Wonder-Spun Tears

The main impressions I felt from the reading I find again and again in this week's blog posts - 1. Total Need - "You can make it without most of what you have but you cannot make it without me" (DJ, 54). 2. Perfect Story-Telling - "He waited to make the claim at just the right time, in just the right circumstance" (DJ, 55). Kind of funny - manna - means what is it? For thousands of years nobody really knew what it was. At the perfect time & perfect circumstance Jesus tells them what exactly what "what is it" is -- HIS BODY. "It is another example of His brilliance" (DJ, 55.) All that aside, I write with tears in my eyes as I imagine Jesus mourning the death of his cousin in a quiet place at the time of this miracle and message. Jesus is so intensely cool & compassionate that he interrupts his grieving to minister his butt off for hours upon hours out of compassion. He was so radically abandoned, and yet in abandonment again and again and again He was so recklessly generous. While wrecked with a wounded heart He healed the wretched & served an incredible banquet. I am wrecked by how Jesus gives when his heart has been betrayed, manipulated, & abandoned. Such potent love He shares so unconditionally. I am deeply encouraged and wonder-spun by the scale of the banquet that Darrell expresses by tying it to the tree story -- Eve. Very inspiring and a great reminder for me that Jesus and His banquet table truly is the Alpha and Omega of every story and the Alpha and Omega of space and time. Love you JESUS! As my daughter says, Thank you a million times a million billion infinity gazillion. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!