It's been a long ride. Across the water, up the hill, and over the road - and finally, as the old place comes into sight once again, the welcome. Unexpected. More than could be hoped for.
"Rejoice with me, for what was lost is found, - the one who was dead is alive!"
Ring on your finger, robe on your back, the calf fattened now prepared as a feast - on the occasion of your homecoming.
and yet... you've never been here before!
This is new - it is a new place. These are new people.
... they welcome you as if you've always been known to them.
How can this be? How can they know you if they have never seen you before? never heard your name?
It comes because they see Christ in you - because they welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, bring comfort to the sick, give the thirsty something to drink, clothe the man in tattered rags, visit the prisoner. Because they see Christ in all these they see Christ in you.
And that is the hope of glory: the presence of the Lord in the cast-off, the indigent, the marginal, the lost; to tell the truth, the sinner.
In you and me, you and me.
In Christ we are made a new creation; in Christ we are made whole; in Christ we are made welcome and welcome others - to the feast, the banquet-table, the presence of the Lord.
Are we worthy? No. We are loved.
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