My five-year-old son, Michael, disappeared.

OK. It was only for a moment eleven years ago, but I
aged twenty years in that moment.

Have you ever lost anything really valuable?

The scriptures tell us that we cannot understand the
world in which we live and the history we create
without understanding this: Something really
valuable is missing and God wants it found.

Do you come to worship with a grateful heart, but are
mindful of those who are missing?

Not the regulars, the believers who know their way, but
the ones who do not even know there is a God who
misses them? If you do, it is because the wind of
God has passed over you.

The WIND.

The scriptures tell us that,

In beginning…the earth was empty, a formless
mass cloaked in darkness. And the wind of God
was hovering over the chaos. Gen 1.2

The wind came first.

In the conception of Jesus the wind blew over the virgin.

At the birth of the Jesus movement the wind howled
in Jerusalem.

In the creation of the heavens and the earth the wind
hovered over the chaos.

Where there is chaos, darkness, and emptiness, the
winds appear. It has been said, “the church exists by
mission as fire exists by burning.” Wind is my
metaphor for mission.

God has given to us a mission to find the missing.

The fact that someone is missing is chaos, darkness,
emptiness. The fact that there are those who set out
to find them is wind.

Make no mistake, traveling into the emptiness can be
perilous, even for wind. But we
go because it is a mission motivated by love.

It’s true. God calls to action, some look for nurture.
God promises trouble, while others seek comfort
and safety. God demands attention, some look
around to see what others will do about it.

But, a growing few simply put on their battle gear,
without regard for their own reputations and safety,
put their eyes on Jesus, and, in an effort to rescue
those God misses most, follow him.
They find others like themselves on the way, and
join with them.

People of the wind they are.

into the mystic…

© alex mcmanus, 2005