Fully Human in Every Way

     Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death….For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

-Hebrews 2:14-15, 17-18 (NIV)

Jean Dolores Schmidt takes her calling very seriously.

     You might know her, if you know her, from watching this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. She’s Sister Jean there, the smiling little nun in the wheelchair on the Loyola University sidelines during their surprising run to the Final Four (at least). You might have heard that she’s the chaplain for the basketball team, and you may have heard one of her pre-game prayers/scouting reports. (“Lord, help our boys to not be afraid of Tennessee’s height, and help them to remember that there are more important things than height. And help them to remember that they’re vulnerable in the low post.”) It says something that casual fans probably could name her before Loyola’s head coach or best players.

     Sister Jean is certainly devoted to her calling as chaplain. She’s traveled with the team to every game during the tournament, age (98) and wheelchair (temporary, hopefully) notwithstanding. She prays with them, encourages them, and even does press conferences. Some fans have a little Sister Jean fatigue, and that’s understandable. But she’s been doing this for decades.

     And consider this: basketball chaplain is only one of her gigs. 

     She also has another chaplain role that she takes just as seriously. She doesn’t get to do press conferences or go to basketball games in this role, but it's just as important to her. She’s also chaplain for a freshman dorm on the Loyola campus. 

     She takes that role so seriously that she lives in the dorm.

     “He had to be made like them, fully human in every way,” the writer of Hebrews says of Jesus. “Since the children have flesh and blood,  he too shared in their humanity.” Jesus said that he came to serve, not to be served. He came to give himself, not to receive the gifts of others. He came to live with us, even to share in our suffering. He moved in down the hall. He got to know our problems, didn’t get frustrated when we played the music too loud, and welcomed us knocking on the door at all hours of the night. He ate with us, showed patience with our pettiness, comforted us in our grief, and taught us that the thing we most feared was nothing to fear at all.

     Death roams free and unopposed among human beings. He takes no prisoners, offers no mercy, gives no quarter. And, left to ourselves, we're terrified of death. We hold it at arm’s length any way we can. We chase any imposter who claims to have a way to beat it. We cram experience after experience into our lives to create the illusion that death can’t touch us — or we live with regret that we couldn’t. We buy stuff and chase wealth and pleasure and prestige in the mistaken idea that by doing so we can fill the hollowed-out place that the fear of death leaves in us. 

     And then when we can’t deny it — when it’s staring us in the face through the empty eyes of someone we love or breathing down our necks with every trip to the doctor, every candle on the cake, every new wrinkle or gray hair — when we can't deny it we collapse in paralysis, anger, and depression.

     Even those of us who say we aren’t scared of it are whistling past the graveyard, because we all can imagine a half-dozen deaths that do terrify us. 

     One of the reasons that our culture loves superhero movies, I think, is because they provide an antidote to our fear of death. Superman is invulnerable to almost every kind of harm (and even comes back to life on those rare occasions when he is killed). Iron Man has his armor. Batman his gadgets. Thor and Wonder Woman are immortal, practically. Even the ones who can die are so powerful that death is rarely a likely outcome. And, even when it happens, it's almost never permanent. 

     That's our answer to our fear of death: lose ourselves in a mythology in which our heroes defeat death time and again with power, intelligence, magic, or immortality.

     What believers celebrate this weekend, though, is that Jesus didn’t conquer death through any of those means. Though he might have wanted, like Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, to brush the cross off his shoulders like so much dust, he did the opposite. His death, the writer tells us, was to “break the power  of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” In becoming fully human, and in suffering and dying as we do, he showed us without a doubt that God’s love and grace are stronger than death. 

     Make no mistake: Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a bullet bouncing off the hero’s chest. It isn’t an immensely powerful superhuman making the claim that death can’t touch him. Because death can touch Jesus. That’s what it means for him to share in our humanity. In the cross, death takes from Jesus the same things that it takes from us. It exacts the same cost: it exposes his weakness, lays bare his fears, and leaves him feeling helpless and utterly alone, feeling forsaken even by God. That’s how he serves God as a high priest, as a chaplain, on our behalf. By giving himself to the terrifying prospect of death, and letting it have its way with him. 

