Matthew 25:35-40 NASB95
For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; [36] naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ [37] Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? [38] And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? [39] When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ [40] The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
Jesus clothes himself with broken humanity and cries out on their behalf through their pain for love and healing. I have found myself lately seeing the face of Jesus (literally) in the face of hurting and failing people. A dear friend who was a powerful instrument of healing in the hands of the Lord once shared a vision she had after walking the via Delarosa in Jerusalem. She had a vision of a giant cross standing at a distance. As she gazed at the cross, it began to move closer and closer toward her and she could see faces (millions of faces) covering the cross, and she could hear a sound coming from them. As the cross grew closer she could hear the sound of the myriads of people crying out, “Help me. Love me. Heal me.”
My friend had been leading a conference, along with others in Jerusalem, and during the conference, a couple of the other leaders had mistreated her and rejected her in great unkindness. My friend walked the via Delarosa to seek the Lord, hoping for an encounter that would help her to know how to deal with these people who were treating her so unkindly and how to deal with her own hurt as a result of their behavior. The vision of the cross was her answer. She realized in the vision that Jesus was speaking to her about fallen and broken humanity, and that how in their pain and their misbehavior they were actually crying out for the love and healing power of Jesus. In that moment, in union with the love of Christ, all of her hurt feelings were healed and her attitude towards those who had mistreated her was transformed into the compassion of Christ.
In the pain or misbehavior of those who live “East of Eden,” do we see their hunger and thirst for love, acceptance, and healing? Do we see the stranger in their own skin who suffer from rejection and self-rejection? Do we see the naked who have suffered great indignities and humiliation in this fallen world? In the sick, do we see someone longing for a Father who heals in kindness instead of passing by with neglect and judgment? Do we see those whose hearts are sick because all hope in life has been deferred? Do we see the prisoners with woundedness and myriads of addictions who long to be set free? Jesus clothes himself in all of these and cries out through their pain and misbehavior as begging ones, hoping that as we pass by, we will stop and be their answer to prayer that there is a God who loves them and will heal them without judging their story; a God who will make their story His story and His story their story. Jesus gave skin to this God of kindness in favor and still does through His body in this world.