Towards the end of our regular services at All Saints I give a blessing. One of the lines is: “May you see the face of Jesus in everyone you meet; and may everyone see the face of Jesus in you.” Who do you believe Jesus to be? Who is this guy who we meet in the Bible? The Jesus we meet in the pages of the Bible may seem foreign to us, someone who is from another world, living in a different time. We may wonder if the Jesus we meet is the same Jesus who we yearn for, search for, and may have even met in our lives today in the year 2020.
The disconnect on the surface between the Jesus in the pages of scripture, and the Jesus in the year 2020, speaks to our relationship with Jesus. As with any relationship, our relationship with Jesus changes and grows over time. There are moments when our relationship with Jesus may be strained and distant. At other times, Jesus is close, walking along side us in our lives.
For me, Jesus is the person whose face I see in the person standing in line ahead of me in the grocery store and the person who sleeps in the entrance to a store front. Jesus is the person who randomly, without asking, pays from not only my lunch, but my whole family’s lunch in a mall’s food court while on holiday in Edmonton. Whoever Jesus is for you, he will ultimately be that person who you need most the most, and without realizing, you too are the face of Jesus for someone else.
The Reverend Robin Ruder Celiz
All Saints Ladner