     The empty tomb, though, is the rest of the story. It proclaims that a completely human Jesus, by learning to obey God through human suffering, pain, and even death, atones for human sin and breaks Satan’s power over us. It promises that God is greater even than this greatest of our fears. The empty tomb that we’ll celebrate Easter morning is meaningless without a Savior who takes on our weakness, suffering, and fears as his own. But his Friday afternoon death is terrifying without that Sunday morning light and the angels' declaration: “He is not here. He is risen.”

     When you affirm your faith in that this Sunday morning, also affirm that he understands your suffering too. He understands your pain, your fear, and why you feel sometimes like they’re the only things that matter. But just as he shares your suffering and death, you will also share his resurrection and life. Just as surely as Sister Jean will be at that game tomorrow.

     He is risen. He is risen indeed.     

The Collapse of Sure Things

     Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

     By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 

-Hebrew 11:1-3 (NIV)

It’s the surest bet in sports.

     What would you say if I told you about one basketball team who is 132-0 against another? Would you call it dominance? You’d be right. What would you say if I told you that those 132 games had been decided by an average of almost 25 points? That, despite three or four of those games being close, most of them weren’t even as close as 25 points makes them sound? You’d call it one of the most locked-in outcomes in the history of athletic competition. 

     Well, since 1985, when the NCAA men’s basketball tournament — March Madness — expanded to 64 teams, no top-seeded team ever lost to 16-seed. With the 64-team field divided into four regions, and each region having 16 teams, that makes 132 times that a 1-seed had beaten a 16-seed. Actually, that was through last season. The new number is 135 times.

     Don’t I mean 136 times? Well, I can see why you’d think that, but I don’t. The number is 135 because the surest bet in sports finally lost. In the first round of this year’s tournament, the 16-seeded University of Maryland, Baltimore County, stunned top-seeded Virginia in the South region. And it wasn’t even close: UMBC won by 20, 74-54.

     Estimates are that about 2% of the 30 million or so people who submitted a bracket online picked the game correctly. That’s not very many percents. If you didn’t, though, it’s really hard to blame you; 32 years of history would have said you were right. I know that, like most people who submitted brackets this year, I picked the ones over the sixteens without really thinking about it. I didn’t even look closely enough at it to remember who Virginia was playing. It didn’t matter: they’re a one, those other guys are a sixteen. It was a sure thing. A done deal.

     I wonder how many of the “done deals” and “sure things” upon which we build our lives and find our security and around which we tell the stories of who we are aren’t nearly so done or sure as we’d like to believe. 

     Careers? They can be lost in the space of one reorganization, one bad decision, one whim of one executive who wants to cut a few dollars. Health? Ask anyone with a negative prognosis how certain that is. Money? A series of bad investments, a few unexpected expenses, a downturn in the market, a lost job can change your bottom line quickly. 

    Even the strongest family won’t be with you forever. Political parties die (just ask the Whigs). Churches change. Religious leaders disappoint. Even your own mind and body will eventually fail. Father Time truly is undefeated, eroding “sure things” until they collapse and are scattered like dust in a cyclone.

     Yeah. You’re welcome.

     It’s unsettling to admit that the things we depend upon might not be as trustworthy as we imagine. I promise, though; it’s better if we acknowledge it now, before the collapse of our “sure things.” 

     We depend on them because they’re there. We can see them, hear them, use them. We can sort of take for granted that they’re part of our lives. They feel to us like insurance for a future that’s much like our present, or even better. To a degree, we can control them, or at least convince ourselves that we can. Finding our security in those “sure things” is what the Bible calls “living by sight.” And what the Bible says about living by sight is that those who are believers don’t. We, instead, live by faith.

