“You Are Loved”

By Fr. David Madsen
Marcus Borg reminds us that Jesus didn't come to start a new religion. He came to transform lives. He came to reveal the heart of God, a heart that beats with the broken, the the outcasts, and the fugitives, and the forgotten. Borg writes, "The Christian life is not about believing in the afterlife. It's much more than that.
It's about entering into a relationship with the living God now." When Jesus says, "Today," he's just not talking about a future paradise. He's talking about presence, about union with him beginning now. The passage isn't just about a dying thief. It's about all of us. It relates to all of us. It's about the moments when we feel unworthy, ashamed, or too far gone.
You ever been there?
And it's about the truth that none of this disqualifies us from grace. Jesus didn't wait for perfection. He doesn't wait for us to be perfect. He responds to faith. He responds to relationship. He responds to us as we look on him. He looks on us. So if you've ever felt like you're not enough, not holy enough, not good enough, not ready enough, hear this. Jesus is still whispering as he did on the cross.
"Today, you will be with me, not because you earned it, but because you are loved." And we are truly to follow Jesus, if we are truly desiring to follow Jesus, not just admire Jesus, not just worship, but follow Jesus, then we must learn to extend that same radical grace to others. Amen




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