No. 60 Unshop

Then someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”…

If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; then come and follow me. Matthew 19:21, Mark, 10:21, Luke 12:33, Luke 18:22

I suppose the two things I love about God the most are His sense of humor and His timing.

Here we are shopping till we faint so that we can give birthday presents to Jesus who lives within the hearts of our friends and family. Meanwhile, by my side is my little home-made book, The Mark, from which I retrieve each command in disciplined sequence to contemplate and write about. Now, during the biggest shopping week of the year I have to tell my aspiring immortals friends that if they want to succeed they should sell everything. I suppose that includes our Christmas presents. Now that is a funny coincidence!

But, just maybe this is the Christmastime command after-all.

When Jesus Christ left the throne room of God to become a naked baby, He divested himself of all he had in order to gain the treasure of our souls to give to His Father. Throughout His earthly walk Jesus had no possessions that we know of, so to be like perfect-Jesus would mean to have no possessions.

However, this was a leading question. The man asked Jesus what good deed he needed to do to become immortal, assuming that a deed could purchase his ticket to heaven. Consequently, Jesus gave the man a deed, the perfect deed, the Christmas deed, His very first miracle which I call, The Great Condescension.

You and I know that it takes more than giving to the poor and becoming one of them to attain immortality, it takes divesting oneself from the evils of pride and hubris to become like Christ by following His commands, the Marks. So I say, let’s admit to not being perfect, keep our Christmas presents, and aim for these Marks!