The One We Are Waiting For

Hopi Elders say “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”  How many of us spend our days waiting for someone else to change things?

When will the Democrats be back in power?  When will people learn to get along?  How long until there will be an end to war?  Why are we still talking about White Privilege?  Why can’t the doctor make me feel better?  Why are there so many hungry people in the world?  Why don’t I hear from family and/or friends?   Why isn’t anyone helping the homeless get off the street?  This list goes on and one.  Questions like this can either overwhelm us or move us to do something.

Jesus saw many of the same things going on in the world as we do. Rather than take up the chisel and hammer that his father labored with, he decided to show people another way to live, another way to create a better world.  He did not use his so called “power” to only perform miracles, he got his hands dirty by meeting the people, talking with them, inviting them to open their hearts and minds to live with all people, to share with all people, to meet the needs of those who had less, both in body and spirit.  

Jesus did not preach in the way that we think of preaching, but instead showed the people with his actions and when questioned, explained with words.

Today, we have ways of participating in the world around us that the people in the time of Jesus could never have imagined.  We have telephones, both land lines and cell type.  We have computers that give us email, social media, blogs, and every way you can imagine to communicate.  We have cars, busses, Uber, Lyft, Paratransit, trains, planes, and soon high speed hyperloop vehicles that can get us almost any place imaginable.  We still have our feet, our voices, snail mail, and even telegrams.

How do you reflect the world of Jesus in the world around us?  Are you still waiting for someone else to reach out, to be in touch, to make a difference, to heal you, to heal the world?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be caught still waiting, when my time comes to an end.  I want to take stock of my life and find more of what I can do.  I can commit to make calls, to participate in groups that reach out rather than just look out at the world, to send letters, to meet people, to smile at everyone, to offer a hand.  I am, after all, the one that I have been waiting for.  Are you?  -Chris L.