This week in our Tuesday 6:00 group, we had a conversation about Jesus. We were kind of all over the place. We were responding to this quote from our book, The Restoration Project:
If you were to imagine that Jesus is with you right now, where would he appear? Would he be beside you, a companion on the way? Is he ahead of you, leading to an unknown destination? Is he behind you, holding you up in ways known and unknown? Or is he in front of you, holding you in his gaze, teaching or commissioning you for some work only you can do? (p. 85).
Where is Jesus?
In a literal, spatial way? I didn’t quite have an answer.
The answer is…all over. Jesus is in the sacraments, feeding me. Jesus is kind of laughing at me when I spin out wild story lines of anxiety and self-criticism, gently inviting me to be quiet and be loved. Jesus might sit next to me when I meditate, when I’m fidgety and can’t focus. But is Jesus the person, the first century Nazarene Jew really there? I don’t know. Where is Jesus? I don’t know…maybe he stepped out to fill the bird feeder or turn over the compost?
It’s much easier to encounter God in the abstract; praying with the Spirit who “intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8: 26). It’s easier to imagine God as Creator, bringing life out of nothing in primordial banging planets, and then receding from consciousness. It’s easier to imagine Jesus walking dusty roads long ago, turning upside down the consciousness of those he met. I love the Emmaus Story when Jesus walks with the disciples and they only realize it was him as they are eating – and then he disappears.
But here’s something. This morning, with the Sisters of Saint Anne, we celebrated Eucharist in the chapel surrounded by huge paintings of Jesus from artist Janet McKenzie – her rendition of the Stations of the Cross. We read her book, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit a few years ago in our daytime book group. McKenzie’s Jesus doesn’t have much in common with the Good Shepherd in our window. Her images are dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed. They’re honest, his face in pain but also love, a body in motion, but also deep exhaustion and a moment of rest. We don’t after all, know what he looked like, but chances really are not that good that he was blue eyed and blond. It’s not just the “more accurate” picture of the paintings that makes you pay attention – it’s texture, nuance, and light. Jesus is somehow there in those paintings. I have traditional icons in my prayer space both at home and in the office, but I don’t quite encounter Jesus like I did this morning.
So there’s that. I sometimes wish I had the kind of spirituality where I could just go for long walks and have Jesus by my side in glorious and mutual back and forth conversation. Usually it’s more subtle than that, and for the most part I’m OK with that (you may be relieved to know that the Donatist heresies settled the question as to whether the piety of the priest impacts whether the sacrament works-it doesn’t – so you are all OK even if I edge into theological danger zones!)
Either way, the life of Christ in the church is as real as my own kitchen table, the pattern of death and resurrection near to me as my heart. And for that I am grateful, even if I can’t put it on a seating chart, locating the transcendent love of God with the right preposition. Maybe someday. Where is Jesus for you?