Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Today's text

Matthew 3:16-17

And when Jesus had been baptized he at once came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And suddenly there was a voice from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on him.”

Prayer

How do you stand, my Brother? Do you look to the heavens as you receive the pronouncement of divine favor? Or are your eyes down on the water, your head drenched, your shoulders sloping beneath the weight of the words and what they will bring?

Or perhaps you look ahead and smile, enjoying the grace of total union with the Loving Mystery who calls you the Beloved. I don’t know, but I imagine that you smiled at the words. Certainly, there is joy in them.

The voice speaks a mystery beyond us. You are not just any beloved, but the one, the exception to the fracturing that divides all other human hearts. In you the Holy One dwells undiluted, as you sing in perfect rhythm and time with the music of eternity.

Surely, you smile to know such union with the love that made the stars and greens earth. Surely, you must have warmed at the thought of drawing human hearts to the living flame of love that lights you from within. Surely, you imagined the faces of those, like me, who would crowd near you to feel the warmth of abiding with the One who fills you.

So I crowd near and hope many others will, too, that your living flame may melt the brittle ice of our hardness and make us all human, like you.

Warm our community with the living flame of your love.

Pr. David L. Miller