Come Alive

 

   Like many good movies (and some not so good ones, no doubt), The Greatest Showman has a ‘how the band got together’ montage.  The song ‘Come alive’ provides the soundtrack to P T Barnum gathering his group of ‘curiosities’ and unusual performers.  Barnum recruits various people from the margins and shadows of his society, offering them the chance to see themselves and the world differently, and challenge the perceptions of others.  It was, simply, an invitation to come alive.

  In the Gospel of John, Jesus coins a famous phrase, that he came to bring ‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10).  In actual fact, the verse in its entirety contrasts Jesus – the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep – with the religious leaders of the day – “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy”.  So how can we tell if a religious leader or community reflects Jesus?  Maybe by their fruit – do they bring life, or do they steal and kill and destroy?

  And what might ‘life in all its fullness’ look like anyway?

  When Jesus had been on the scene for a bit, he’d started to turn heads and set tongues going, so much so that people started to wonder if he was the Messiah figure they’d been expecting.  Among these was John the Baptist, a relative of Jesus, and what we might call an affiliate – they preached a similar message about God’s kingdom.  So John sent some of his own disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one they’d been expecting, or if they should wait for someone else.  The writer of Luke’s Gospel then summarises what Jesus has been doing:

“Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind” (Luke 7:21)

 

  That’s exactly what’s been going on in the preceding chapters of Luke.  To make it even more explicit, Jesus answers them:

 

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them…” (Luke 7:22)

 

These were understood (or could be, at least) as signs of God’s kingdom, of a restoration, a righting of wrongs.  Hebrew texts like Isaiah 35 and 61 spoke of exactly these things happening.

  In demonstrating and enacting God’s kingdom, Jesus brought people to life – in some cases, literally.  He removed barriers to inclusion and participation – sometimes by healing ailments, sometimes by simply challenging social boundaries.  Jesus went to the margins and partied.  He sat at the table with people many would have shunned.  Jesus did and still does invite and invest in the ‘unlikely’.

  If you are in a place where people are not coming fully alive, then maybe it’s time to find a space where people can and do come fully alive – somewhere that Jesus is, because it doesn’t sound like he’s where you are now.

  Jesus “came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10) -  where we can find ourselves “dreaming with our eyes wide open… Come alive.”