     It isn’t for the faint-hearted, living by faith. There’s a whole chapter in the Bible, Hebrews 11, that talks about how difficult it can be. It names folks who found themselves in conflict with their neighbors because they lived by faith. It talks about wanderers who left established homes to obey God and go to a new place that he hadn’t shown them yet. There were people who trusted God enough to put their dreams in his hands when he asked them to, who spoke like God’s future promises were already accomplished fact, who accepted disgrace rather than power and wealth, and who weren’t afraid of powerful people who tried to silence them. “The world was not worthy of them,” is the conclusion of the writer.

     It’s difficult because, as that chapter begins by pointing out, faith is about what’s unseen, not what’s seen. To have faith is to trust that there’s more to the universe than what we can put our hands on, perceive with our senses, understand with our minds. It’s to look into the darkest chasm with the assurance that God is there. It’s to believe, in the words of Corrie ten Boom, that there’s no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. It’s to walk away from the things in our lives that give us the greatest security in the absolute conviction that “God…has prepared a city for [us].”

     Faith is looking past all the “sure things” that we convince ourselves will give us the peace and assurance we need and “[seeing] him who is invisible.”

     I know people who make that look easier than I can, but I don’t think it comes naturally for anyone. We all have “sure things” in our lives that we clutch tightly to us when times are hard. We all have moments when our faith fails, when our ability to see the invisible is obscured. That’s why we need people around us in whose footsteps we can walk: people whose stories we read in Scripture, but also people whose stories we live with them as they face the loss of even their surest things with trust, grace, courage — faith.

     And, of course, we aren’t left to live by faith on our own. We follow a Savior who chose to see what was invisible, to live his life — and ultimately give it — for a kingdom that the powerful people of his day would have laughed at. They’re gone, though. And he still lives. So “let us run  with perseverance  the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary  and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1-3)

     If you’re discouraged, know that Jesus has walked his path before you, He, too, had to let go of his sure things to embrace what God had for him. It won’t be any different for us.

     You can bet on it.

Meek

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

    for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

    for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

    for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,

    for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

    for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

    for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 

-Matthew 5:3-12 (NIV)

At a speech on the campus of Michigan State University this past week, a white supremacist contradicted Jesus.

     I don’t mean he contradicted Jesus’ teaching (though he did), or that his attitude toward others contradicted the love of Jesus (though it certainly did). I mean a statement that he made actually nullified Jesus’ literal words.

     I don't want to give Richard Spencer’s actual words enough space to give them any context. Suffice to say that the line in question was about creating a “movement” in the world. (Insert whatever jokes you wish…) You can read more about what he said here, if you’re so inclined. At any rate, the line I really paid attention to was this one:

“I have never gained anything in my life or my career by watering it down to be just a little bit more palatable. The meek shall never inherit the earth. ... People who are bold and strong will always dominate.”

     I don’t know how impressed Jesus would be that a white supremacist doesn't agree with him. Something tells me it wouldn’t keep him up nights.

     Here’s the thing, though: I’m guessing that a lot of people who wouldn’t want to be caught agreeing with a white supremacist would actually find it difficult to argue with him about that particular statement: “The meek shall never inherit the earth.”

     Look around you. In how many fields do you see the meek rising to the top? We don’t even know what to do with that word, meek. We don’t much even use it, and when we do it’s an insult. It’s reserved for the people who can’t or won’t fight for what they want. It’s for the people who are walked over by the ones headed for success. The bullied who never fight back — they’re the meek.  They’re the yielding, the compliant, the domesticated, the acquiescent. They don’t protest when their rights are infringed. They don’t speak out or stand up for themselves.

     The meek are the people at the office who don’t make a sound when someone takes credit for their work. 

     The meek are the people at school who no one much pays attention to.

     The meek are the people who don’t command attention when they walk into a room. 

     The meek are the people who work in the background while the more aggressive get all the glory.

     Who are the ones who succeed in our world? That's right: the ones who take what they want. The ones who are always driving, pushing, the ones who by sheer force of will and personality move others out of their way. Not the meek. And Richard Spencer is not the only one who thinks so.

