Today's Devotional
Mayé and I enjoy watching “Long Lost Family,” a fascinating, intense and touching television series featuring Chris Jacobs and Lisa Joyner that ran on TLC from 2016 to 2019. Both were adopted as children and embarked on their own journeys to discover their biological families.
In the series, the pair helped people who yearned to be reunited with their birth parents and biological families or find children they had given up for adoption. Chris and Lisa painstakingly searched through public records and used DNA technology to find answers.
The series reminds me of how deeply we yearn to find God and how Jesus came to seek, save and reconcile us with God. At the foot of the cross, Jesus created a new, faith-shaped human community that unites us with him, God and each other in one ministry to all the world until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
As the sky grew darker and Jesus bore the weight of the world's sins, he saw his mother, Mary, standing nearby. Jesus cared for his mother and those around him, even in agony.
With great love and tenderness, Jesus, the eldest son, turned to his mother and entrusted her to John’s care. He then turned to his beloved disciple, John, and said, "Behold, your mother,” placing his mother’s care on John. John exemplifies that in the family of faith, we are bound to receive, welcome, love, care for and support one another.
Good Friday commemorates the sacrifice Jesus made for the salvation of the world. He gave birth to the Church through the resurrection and opened it to people of all ages, nations and races. Because God’s love in Christ shows no partiality, Jesus invites us to embrace a broader definition of family that extends beyond biological, racial, ethnic, cultural, political and national bonds and boundaries.
May we strive to become faith-shaped vessels of Christ’s love, embodying the acceptance, love and unity he displayed by reaching out to one another and our neighbors with Christ-like acceptance, care and support in their time of need.
— Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr.
bishop@ntcumc.org or bishop@ctcumc.org
