Jack Hardaway
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I saw a doe in the church parking lot last Sunday, at Sunrise, glowing silver in the early morning mist.
I’ve never seen one on the church campus before.
It stopped me for a moment.
It was standing straight.
It flicked an ear, then its tail and it slowly turned and ambled away, in no particular hurry.
It will stick with me a long time.
What are those glimpses of beauty that carry on in our memories? That keep echoing in our mind over the years?
Visions that still our hearts and point us beyond, where eternity slips into the moment?
What are they?
As the world falls apart around us the prophet Habakkuk reminds us of the vision of God alive in the world, and we are to trust God more deeply still, that the trustless are bloated and soulless, and they know nothing of what it means to be really alive.
We are told to write that vision of God, to write it big, so runners can read it as they run by, write it big enough that it can’t be missed.
The vision of God that carries the world in the midst of collapse.
The vision that sustains and makes us alive, really alive.
Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore to catch a glimpse of that vision. Jesus is that vison of God alive in the world, and to see Jesus is to suddenly find ourselves alive and free like never before.
God’s people carry that vision of God, we make God visible, and that vision brings life to a dying world.
Our Vision here at Grace is that, “We Proclaim and celebrate the Word and Sacrament that God in Christ embraces the world.”
The scriptures proclaim the embrace, the sacraments celebrate the embrace.
And we write that vison large so that all may see, so that all may be really and truly alive.
Proclaim, celebrate, and embrace that vision of Jesus as God’s yes to the world, God’s life-giving embrace of creation and humanity.
Write the Vision. Write it real big.
The early morning mist of sunrise on Easter morning, the empty tomb shining like silver.
The beauty echoes still. Proclaim, celebrate, embrace.