     Famed Alabama football coach “Bear” Bryant — who got his nickname, apparently, from actually wrestling a bear, suggesting that meekness might not have been a defining characteristic for him — once said, “If the meek are going to inherit the earth, some of my offensive linemen are going to be land barons.” I don’t guess he was necessarily disagreeing with Jesus about the meek inheriting the earth. He just didn’t see how it was going to happen.

     So maybe it's difficult even for Jesus’ followers to believe him. The idea of the meek inheriting the earth cuts so against the grain of our culture that it’s hard for us to even fathom what he meant. You just don’t know many meek athletes, entertainers, politicians, or CEOs. The most popular kids at school were probably not meek. Neither are the professionals at the top of their fields, the cops that patrol your neighborhood, the firefighters that protect your home, the soldiers that fight for those at home. 

     The thing is, in Jesus’ day the meek didn’t inherit the earth either. If anything, his culture emphasized strength and power and ambition even more than does ours.  

     No, Jesus’ words to those who heard him then were as countercultural and revolutionary as they are to us today. His point through all of the “blesseds” in Matthew (often called the “Beatitudes” after the word for “blessed” in Latin) is that in the Kingdom of God it’s often those who the world would not call blessed that truly are. No one would imagine that the grieving, those in need of justice, the persecuted, the insulted were blessed at all. Yet Jesus says that God has blessings in store for those who can’t go and get them on their own — the “poor in spirit” who, through no fault of their own, seem perpetually shut out from what the world calls blessings. 

     Because God comforts those who mourn, he fills those who hunger and thirst for justice, he shows himself to the pure in heart and calls the peacemakers his children. His kingdom is for those who are willing to endure persecution as he did. And, yes, those who refuse to makes gods of strength and power and ambition will, in fact, inherit the earth.

     That’s not to say there’s never a time for us to speak up for ourselves, or (maybe especially) for those around us. But we follow the One who was led like a lamb to the slaughter and who did not open his mouth to protest. So we know that the way to live is not by stepping on others, but by serving. Not by controlling, but by loving. Not by taking all we can, but by giving all we have. 

     May we take Jesus’ words seriously. May we learn what it means to trust in his promise that the meek will inherit the earth.

     Trust me. You’ll find yourself in much better company.

Plagiarism

   No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 

-Luke 6:43-45 (NIV)

So it turns out that William Shakespeare plagiarized his works.

     Well, no. That’s not right. It isn’t that he plagiarized. But a writer and self-taught Shakespeare scholar in New Hampshire used plagiarism software to identify a previously unidentified source that Shakespeare apparently used in 11 of his plays. 

     Dennis McCarthy used the software to identify words and combinations of words Will used that also appear, often in the same order, in a work from the early 1500’s written by George North, a minor court official of Queen Elizabeth. North’s work, A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels, shaped the opening soliloquy of Richard III, (“Now is the winter of our discontent...”) “He keeps hitting word after word,” McCarthy says. “It’s like a lottery ticket. It’s easy to get one number out of six, but not to get every number.”

     McCarthy shows that the Bard not only uses the same words as North, but often uses them in scenes about similar themes, and even the same historical characters. In one passage, for instance, North uses six terms for dogs to argue that just as dogs exist in a natural hierarchy, so do humans. Shakespeare uses essentially the same list of dogs to make similar points in King Lear and Macbeth.

      In Henry VI Part 2, Shakespeare describes a rebel, Jack Cade, who he says he was starving and eating grass before he was finally caught and dragged through the street by his heels and his body left to be eaten by crows. All of those details are present in a passage from North in which he condemns Cade and two other famous rebels. Mr. McCarthy argues that Shakespeare used those details to make Cade into a composite of the three.

