Come By Here

Come By Here (March 5, 2006)

The hymn from Africa “Kum ba Yah” is a favorite of youth retreats and camps and conferences but it only made it into our hymnal in the most recent edition when the church began consciously to use hymns and songs from outside the European tradition. I can remember singing it at the one week conference I attended at Blair Academy in eighth grade, after which I came home and told my father God had called me to be a Presbyterian minister. “Kum ba Yah,” of course, means “Come by here.” It speaks in the simplest language the most earnest prayer: “Someone’s crying, Lord, come by here….” “Someone’s singing, Lord….” “Someone’s praying, Lord.” It is a good hymn in preparation for Communion for here, in the words of another hymn from a previous generation, “here, Lord, we see Thee, face to face….”

We think as we sing it of the stories of Jesus in the gospels coming by. He came by on the way to Jericho and the crowds were so thick a little man named Zacchaeus had to climb up a sycamore tree to see him. But Jesus saw him and forthwith invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house, and it changed the corrupt tax collector’s life.

He came by the home of Mary and Martha at Bethany after their brother, Lazarus, died, and Jesus raised him from the dead.

He came by a woman who had suffered from internal hemorrhaging for 12 years and she reached out to touch the hem of his garment and the flow of blood stopped.

The disciples were out on the sea of Galilee and a storm came up, as they do often, and suddenly Jesus came by walking on the water and the winds and the waves obeyed him.

A pilgrim to Jerusalem from a place we now know as Libya was in a crowd when Jesus, bearing his heavy cross, came by, and the visitor was impressed into service, and his name is listed among the Christians St. Paul greets in his letter to the Romans.

When Jesus comes by people change.

Through the centuries the Church has said there is one special place where we know Jesus “comes by” on a regular basis. That place is known by different names: the Eucharist, the Communion, the Lord’s Supper. And there are different understandings among Christians about exactly how Jesus comes by here around the table. The Roman Catholic Church believes that the actual elements of bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament.

On the other hand, others believe the elements are only a symbol and the meal is simply a memorial. Presbyterians and many other Protestant churches hold that Christ is spiritually present here, in the sacrament itself, in the eating of the bread together and the drinking of the wine together, and in the prayers and readings, that the elements remain bread and wine and do not change, but the entire meal is more than simply a memorial, as we would remember someone famous who died. No, by the power of the Holy Spirit given to the Church Christ is again spiritually present with us, in our singing, our praying, our crying, in our anxieties and fears, our joys and celebrations, just as he came by people of old in those Judean hills or on the sea of Galilee or on his way to his death. But we have to do our part: we have to believe that he is who he said he is, our Lord and Master, our divine Savior, the one who has power both to heal and to forgive sins.

The first Beatitude is “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The New English Bible translates that as “Blessed are those who know their need of God….” That is really the requirement. Those who don’t know their need will not see him when he comes passing by, but those who do, and who come with humble hearts to this feast He has prepared, and who call out to him saying simply “come by here, Lord, come by here” the absolute promise is that he will be here among us, as he said he would, to the close of the age.

During Lent – the forty days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, not counting Sundays – we look again to deepen our spiritual lives. Jesus was in the wilderness forty days and nights and went through the most intense testing, what we would call today spiritual preparation. Mark is not 15 verses into his gospel before he has us with Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. Our own practice of deepening our spiritual lives should include self examination and repentance. St. Paul himself wrote “the good I would I do not and the evil that I would not, that I do.”

If St. Paul could be so objective about his own spiritual condition, how much more should we? But the purpose, as St. Paul also made clear, is not grovel or feel bad about ourselves, but instead to look to Christ, who went to the cross for us and for our salvation, and though he was rich became poor for our sakes that we through his poverty might become rich, rich in the things of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

If we do our part, examining ourselves, not taking what he did for us lightly, and then accepting his invitation to “Come unto me”, then he will do His part and Come by here. He always does and he always will.