Monday, February 25, 2008

Today's text

John 9:1-3

As he went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should have been born blind?' 'Neither he nor his parents sinned,' Jesus answered, 'he was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him.

Prayer

So that the works of God might be revealed: For what are we born if not this?

You liberate my heart, Jesus. Your words send me soaring. Great riddles are rendered insignificant. The enigma of suffering is transcended, no long tripping the mind or freezing the heart.

You ignore, too, the distinctions to which self-justifying ego cleaves; skill, intelligence, accomplishment, gender, race, status--they make no difference to you.

Nor, it seems, do the outward circumstances of our lives. Am I sick or well, strong or weak, comfortable or poor? Is my work hard or does it flow like water? Do my senses fail me, or are they sharp as when I was 21? Do I enjoy others favor or am I the object of disdain?

You make no distinction. Regardless of circumstances, I was born for this: that your works, Loving One, might be revealed in me.

Do you cause our weakness, our blindness, our sickness, our disrespect, our struggles, our failures of body and soul?

You do not answer, Jesus. You know: Our questions are mere side shows of human wondering. They distract from the center: I am here to do your works, to glorify your name, to lift high the love that lifts me.

Free us from unanswerable enigmas that our hearts may soar free and our lives may be filled with the works for which you made us.

Pr. David L. Miller