Reading from the
Book of John 12:26
26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my
servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
In John’s gospel,
our Lord offers us a singular solution to our sickness, the only way for us to
discover who we were meant to be and how we are meant to live. “Where I am,
there shall also my servant be” (John 12:26). If we are truly servants of Jesus,
our daily work is nothing more than choosing to be with him, yet this demands of
us a closely related question: Where is Jesus, and where should I be if I want
to find him at work in my life and community?
The answer to this question may
take a lifetime of prayerful discernment to truly answer, yet we are not left to
stumble in the dark. Jesus is with the poor and the outcast. He is found in the
marginalized and forgotten people and places of society. Our Lord is near to the
humble and repentant sinner. He has told and shown us where we can expect to
find him.
So often, the problem is not in our lack of knowledge about where to
find Jesus, but in our own unwillingness to meet him in that place. We yearn to
be free, yet fail to see our own bondage to comfort and material goods. We want
to see the sick healed and desolate comforted, yet ignore the sicknessb of sin
within our own hearts that keeps us from going to them in love.
In short, we
long for the glory of of our Father to manifest in our lives and others, yet are we willing to meet our Lord? He is found
"at the foot of the cross?"
