Earnestly, tenderly
Jesus is calling
Calling “Oh sinner, come home”(Softly and Tenderly)
In essence this is the Gospel. These sweet words encapsulate all that goes on in the life of Jesus. These words describe the actions of Christ in the days that lead to the cross. They show the beauty of His love and humility in their meaning. This song has always touched me in the deepest parts of my soul.
Earnestly: serious in intention, purpose, or effort; sincerely zealous.
When I look at the Holy Week, I see the intentional effort that Christ puts toward the week leading up to His death. Everything He did served a purpose to show humanity the beauty of grace, hope, and God’s love. We see the intentionality of Palm Sunday. Christ rides in on a donkey, crushing the societal norms of power and replacing it with humility. He keeps His eyes on the goal, through it all. Nothing catches Him off guard and He never gets distracted. This is one of the characteristics that I love most about Jesus.
His ability to transcend the Passover meal by instituting the Eucharist is a reminder of His love for humanity. The partaking of the elements through communion has become a very real process for me over the last few months. He knows how forgetful we are as we walk through life. He was in our shoes. He knows us better than we know ourselves. This meal refreshes and satisfies us to the core of our being. It reminds us of the cost and weight of our sin by connecting us to His redemption power. The bread fills us with the substance of faith in Him and the wine washes the guilt and shame of our transgressions. He knows the battles we face. He knows we need this reminder.
Tenderly: easily moved to sympathy or compassion; kind.
In addition, the tenderness of Christ shows in His obedience to the will of the Father and His actions. He never said a word in His defense against the evil in the hearts of man. His anguish when He knows He must obey when praying to the Father in the garden shows the wrestling match between the humanity and the divine within His nature. It shows that love leads to obedience as His love for the Father which turns into His love for mankind guides Him on a path leading to death.
His tenderness exceeds that of any seen by mankind in His handling of the criminals beside Him on the cross. He could have ignored them, but He spoke in tenderness to the man who stuck up for Him. This is the heart of Christianity, recognition of the Lordship of Christ. The simplicity of the Gospel laid out for all of humanity to see in one moment of unexplainable grace. A man rightly accused next to the God-man, free of sin, who tenderly accepts Him into the fold of the Father by a furious love the world has never seen.
Jesus is calling//Calling “Oh sinner, come home”
He is calling, always calling. For the majority of my life, I have heard the wrong words. I have misinterpreted His message for humanity. He does not desire us to clean up before Him, but it is quite the opposite. He wants our mess. He wants every quirk and kink found in our life that forces that little kid in all of us to run to the darkest corners of our soul. His call is one of hope that in the midst of our guilt and shame we may find shalom, or the wholeness of peace, in His restoration power. He wants our mess to show the world His glory in such a screwed up group of people that there is no way anyone could doubt the power of God.
The call is for us to come home. The call is one for sinners, beggars fumbling through life to see that there is one who can carry them back to the way things are supposed to be. He wants us to encounter the fullness of God. He never gives up on you as he earnestly and tenderly seeks for you to come home.
For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.
(Psalm 117:2)