I told the old, old story again this week. The one about how Jesus came to us, and why. The one that tells us we are seen and loved. Pursued and rescued. Swept into both the grandest adventure and an all-or-nothing surrender, thrilling and frightening together.

The roomful of women silently considered again that gospel story, familiar to many. Familiar to me, and yet the power and wonder of it falls fresh with every recounting.

It’s a wild story, bringing us to the ends of ourselves, where we teeter on the precipice of trust. So challenging to accept in its raw form, that we have felt the need to tame it. Create a buffer between its power and our vulnerability.

So we have packaged it. Sanitized it. Distilled away the glory from the facts until it becomes a simple partnership agreement. One that we enter with a mindset of what’s in it for me?

I fear we’ve tamed the awe from the gospel and allowed familiarity to inoculate us against it’s power. That we’ve become numb to the miracle cloaked in habit.

We dangle a cross around our necks and forget the anguished cry of the one who hung from it, “My God, My God!”

We color eggs and forget the earthquake, the blinding glory, the heavy, embroidered curtain that once separated us, torn open in invitation to the throne of Him who reigns in mighty, fearful power. To the One who restrains all of that unspeakable power to stoop to a child’s prayer.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

I told the story again, because it offers life. No more living in the safety of the common. Instead, a call to step into the dizzying romance playing out around us, if we only choose to see.

I talked of fear, and pain. Of vulnerability, and the risks we take to believe that it is worth it. That He is worth it.

I finished speaking and prayed, slipping gratefully through that torn curtain, asking for courage for those women to embrace not just the story, but the One who is writing it. The One who invites us into the exhilaration of living it.

The One who gave up everything to hear our whispered “yes”.

When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my Lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

2 Kings 6:15-17