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Day 36: Sunday in the Sixth Week of Lent
John 1:38
When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’
It’s not a simple question when Jesus asks the two people in this story what they seek. It’s an important question for all of us to consider. What are we looking for? What do we want to find? What do we seek? Are we looking for wealth? Are we looking for companionship? Are we looking for personal fulfillment? What are we looking for?
And what are we looking for in Jesus? Are we looking for a source of comfort? Are we looking for a promise of heaven? Are we looking to feel righteous? What do we seek?
And the answer these two give is equally important: “Rabbi where are you staying?” Maybe they are asking where Jesus is camped out for the night, but the word is full of double meaning. They ask, “Where do you abide?” And the answer, of course, is that Jesus abides in the Father – and the Father abides in him.
Jesus responds to their question by saying, “Come and see.” He invites us to come and see that he abides in God.
But saying that Jesus abides in God is only part of the answer. He abides also in us. And in the world. He is present at a wedding in Cana. He is present to a blind man he sends to wash in the pool of Siloam. He is present to a disgraced and rejected woman at the well. He is present Nicodemus in the darkness. He is present to the hungry crowd on the hillside. He abides where sorrows reign. He abides where tears are shed. He abides where fear courses through our veins. He abides where hate shows its ugliness. He abides in the favelas, and sweatshops, and the overflowing intensive care units. He abides with the shell-shocked and the broken. He abides where people need him. He abides where people seek him.
He abides in the Father and he abides in us.
Gracious and ever-present God,
whose mercy knows no bounds,
and whose arms are ever open to your world:
Grant that Christ may live in us and we in him
And make us joyful in your service.
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Image. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_of_Saint_Simon,_Muquattam,_Cairo,_Egypt14.jpg Diego Delso / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)