Enduring relevance..

Reflections from The Divine Conspiracy:

(The 400-page book that I FINALLY finished)

I think we finally have to say that Jesus' enduring relevance is based on His ability to speak to, to heal and to empower the individual human condition. He matters because of what He brought and what He still brings to us as ordinary human beings, living our ordinary lives and coping daily with our surroundings. He promises wholeness for our lives. In sharing our weakness, He gives us strength and imparts through His companionship a life that has the quality of eternity. He comes where we are, and He brings us the life we hunger for. "Life was in Him, life that made sense of human existence" (John 1:4). To be the light of life, and to deliver God's life to women and men where they are and as they are, is the secret of the enduring relevance of Jesus.

The flunk-outs and drop-outs and burned-outs. The broke and the broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV positive and the herpes-ridden. The brain-damaged and the incurably ill. The barren and the pregnant too many times or at the wrong time. The over-employed, the underemployed, the unemployed. The unemployable. The swindled, the shoved-aside, the replaced. The lonely, the incompetent, and the stupid...