For starters, I don't really know.
Even if I had lived in the correct time and place to manage a face-to-face encounter with Jesus, chances are he wouldn't exactly have been my type... and I think it's safe to say I wouldn't have been his. Most sources agree that Jesus, whatever else he may have been, was something of a holy man, a Jewish sage who travelled his native region teaching wisdom and, allegedly, performing miracles. In other words, he and I wouldn't have had much in common. Since I myself am about as far from sagely as anyone could ever get, it's hard to imagine a holy man who could look at me with anything but a politely dismissive glance.
And, of course, it takes more than polite dismissal to earn my affection.
Perhaps more to the point, though, Jesus lived over two thousand years ago, in a remote part of the world that also just happens to be across the globe from where I have always lived. Plainly, history has denied me the chance to sit down across a room from this man and engage him as a fellow human being. What this means is that my "encounters" with Jesus should have amounted to no more than the encounters of a reader with a character in a book, or a student with a historical figure, because this is ostensibly the stature to which Jesus has been reduced by the elapsing cycles of time. Now, there have been cases in which a reader feels an odd kind of connectedness to a character in a book, almost to the point of loving that (perhaps even fictional) person; the same sort of thing has happened to many a history fanatic as they admire a historical figure of particular appeal. The sane among us, however, are generally aware that these sorts of at-a-distance infatuations cannot compare with the experience of loving a contemporary individual who plays some manner of role in our daily lives. If I had only known Jesus as a name in a book, he would still not have earned what could properly be called my love. Our exploration leads us elsewhere.Of course, I have thus far failed to mention that I was raised in that particular community of faith that most intimately associates itself with the person and message of Jesus, that is, the Christian Church. As many of you may know from firsthand experience, Christians have an interesting way of thinking and talking about Jesus that renders him more than just a historical figure, more than a name in a book. To the faith community of my upbringing, Jesus was the lens through which we viewed the world. We were constantly reminded of his words and actions; they were supposed to have an immediate bearing on how we lived out our days, and thus for many of us Jesus became an almost personal presence in our homes, our gatherings, our daily doings. Notice, though, that I still say only almost. Being the founder of my religion and the guide of my moral compass wouldn't automatically make Jesus personal to me, wouldn't mean he was my best friend or anything. For quite a few people who rightly qualify as practicing Christians, Jesus has not reached this level, and that's because, obviously, it's not necessary. Such a phenomenon shouldn't have to occur.
But with me... it did.
Why? We still haven't gotten much closer to an answer here. And I don't know that I can bring us any closer myself. Suffice it to say that I think it began in my early childhood, and I know it has continued to develop throughout my life into something deeper and richer than I would ever have predicted. Make no mistake: my regard for this man Jesus is more like the very pungent and personal variety of love that can develop between two people who truly know each other from daily life than it is like any other kind of love I know.
The Christians say that Jesus is more than a historical figure, more than a guy in story or a name in a book. They tell me that Jesus is alive today, the same way I am alive, except perhaps more so. The Christians claim that Jesus is really present; that he is watching me as I go about my daily life, and that kind of like Santa Claus he sees me when I'm sleeping and knows when I'm awake. Which actually sounds creepy and bizarre, not like something I would normally believe, and yet I do. I can't explain my experiences any other way, and weird as it sounds, as I sit here today in twenty-first century America, I am strangely comfortable saying along with the Christians that Jesus really must be alive and present with me. Right here. Right now.
I may as well quit beating around the bush and tell you what I believe, since you have a right to know. I believe that my strong sense of friendship and fellowship with Jesus is a result not of an especially intense infatuation with a historically, culturally, and geographically distant figure, nor of an especially intense admiration for the founder of my religion, nor even of an especially intense form of kookiness, but the result of the preexistent reality of Jesus' love for me. I believe that Jesus is alive, yes, and present, and that Jesus knows my heart, knows more about me than I know. And yet in spite of my quite evident lack of religiosity or spiritual impressiveness, my blatant identity as anything but a first-century Jewish sage, I believe that Jesus loves me. And that, frankly, is the underlying reason why I love him. So unlikely, so preposterous, this love; culture, and time, and distance, they all should have made it impossible, and yet here it is. I feel it underneath me, reverberating below the surface of my twenty-first century American existence with a resonance and a depth that transcends time.
I want to show you other reasons for this crazy love of mine. Want to show you the Jesus I know so well, the one I grew up with, treading patiently and passionately through stories made familiar to me by repetition, stories from the four books in the Christian Scriptures known as the Gospels. I also want you to discover Jesus with me in the patterns of my daily life, among friends, family, strangers, trees, skies, wind. He is everywhere and in everything if you look. My hope is that, as this collection of reflections unfolds, my love for this person will evolve before your eyes in some way: maybe it will gradually seem more ridiculous, maybe gradually less, or maybe I will just seem especially creative and visionary and eccentric in my passion for this mysterious character from the annals of time and space. Think whatever you want of me and of Jesus, but I am inviting you to just come along on this journey, encountering the same incredible person over and over again in different forms - in word, in flesh, in blood, in nature, in story, in song, in situation after situation, emotion after emotion. I'm excited to begin, but I guess I really felt that before we got started, I should explain where I was coming from, so here it is:
I love him because he first loved me.
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