywhere across the human scene and not encounter it... "Whosoever will may come".
It is here that the book begins to accomplish its purpose. The reason for its creation begins to unfold.
The major problem with the invitation now is precisely overfamiliarity. Familiarity breeds unfamiliarity - unsuspected unfamiliarity, and then contempt. People think they have heard the invitation. They think they have accepted it - or rejected it. But they have not. The difficulty today is to hear it at all. Written everywhere, we may think, how could the invitation be subtle, or deep? But that is part of the Divine Conspiracy.
And so we have our first glimpse into what exactly this Conspiracy Divine entails. I am, quite frankly, excited. It appears a part of the Divine Conspiracy is that of an invitation, hidden in broad daylight. A request, easily overlooked, yet sitting right in front of us. We've become familiar with it to the point that we've forgotten what it is and what it evokes. This invitation is said to bring us directly into the "life and heart of God Himself". Mightn't we be looking for it a bit more eagerly?
Those who have have found Jesus. Not your everyday, preacher-and-a-teacher Jesus. Not your 8 pound 6 ounce newborn baby infant Jesus. The Jesus I speak of is knowable. He is real. He is present. And he offers himself as the access point for exactly that which I have been seeking.
Jesus offers himself as God's doorway into the life that is truly life. Confidence in him leads us today to become his apprentices in eternal living. "Those who come to me will be safe," he said. "They will go in and out and find all they need. I have come into their world that they may have life, and life to the limit."
What would it be like to live a life to the limit? Can we even understand what that implies? Our lives our normal, ordinary, everyday things. Even the rich and the famous are constantly seeking out new entertainment highs to bring something extra to their lives of the mundane.
Is life to the limit jumping off of buildings and riding on top of speeding trains and flying in front of bullets and saving damsels in distress? That's a great life for your friendly, neighborhood Spider-man, but I don't think it's the objective "limit" to what a human can live.
Actually, I don't think there is an objective limit at all. I think living life to the limit means living your life, with everything that it includes, and living it to the point of fulfillment every second of every minute of every hour of every day. But even that is not a perfect definition.
My point is this: if we can recognize that our lives are not lived to the limit (and who can honestly say theirs are?), then we can admit the potential for something far greater, something we are all missing out on. Well, perhaps not all of us.
How is it that multitudes today credit Jesus with their life and well-being? I think we have to say that Jesus' enduring relevance is based on his historically proven ability to speak to, to heal and empower the individual human condition. He matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weakness he gives us strength and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity.
The quality of the eternal. Those words strike me in a way "eternal life" never has. I imagine a life that has the quality of the eternity is one that I could picture myself living forever. How many of you, given the choice, would pick the life you currently have and ask to be able to live it, exactly as it is, forever? If you answered yes, I think you're lying, because I think everyone has things they want to change, moments in their lives that they just dread getting through. I'm not saying there aren't high points, but are those enough that we would want this life forever? Or do we hunger for something more?
He comes where we are, and he brings us the life we hunger for. God's life to women and men where they are and as they are, is the secret of the enduring relevance of Jesus. Suddenly they are flying right-side up, in a world that makes sense.
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