One of Us

Good Morning All,

Super Bowl XLIV may have been one for the audience viewing record books. I don’t know if you were among the estimated 106+million who watched the game and/or commercials or not, but I wonder if you were among the 38.6 million people who watched the debut of the new reality show Undercover Boss. The show features chief executives of major corporations, who for one week go undercover as entry-level workers to not only rub elbows with their employees but also to identify some of the unsung he-roes and she-roes among the workers.

While I watched this new show, mostly, I suppose, because it immediately followed the Super Bowl, I became increasingly intrigued by the show’s premise. And as I reflected on this idea of CEO’s rubbing elbows with the workers and becoming one of them, my thoughts quickly shifted to how we have been making our way along our faith journey since the Day of Epiphany on January 6; which then makes it hard to believe that it has only been a little over 6 weeks since Christmas Day!

So much has happened in our world and in our lives in such a brief period of time. So why look back? Why all the focus on a celebration that seems eons ago? All I know is that I continue to look back only so I can more fully move ahead…Christmas was not simply a few days back in December that we managed to survive. Christmas marks so much more…It was the beginning of understanding yet again, how much God loves us; how God’s timing is everything…being born as the Christ Child; reminding us of how God plunged into the darkness of a waiting world, longing to know that the Light of the World had come and any and all darkness can never extinguish it.

This is the message that has stood the test of time; a message that brings us to the here and now; a message that will accompany us into the days ahead. We dare to look back a mere 6 weeks so that we might continue to remember how God came to Earth as one of us…much more than an undercover boss mingling among us or rubbing elbows with us.

I recall the chorus of a once popular song, “If God Were One of Us;”
What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

While I’m not inclined to think of God as a slob, the underlying message is that God’s very self is within every woman, man, boy & girl on this planet—not just within people we like and love; or who look and live just like us; or possess the same values; or are of the same belief; but within every last one of us…
…And that’s it, isn’t it? God is one of us…the One who relates to all aspects of our humanness; the One who continues to pitch God’s tent right in our backyard…

So, here we are, traveling together along this faith journey…There’s a bend in the road up ahead…and in a week’s time, the Spirit will once again lead us into and through the season of Lent; the time we will spend with Jesus in the wilderness of our faith; taking some “holy timeout” as we wrestle with some of life’s deepest and darkest moments of the soul; as we await the Light of Easter dawn…May we seek and sense God’s presence along the way…Blessings, Joanne