Corban: Bring Me Closer, Jesus

When Everything We Call Sacred Becomes Love

Among the ancient words preserved in the Gospels, Corban carries a beautiful original meaning.

Corban.

An offering brought near to God.

The word belongs to the language of consecration, something precious taken into our hands and dedicated to the Holy.

Yet when Jesus speaks of Corban in Mark's Gospel, He turns our attention toward a troubling possibility:

What if the very thing we call sacred becomes the place where we hide from love?

Jesus confronts a religious practice through which possessions could be declared Corban — dedicated to God — while responsibility toward one's own father or mother was neglected.

And suddenly this ancient word becomes piercingly contemporary.

We can pray and refuse reconciliation.

We can build ministries while neglecting those nearest to us.

We can consecrate our homes while withholding tenderness within them.

We can speak beautifully about Christ while remaining unwilling to forgive.

We can offer extraordinary things to God while withholding the one offering He is asking of us:

our heart made available to love.

Corban therefore asks a searching question:

Does my devotion to God bring me nearer to love?

Because the root beneath Corban carries the sense of drawing near.

What we truly offer to God should bring us nearer.

Nearer to Him.

Nearer to Truth.

Nearer to responsibility.

Nearer to one another.

Nearer to the person we would rather avoid.

This is where consecration becomes incarnation.

The offering does not remain lifted toward heaven.

It returns through our hands into the world as love.

And perhaps this is the prayer hidden inside Corban:

Jesus Christ, let my offering become love.

Let my prayer become presence.

Let my devotion become tenderness.

Let my worship become service.

Let my forgiveness become embodied.

Let everything I place before You draw me nearer to You — and therefore nearer to those You love.

Until there is no separation between the life I call sacred and the way I meet the person standing before me.

Corban.

What I bring near to God,

God returns to the world as Love.