Sister Chieko Okazaki - We talk in great generalities about
the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But
we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That
means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was
for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose
the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the
car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward
Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced napalm in
Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism. Let me go further. There
is nothing you have experienced…that he does not know and recognize….He
understands about rape… and abortion…He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s
been lower than all that.
He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t
need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the
Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us,
angry at us , or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in
our guilt and our grief…
Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and
as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world. We
know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in
darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the
people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is
ready to come to us, if we’ll open the door and let him. (Lighten UP p174-176)
