Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The etymology of etymology

I really like this song they sing at Rockharbor with the refrain:

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for your kingdom's cause
As I go from nothing to
Eternity

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That fourth line is so powerful. I recognize it from a book I read called "The Hole In Our Gospel" by the president of World Vision, an incredibly inspiring book. In the book, a story is told of the former president of WV who initially started his ministry with the prayer: Lord break my heart from what breaks Yours. After reading that testimony in the oppressive heat of my dusty upstairs loft in Morocco, I prayed that same prayer that night. It's a dangerous, dangerous prayer. Even though I consider myself a strictly logical person, I do recognize that the only things we act on are the things we feel something about. There is no strict process of logic that tells me to help the man lying in the street, unless I feel something - compassion, pity - I won't do anything. When God gives you that heart, it comes with responsibility for action.

Luke records Jesus cruising into the temple one time, and He gets handed some scroll to read in front of everyone. Jesus scrolls (literally) to Isaiah and reads this:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord."

As He goes to sit down, Luke says everyone was looking at Him. Then Jesus says:

"Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

When I first read that passage in Luke I looked up and said "oh snap!". If anyone ever thinks Jesus never claimed to be the messiah, have a look there. What I really take from this passage though is that Jesus basically just defined his mission statement. Why is He on Earth? To help the poor, captives, blind, and oppressed. Jesus was a man of action and nothing less. May I be as well.