Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, December 26, 2019
by R. Fergus Moir, Clergy Stuff
You don’t own Jesus. No one can claim him as their exclusive possession. Jesus is for everyone. He was yet a very young child when an entourage of foreigners came to worship him. In his life he would reach out to Canaanites, Samaritans, and all manner of people deemed unworthy to belong to God. Everything he did proclaimed the truth that no one has to meet any sort of qualifications to receive God’s unconditional love and redemption.
Lots of folks these days try to make Christianity an exclusive club. They claim if you don’t act, think, or believe a particular way, you’re not really a Christian. It’s easy for me to look at this and judge. But I have to stop myself and be honest about my own “criteria” for what it means to really be a Christian. I need to stop looking at other Christians and judging them and start focusing on my own responsibility to act as Jesus did, reaching across boundaries and giving unconditional love to everyone, no matter what. Of course I can’t do this on my own. That’s why I need Jesus. But I don’t own him. He owns me.
Gracious God, keep my eyes firmly upon what I can do to love you and my neighbor, so that I am not tempted to judge. Amen.
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