Greetings,
Sunday the Confirmation Class toured the church and in the sacristy saw on the worship table the two foot replica of the 10 ½ foot statue of Jesus, the Cristus Conselator, in the rotunda in Johns Hopkins Hospital, with its inscription “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” Today I reread this passage from an old Paul Tillich book, The Shaking of the Foundations (p. 93) and want to again share with you.
When I was of the age to receive confirmation and full membership of the Church, I was told to choose a passage from the Bible as the expression of my personal approach to the biblical message and to the Christian Church. Every confirmand was obliged to do so, and to recite the passage before the congregation. When I chose the words, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” I was asked with a kind of astonishment and even irony why I had chosen that particular passage. For I was living under happy conditions and, being only fifteen years old, was without any apparent labour and burden. I could not answer at that time; I felt a little embarrassed, but basically right. And I was right, indeed; every child is right in responding to them in all periods of his life, and under all the conditions of his internal and external history. These words of Jesus are universal, and fit every human being and every human situation. They are simple; they grasp the heart of the primitive as well as that of the profound, disturbing the mind of the wise. Practically every word of Jesus had this character, sharing the difference between Him as the originator and the dependent interpreters, disciples and theologians, saints and preachers. Returning for the first time in my life to the passage of my early choice, I feel just as grasped by it as at that time, but infinitely more embarrassed by its majesty, profundity, and inexhaustible meaning.
My years observing the statue and the people who turned to it, and its influence in my own life and functioning causes me to say an emphatic Amen.
Yours & His,
DED
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