What is it? When I pulled the handle I had no idea what I would find. I was trying to repair a broken piece of equipment and I was trying all of the knobs and doors to see if I could get into the inside. A small curved protrusion was the only hint that I was able to move the panel. This is what I pulled out.
It was bright and red and I kept my distance. I knew at once that it was ink. It was strong ink. It lived inside of the mailing machine. I have no idea what this is. It is far away from the printing element. It even seems far away from the ink cartridge. The machine has sat on the counter for a number of years and none of us remember seeing it.
It looks like it could be a celestial display, like a bright red moon is rising on a snowy day. The light filters through the crystals. Or it could be a big dollop of strawberry jam that has been dropped on white carpet. Or it might be a hole drilled into a catchup container. It could be a wound.
It feels like a Rorschach test-those strange ink blots that tells us more about ourselves than about he inkblot.
Jesus gives us a new way of seeing and new way of viewing the world. As we put on the way fo Christ, we begin to see the way he sees. Slowly but surely we begin to choose a new set a values, a new set of loves. This week we are reading in Isaiah. he tells us to see the world differently. Seek Justice, Defend the oppressed, Take up the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow (1:17). This is a profound challenge to the old way of seeing. In the old way power tramples over the powerless, the weak are ground underfoot or neglected completely. The Jesus way is to see all things new.
We are glad that God sees us new. He does not hold on to our old status, but makes us new and clean. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Is 1:18.