Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you wanna go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name
Counselor Curt Thompson has written that everyone comes into this world looking for someone looking for them. That’s not just psycho-babble. That’s biblical. We were created to have the face of God’s pleasure constantly shining upon us. We were created to know His deep, deep love for us and to live out of the brilliance of that love. No shame. No fear. Just pure enjoyment in His presence as we work, rest, play, procreate, and relate to one another.
The face of God’s pleasure was lost in the fall of man when we chose to go our own way and seek our pleasure elsewhere. Ever since, we have been trying to get back to that inherent desire for unadulterated love. We are constantly looking for someone looking for us and not finding it anywhere in this world.
The Christian finds the pleasure of God’s face in Jesus Christ who came, not to condemn the world for their turning away from Him, but to rescue the world and bring it back into God’s pleasure. God the Father turned His face away from Jesus when Jesus took on our sin, so that our sins would be forgiven us and we could once again be loved fully by the Father. The gathering of Christians (The Church) is to be the place, although imperfectly, where people experiencing the face of God’s pleasure display it for others.
What about those who don’t know Jesus? All people long for someone (and someone’s) looking for them. Some are finding each other in places like the famous T.V. bar on Cheers. It is quite a rush when you walk into your favorite watering hole and hear your name known and shouted with a welcome from other patrons. Like Norm, and Sam, and Cliff, and Carla, and Woody, and Diane a bar can be a place of shared stories and camaraderie and celebration.
A glorious welcome should be one of the most obvious characteristics of the local church for the believer in Jesus and, even more so, for the skeptic and the non-Christian who is looking for that Someone looking for them. The Church is made of people with the greatest possible common denminator . . . the body and blood of Christ given for them. If the Church is to be the face of Jesus to others, we need more of Him and less of us. We are the Heavenly Father’s adopted children. We are brothers and sisters with Christ as our elder Brother. Can we be the people who bless others through the blessing we have received from Christ’s glorious gaze upon us?