From the Big Event 6.0, a blessing for RevGalBlogPals and for friends & colleagues in ministry:

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of the messenger who announces peace, who brings
good news, who announces salvation, who says
to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Isaiah 52:7 NRSV)

How beautiful across the Church are the words of her messengers who announce peace, who bring good news, who proclaim salvation, who say to the people, “Your God reigns.” How beautiful is the Word that they proclaim, the Word that delights the discouraged, the Word that quickens healing, the Word that is our good news.

How beautiful is the proclaimed Word that signals hope: hope in the midst of loneliness, hope for the impossible overturning of oppression and hunger and poverty, hope that this is not it — that this is not all — and death is not the final word. How sweet it is to our souls that the Word of hope comes to the smallest, the weakest, the oldest, the poorest, the lost, and the overlooked as an unexpected refrain.

How beautiful is the surprising Word that brings peace like a child leading lions, lambs & asps together. How delightful, how longed for! How beautiful the words of the messengers who announce and embody peace: peace to a beggar waiting at the city gate, peace to the lepers cast out of their own families, peace to the woman no one will touch and peace to the woman who is beaten. Peace in a time of corruption and hatred and violence and power envy.

How beautiful — oh, how needed! — is the prophetic Living Word that brings joy, that begins joy even amidst a dry desert, even amidst economic worries and church politics and family strain and hearts desperate for wholeness! How splendid the good news of joy that is for all people! How beautiful the Holy Word of joy that is embodied by its messengers in email and prayer, in word and in silence, by Twitter and by blog.

How beautiful is the Holy Word of love that is not finished — the Holy Love that still lives and most surely still acts! How beautiful the words & actions of the messengers who express love for all people, in all places: love for you, for me; love for the estranged and love for the lovers; love for the refugee, the stranger, the outcast. Love so holy and so vast and so unconditional that we can only imagine the tip of the iceberg that is the depth of Love, though we have a painfully clear understanding of the collective desperation for love and so we continue to preach: Love!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was beautiful! The Word became flesh and lived among us in all its beauty, and we have seen its glory. In the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light of the Word shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it, asnd the messengers of the Word are forever called to speak it, to sing it, to write it and to preach it so that the light and the life which are the Word will continue to heal the world, will continue to create hope, peace, joy, and love in abundance for all people.

How beautiful the Word! How beautiful the messengers! How blessed, how very blessed are we to be its messengers!

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This