The Loving Christ

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is time to rise.

It is time to shine. It is time to awaken from your slumber and beam the loving light of awareness that exists in your heart. It is time to embody your unrelenting conviction in goodness at an intensity and scale that you have been reluctant to embrace.

Now, I understand these are chaotic and confusing times. I understand the world’s problems often seem insurmountable, that the clouds of darkness in our skies seem too powerful to ever be lifted. But my brothers and sisters in Christ, you are children of God. And it has been said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. That means we, together, can move mountains with the love of Christ in our collective hearts, let alone dissipate darkened clouds.

But it is up to us, all of us. It is up to the collective we that makes up the living body of Christ, that gives lasting power to Christ’s love in this physical form to bring about this movement. Because it is this collective we that are Christ resurrected. It is the collective we that makes up the living body of Christ today, here, now in this present moment.

It is your mother and father that make up the left and the right side of the body of Christ. It is the builders and the workers and the healers that make up the heart and the hands of the body of Christ. It is the artists and the musicians, it is the laughter of children that make up the voice of the body of Christ. It is the teacher, the nurse, the caretaker, that make up the lungs of the body of Christ.

It is the therapist, the philosopher and the mentor that make up the mind of the body of Christ. And it is the farm and field workers, the bus drivers, the public servants, that make up the legs that keep the living body of Christ moving forward. It is the collective we that represents the light of Christ’s love in today’s world. And today’s world really needs that light.

Today’s world needs your open heart. It needs your curious mind. It needs your healing touch. It needs your precise insight. It needs your creative thought. It needs your unified vision, the one that sees all of us as an essential cell in this vibrant, dynamic, living and breathing body of Christ.

Make no mistake about it, there’s a lot of reasons to forget that we are all brothers and sisters. There’s a lot of reasons to believe that nothing is going to change anytime soon. And that is because the chains of injustice have weighed down so many for so long. But brothers and sisters, we can break those chains. We can break those chains. We can lift each other up if we do it together, if that is our intention.

We can split those shackles and we can release those chains, we can free each other, if we choose to look out beyond ourselves. If we look out beyond ourselves and we embrace our brotherhood, we embrace our sisterhood as children of God, we can free one another. Because you can see the shackles on me that I can’t see, and you can help free me if I am so willing, and I can see the shackles on your that you can’t see on you, and I can help free you if you are so willing. So together, with loving intention, with effort and persistence, we can choose to liberate one another, to give rise to the living body of Christ.

We are children of God. And because we are children of God, we are entitled to life. Because God gave us life. And as children of God, we are entitled to food and to shelter, and to medicine, because God provided us an abundant earth, one that provides all of those things and more. It is important to remember God provided long before men divided — don’t ever forget to remember that.

As children of God, we are entitled to safety and freedom, the kind of safety and freedom that allows us as brothers and sisters to know God for ourselves. We’re entitled to the freedom to explore philosophies and expressions and works of art and life’s experiences that bring us closer to God because that is God’s greatest wish. That we would know God and that God would know us. And that we would know one another as a single, unified family in Christ.

These are the promises of a just and loving God. And these promises will never be fulfilled by unjust and miserly men. Therefore, it is our duty to each other, it is our duty to our children, it is duty to our children’s children and generations to come, that we bring about fulfilling these promises, the promises that a just and loving God made to give us a just and loving experience.

It is our duty that we work together as brothers and as sisters to create a culture of conscience and wellbeing, to create a lived day-to-day experience where the love of Christ isn’t just an idea espoused in hollow halls, but a vital principle known, a visceral experience felt, a truth that is lived in the flesh. It is our duty together that we bring about the manifestation of Christ’s love in this way, not just for ourselves but for each other and future generations.

It is our duty to give ourselves and each other the means, the time and the freedom, to look inward and to discover, to discover that the light of Christ is in us. And it is our duty to ourselves and to each other, to allow the love of Christ to move through us freely. It is our duty that together we commit to build that experience, not on empty words, but with love filled intent and consistent action.

In all it is not just our duty, but it is our destiny to recognize that we are Christ’s loving mind incarnate. We are Christ’s fiercely compassionate heart. We are Christ’s healing hands. And now is the time to rise for a love that is felt and known. For a love that takes powerful form in your kindness, your generosity, your duty and your accountability to something bigger than yourself. Now is the time to give rise to a love that gives breath, that gives meaning, that gives life to Christ’s resurrected body in this historical moment.

It is not enough to just talk about Christ love. It is time for us to be Christ’s love in motion. To begin that journey, put aside the time each day to go inward, to meditate and pray, and ask The Loving Christ to show you directly how you may be a vessel for this transformative love. This is the call. Will you answer?

-jb