     Given a little thought, though, it isn’t at all surprising that Shakespeare used sources to help develop and flesh out themes and characters in his plays. No writer sits down to write without bringing influences and sources to the table. Sometimes it’s intentional. Most often, it’s unconscious: wording a writer hears or sees that comes out unbidden later, syntax picked up from another source that finds its way into an author’s work. It isn’t plagiarism, not really. Not when influences affect the heart and make themselves known naturally and freely.

     Something like this influence is what Jesus has in mind when he says “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” 

     If there was software to see the sources from which I “plagiarized” my words, I wonder what it would identify. I wonder what would be on my list? 

     Would there be vocabulary from the language of political debate and partisan loyalty? 

     Would my syntax be influenced by the tone of media and pop culture?

     Would you hear echoes of racism, classism, and ethnocentrism in the things I said?

     Would my words be full of obscenity, and innuendo? Would those around me hear the influence of people whose language insults, belittles, or objectifies? Would I speak like the bullies who control much of the world’s corporate and political wealth and power? 

     Or…

     Would my words be full of innocence and purity? Would those who heard me speak detect the influence of Scripture, the language of blessing, encouragement, and kindness? Would I speak with the humility of those who have changed the world through sacrifice and service?

     Would my words resound with acceptance, tolerance, and grace?

     Would the things I said be formed by the worship and prayers of the church?

     Would the vocabulary of love, unity, and peace be easily detected?  

     It’s a good reminder for us, isn’t it, that the things that come out of our hearts when we speak don’t just happen to be there? It’s good to remember that expecting the things we hear and read the most to not influence the way we think and the things we value and, thus, the way we speak is as ridiculous as expecting to get figs from thorn bushes or grapes from briers. It’s as silly as expecting a bad tree to produce good fruit.

     So maybe it’s helpful for all of us to do the plagiarism software exercise. What are your sources? What do the people around you hear when you open your mouth? I don’t mean what do they hear in those moments when you curate what you say: in work meetings or church services or formal social occasions where everyone is on their best behavior. I mean what are the sources they’re most likely to identify in those times when your filter isn’t engaged and what’s in your heart comes immediately and directly to your lips? Do they hear the media? Politicians? Do they hear echoes of social media? Or do they hear the words of Scripture? Prayer? Worship? Kindness? 

     Jesus?

     If you don’t like the answer you’re coming up with, then you know that there’s something you can do about it, right? Yep, that’s right: get different sources. If you don’t like what’s happened to your heart as you’ve fixated on what comes out of Washington, or Hollywood, or what’s pumped into you through your broadband connection, then make a change. Start seeking out different sources. Read the Bible more, and some of the authors who write about living as a person of faith. Worship more. Spend more time with the songs of faith that the church has composed over the years. Memorize Scripture — that’s become kind of a lost art, but there’s no better way to get it into your heart. Pray more. Spend more time with the church so you can be influenced by others who are living lives of faith.

     This is a long-haul fix, you understand. You might not change everything overnight. But if you’ll seek out the Lord in the sources that influence you, then I promise you that you will change. God’s Word is powerful, living, and at work. The Holy Spirit is active. And the Word made flesh will teach you as you take his words into your mind and heart.

     Go ahead and plagiarize from him. To your heart’s content.

     

Among Us

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made….  

     The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

-John 1:1-3, 14 (NIV) 

Guillaume Ouimet likes hockey, apparently. 

     You can tell because he gets up at dawn so he can have the outdoor rink in his neighborhood (which apparently they have in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec!) all to himself. On January 9th he was working out as usual when a car rolled up and a guy got out with a hockey stick, skates, and gloves. The new arrival asked him from across the ice if anyone else was coming, and Guillaume said no. So the guy sat down in a snowbank and started lacing up his skates. 

     You can tell Guillaume likes hockey because he recognized the guy almost immediately. As his impromptu workout partner skated out onto the ice, Guillaume went over and introduced himself to Sidney Crosby, NHL legend and captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

     Crosby was taking a short vacation with his girlfriend in the Mont-Tremblant area and happened upon the rink.

