Heaven + Earth

The two greatest commandments are these:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  What symbol could more simply and powerfully remind us of those than the cross of Christ with its two beams, one stretching vertically and the other horizontally?

He is God who came as man.

He gave us life eternal by dying in a flesh and blood body.

He brings heaven to earth by dwelling as Spirit in our earthen vessels.

His miracles weren’t wafts of magical glimmers that stayed in the realm of philosophical theory.  He fed people and healed broken body parts and brought loved ones back to their families and friends and communities.  It was physical through and through, yet always woven with messages of eternal truths that stitched heaven into earth.

His actions seem to consistently confirm that though He is giving us something everlasting, He offers it through the simplest actions of the here and now.  Giving a hungry brother or sister a meal will only stave off a gurgling stomach for a few hours, but in that reprieve is a bit of comfort and a means of connection between two human souls, two pairs of eyes, the gift given from one and being taken physically into the other and meeting a need there.  The sharing of food and tending to sick bodies is how He brings us close together for a physical need to be tended to, but also for something much bigger.  You probably can confirm this by a goodness that has been done for you at some point along the way.  I would suppose that your story is like mine…a provision was brought to you, and what you may remember the most about it is the deeper gift you received in the giving…that the presence of the bringer was the greatest part. 

For God to come to earth and primarily feed and heal is remarkable.  When His cousin John sent a message asking the question “Are you  the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?,” he was sent this reply:  “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.  Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”  We often want Him to wave a wand, but He is the God who brought heaven to us in and through the stuff of earth.  That, apparently, is the point...earth gets heaven.  And now we are asked to bring it to one another.