Who Will be Saved?

"People who..." According to the Gospel

People who minimize, hide or lie to Him about their sins. Kind of like Photini, the Woman at the Well.

People who can’t see Him because they are blinded by life, but sense a divine healing presence passing by and call out for mercy even when His followers are telling them to shut up and get lost. Kind of like Bartimaeus the Blind Man by the side of the road.

People who are caught in the act of sin, brought still sweaty and half-naked before God by His followers, rightly accused and damned by both Scripture and Tradition. Kind of like the Woman Taken in Adultery.

People who haven’t gotten “in the water” to be saved because of the lack of compassion, assistance, recognition or ministry by His followers. Kind of like the cripple by the Pool of Bethesda.

People who question their lifelong held Traditions in light of what they have perceived in Him, but are so entrenched that they cannot openly seek Him for fear of rejection or reprisal by their leaders and community. Kind of like Nicodemus.

People who cannot be healed by the inner circle of the Called and Chosen Ministers of God who fall short of their calling. Kind of like the Epileptic Son.

People who cannot get up and even take one step toward God by their own powers because they are crippled by life, but are surrounded by a community who brings them before Him. Kind of like the Paralytic Lowered Through the Roof by his friends.

People who are outcasts because they are overpowered by their personal demons and live in their darkness and chains on the fringe of humanity and their religious community that won’t or can’t touch them. Kind of like the Gerasene Demoniac.

People who, for no rational, theological or discernable reason just cannot see God. Kind of like the Man Born Blind, who neither his parents nor he sinned.

People who are grateful and who are ungrateful. Kind of like the Ten Lepers who were all healed.

People who make up their own rules about how to approach God to be saved because none of the rules and prescriptions given to them by their religion or irreligion has worked. Kind of like the Woman With the Issue of Blood who secretly reaches for the hem of The Garment.

People who tell God what to do because they know He can do whatever He wants, even if He doesn’t want to. Kind of like the Centurion who knew authority and the power of a Word’s commandment.

People who laugh at Him because they don’t think He can fix THEIR problem. Kind of like the family of the Dead Daughter.

People who insult Him and question His “pedigree” as a god. Kind of like Nathaniel.

People who live wantonly, but in the dark night of their soul they have sold, offer up a random, pointless gift to Him, bought with the wages of their sins, not in a Temple but upon a dirty, smelly but sacred altar. Kind of like The Harlot who anointed His unwashed feet.

People who lived reprobate lives, got caught and sentenced… and as a last ditch desperate move decide to toss a prayer toward the sky because, what the hell, there’s nothing to lose at this point. Kind of like Dismas.

People who don’t see Him doing and being what they thought He was going to do and be for them, so they bail out and deny being a Follower of who they thought they were following and have to reconstruct who He is in their life. Kind of like Peter.

People who are so dead and far gone they will not, cannot, and have no capacity to ask to be saved, and in fact they’re so rotten they stink and everyone has written them off as beyond His power to save.

But they get raised from the dead.

Without their asking. Without their will. Without a glimmer of life withing them. Without their consent. Without their cooperation. Without God asking them if they want to be raised from their death.

They are given life purely by the weeping love and will of Him who grieves the rotting death of His creation.

Kind of like Lazarus.

I think that covers all of humanity.

Who then can be saved?

Perhaps a better question is, “Who then can be damned?”