     Crosby and Guillaume played and practiced for over an hour. At some point, Crosby’s girlfriend showed up and said they had to go. Twice, Crosby replied, “Ten more minutes!” She took some photos of Guillaume and Crosby together and later sent them to him. Good thing, too, as up until they saw the snaps his friends hadn’t quite believed him.

     Well, can you blame them? It’s kind of hard to imagine, isn’t it, that a perennial NHL all-star would show up unannounced at a little rink in middle-of-nowhere, Quebec? Imagine LeBron James shooting baskets with you at your YMCA gym. Jordan Spieth hitting with you at the driving range. Tom Brady walking on to your high school field and telling you to run a post while Giselle screams from the car that they’re going to be late. You could see how someone might doubt a story that starts with, “A couple of weeks ago, Sidney Crosby and I played one-on-one at the rink down the street.”

     It’s hard to believe because, in our experience, one of the results of fame is a disconnect from the world of “regular people.” Sidney Crosby doesn’t practice at neighborhood rinks with Junior AA players because he doesn't have to.

     That being the case, it’s no wonder that the story of Jesus has always been a little hard to believe.

     The church exists because of this story — not a collection of theology formulated by academics and clerics, but this story: that in Jesus God was doing something unheard-of and unimaginable. John begins his Gospel, his telling of the story, by invoking God’s Word, always with God and inseparable from him. This Word, John reminds us, is the “Let there be light” power that created, well, everything. You can’t conceive of this Word as existing apart from God. And yet…

     John says something remarkable. God’s Word “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” 

     While most religions provide some path by which people can come to the Divine — through obedience or sacrifice or enlightenment or whatever — Christianity has the traffic moving in the other direction. Human beings don’t come to God — at least not initially. Instead, God comes to us. 

     The proposition that begins John’s gospel is that he’s about to show us what it looks like when God takes on humanity and comes to us. What will he care about? What will he say? What will he do? John tells us that he comes to bear witness to truth, to bring light in darkness, to show us the way to God. And he does this by turning around suffering and death so that it becomes the way to glory and life — for him, and for those who believe in him.

     Hard to believe, yes. And so John shows us what happens when people take even those first, faltering steps toward belief.

     The church wrestled with that story for centuries, trying to describe it and quantify it, categorize by inventing vocabulary and creating documents that purported to be the final word. In some ways, we’re still wrestling with it. For some of us, Jesus just came to die on the cross for our sins, and the way to salvation is just to acknowledge that happened and thank him for it. But John and the other Gospel writers say much more than that in their retellings of the story. For them, those years between his birth and his death and resurrection mean something. 

     For some of us, Jesus is a good teacher, chiefly useful because his words can be made to conveniently fit whatever we’d like them to fit. But the story isn’t about using his words to support our own opinions, but that he is God’s Word to us. We aren’t supposed to use his teaching as much as we are to hear it and live it.

     The anonymous author of the letter we call Hebrews says that God is a God who reveals himself — always has been. He goes on to make the case, though, that of all the ways God has chosen to make himself known to us, his last revelation through his Son is the most complete, most significant, and most clear. So, he says, “We must pay the most careful attention to what we have heard.”

     Paul pointed to this story when he told the church in Philippi to “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” by having his love for one another and choosing to forego their own interests and ambitions to instead look out for each other. He tells the story of Jesus giving up his equality with God to empty himself, become a servant, and to humble himself to the degree that he accepted the execution of a common criminal. In this, Paul points out, we believe that Jesus found glory. And in following him, he says, the church would “shine like stars in the sky” as they “hold firmly to the word of life.”

     We, church, are supposed to carry with us the snapshots of our encounters with Jesus. When people have a hard time believing this story, we’re the evidence. When we think and humble ourselves and empty ourselves out of love like Jesus did, we answer the doubts. We respond to those who think it isn’t possible with proof that it is. That Jesus did come to us. That he lives with us, that we’ve met him. And that they can too.   

     May we be found faithful.