Jesus Calls "the Marginals" to the Epicenter

Lenten greetings from the epicenter of the Gospel! Throughout history, God chooses people from the margins—or what I call “the marginals” from the societal periphery—to catalyze the epicenter of His movement. This is still true today. Jesus is calling you and I from the margins to the epicenter! Last week I stood at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem where Jesus ascended after famously declaring, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) This was Jesus mandating the Great Commission.

Today, we celebrate the outworking of this world-changing verse as one-third of the world’s population now self-identifies as Christian. What defies logic is that Jesus issued this mandate, not to accomplished men from the great city of Jerusalem, but to a ragtag team (perhaps a bit fishy smelling) of “men of Galilee” who “were unschooled, ordinary men” (Acts 1:11, 4:13). They did not have fine manners. Being from the countryside, they were feeling displaced and diminished in this sprawling magnificent city of commerce, governance, and knowledge. They were all traumatized, having witnessed their leader publicly crucified as a criminal. They were already feeling homesick and now Jesus is asking them to stay longer in Jerusalem where it endangered their lives to be associated with Jesus. No matter how they felt, Jesus chose the simple to shame the wise. Today, 2000 years later, God has not changed His ways. God is choosing you and I, ordinary men and women irrespective of background or sense of adequacy, to engage and ignite the epicenter of the Great Commission.

The call to engage the epicenter of the Great Commission is for us, the marginals, ordinary people giving our “yes” to Jesus. Our simple “yes” unfolds great unpredictable consequences. Two days ago, I also visited Nazareth, Galilee, a podunk town back in Jesus’ time, overshadowed by the looming Galilean city of Tiberias named after the Roman emperor Tiberius. It was such an inconsequential town that Nathaniel mocked, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1.46) But it was here that God called a Jewish teenage girl to birth the Savior of the World. She knew her “yes” meant irreversible shame and then being stoned to death. Yet she replied, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38) As a marginal, she was willing to go to the extreme to obey Jesus.

Today, Jesus is calling the marginals, ordinary people like you and me, to continue to thrust forward the epicenter of the Great Commission. Some of us are from broken homes; some of us feel too old; some of us are like the Galileans who don’t know life beyond our town, let alone go to the ends of the earth; some of us have limited education and means; some of us are like Mary, too young in a man’s world. But, today, Jesus is calling you and I to be part of making Jesus known, loved and worshiped to the ends of the earth. Will you take time out to hear His voice during this Lenten season? Ask Him to speak. And as we hear, may we respond, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Blessings from the Holy Land,

Mary
Dr. Mary Ho, DSL

All Nations International, Inc. | International Executive Leader
Reaching the neglected globally -- the least, the last, and the lost
comm@allnations.international

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