Before you cried a single tear, donated a single cent, followed a single feed, marched a single step, raised a single fist—

Before you were woke—

Jesus loved you.

The brown-skinned God-man who paid the price for your past so you can have a future is calling to you in your dis-ease:

“Come.”

Come with your bloody hands.
Come with your unrighteous heart.
Come with your impoverished soul.

Not in shame, not covering yourself with leaves of books about Whiteness and images of Black skin to hide your revealed nakedness as you point fingers of blame for your failure—

Come to him
with conviction,
scales falling from your eyes,
the mirror clearing.

Come with your broken heart.
Come with your heavy burden.
Come with your weary sin.

For he that knew no sin became it
for you
knowing full well what you’d be like,
all your –isms and –phobics and –ites,
and calls you still.

“Come.”

With your bias, your prejudice, your ignorance,
with your pride, disbelief, blind-and-deafness,
your excuses, apathy, and fragility.

Come
as you are—
as you were.

Lay down at his feet your sacrifice
of ego, red lines, and inherited authority.
Lift up to him a sacrifice
of praise and sorrow.

Come be seen so you can see.
Come be heard so you can hear.
Come be loved so you can love.

To all of you wringing your White hands, beating your chests, sobbing on your living room floor, agonizing over your oblivious silence—

good.

Feel the grief of Jesus.

And then come.