By His Wounds

"For all of recorded history there seem to have been people who didn't quite fit, either because of poverty, or disability, or nationality, or age - those so beaten down by abuse, or struggle, or scorn that they seem paralyzed, without the will to change or be changed. We have come to think of them as outsiders...Have we forgotten that Jesus himself, in his manner of birth, was also a misfit?"

(God With Us, p. 93)

Jesus always loved those that nobody else did. Right from the start of his life we see it - the shepherds in their lowliness were the first to meet the baby.


He touched lepers, he socialized with tax collectors, he healed the demon possessed and the lame/blind beggars at the side of the road. And now he loves me, a sinner from birth.

This is the God we worship and on whom our very lives depend:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:2-5

"Forgive me, Jesus, for instinctively shunning those who don't quite fit my preconception of propriety or responsibility. As I gather with others at the stable - shepherds and sages - forgive me for being so absorbed in my own concerns that I ignore the deep needs of others. May your loving, restorative Spirit find a home in me. Show me, today, someone whom I can love and embrace in your name. Amen."

(God With Us, p. 94)