And. He. Came.

He comes. I love that about Him. He is the God who Comes. The God who shows up.

I wouldn’t have been capable of coming to Him if He hadn’t come to me first. Too far gone. That’s the reality of the human condition apart from Him.

So He came looking for me. Jesus came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Near and far, He was looking for me.

Peace personified stepped onstage. This verse in Ephesians describes Jesus by picking up the cry of Yahweh in Isaiah 57:19, “Peace to those far away and near.” And the peace is here because He delivered it Himself. Jesus came for my peace. He came to set things right. He came to us, so we could come to the Father.

He is the initiator of this process and this relationship. If I am seeking Him at all, it’s because He is seeking me. He came. He showed up on the scene of a world in need of a Savior. He showed up in my life story with an offer of peace.

Recently a friend of mine got to say goodbye in the parking lot to a woman being released at the end of her prison sentence. I’ll call her Scarlet. My friend, who volunteers at the prison, had noticed this inmate months before. Scarlet’s marked brokenness prompted prayer for this girl even though contact with her was minimal.

Near the end of her sentence, Scarlet had a lot of time alone. And she had a Bible. In a move uncharacteristic for her, she began to read it. She began to pore over it voraciously might be a better way to say it. And Jesus showed up in a prison cell to heal one little, broken lamb.

Now in the parking lot, my friend could hardly believe she was looking at the same girl she remembered from the prison yard.

Scarlet was beaming. She had encountered Jesus.

He came.

He didn’t even use anyone else to explain Him and lead her in prayer. He showed up in her cell and changed everything. I don’t know if she saw Him in a vision like many have experienced in countries closed to the gospel, or if she saw Him with the eyes of her heart. But clearly they had made eye contact with each other.

He showed up, and she was transformed. Her countenance was as remarkable now for its glow as it had been before for its bondage. Because He came.

She was boarding a bus to meet her sister, who just happens to be a Christian, and start a fresh, new chapter in another state. Because Jesus brought peace and has begun putting things right. Oh, how He loves her.

But here’s the thing that’s true for Scarlet and for you and me. He didn’t just come to say we can leave prison now. “For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:18). That encounter wasn’t the end of Scarlet’s story, just the beginning. Now life unfolds. Jesus led us out of prison to lead us into the presence of God.

He showed up with words of peace and an invitation to the throne room of heaven where I may address the Most Holy Sovereign as… Father?!

If that’s not grace. Who am I to enter such hallowed spaces? Speak out loud to the Infinite? It’s almost preposterous to hint that I should be here at all. You’re saying I can make myself at home?

Access granted. To the Father. A permanent, family relationship that is as close a tie as can be created.

I am welcome to enter where He is. I belong with Him. I am not denied, rejected, or barred. I am not second class, second tier, or second rate. The God who is higher than any president or power-broker or top-secret government meeting, than any business mogul on earth or spiritual authority in any realm or dimension of the heavenly places—that God invites me to call Him Father, and His door is open to me.

Jesus came. He showed up for you. And He showed up for the purpose of granting you access to the Father. An immense privilege that makes everything else in the world look very pale.