Embodying Jesus
Embodying Jesus
Wednesday of the First Week of Lent – March 4, 2020
Following Jesus does not mean holding the right beliefs or advocating for the proper doctrines.
Following Jesus is not a matter of becoming more moral.
Following Jesus is not about joining a church or pledging allegiance to a religious institution.
To follow Jesus, we go where Jesus goes . . . engage those Jesus engages . . . love as Jesus loves . . . live compassionately as Jesus lived compassionately. In short, following Jesus means that we embody the life and spirit of Jesus in our world.
This is no simplistic what-would-Jesus-do, but rather an actual engagement with the world in the spirit of Jesus. With Jesus as our source and center, we allow him to live in and through us. The Apostle Paul called this being “in Christ.” And in Christ, we embody God in the world.
In the paragraphs below, Henri Nouwen says we are destined to become like the life of Jesus. We are invited into his life, here and now in our world.
Our lives are destined to become like the life of Jesus. The whole purpose of Jesus’ ministry is to bring us to the house of his Father. Not only did Jesus come to free us from the bonds of sin and death, he also came to lead us into the intimacy of his divine life. It is difficult for us to imagine what this means. We tend to emphasize the distance between Jesus and ourselves. We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings. But in thinking this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life. He came to lift us up into loving community with the Father. Only when we recognize the radical purpose of Jesus’ ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life. Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive. All that Jesus does we may also do. Jesus doses not speak about us as second-class citizens. He does not withhold anything from us: “I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father” (Jn. 15:15); “Whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself” (Jn. 14:12). Jesus wants us to be where he is. In his priestly prayer, he leaves no doubt about his intentions: “Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you. . . . I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so completely one that the world will realize . . . that I have loved them as much as you loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may always see the glory you have given me. . . . I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them” (Jn. 17:21 – 26).
These words beautifully express the nature of Jesus’ ministry. He became like us so that we might become like him. He did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself and became as we are so that we might become like him and thus share in his divine life.
This radical transformation of our lives is the work of the Holy Spirit. The disciples could hardly comprehend what Jesus meant. As long as Jesus was present to them in the flesh, they did not recognize his full presence in the Spirit. That is why Jesus said: “It is for your own good that I am going because unless I go, the Advocate [the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. . . . When the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learned; and he will tell you of the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: All he tells you will be taken from what is mine” (Jn. 16:7, 13 – 15).
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o I ponder God’s invitation to embody the life of Jesus in my moment-by-moment experience today. I seek to be conscious of his presence in all the ways I live, move, and have my being today.
o Intimacy with God can seem intimidating. Even if I am open to intimacy with God, I cannot make it happen. I can only receive it as it comes.
o I consider a time in my life when I felt most alive or most loved. I remember a time when I gave love to someone else. I think about how God was present in that experience.
Wednesday of the First Week of Lent – March 4, 2020
Following Jesus does not mean holding the right beliefs or advocating for the proper doctrines.
Following Jesus is not a matter of becoming more moral.
Following Jesus is not about joining a church or pledging allegiance to a religious institution.
To follow Jesus, we go where Jesus goes . . . engage those Jesus engages . . . love as Jesus loves . . . live compassionately as Jesus lived compassionately. In short, following Jesus means that we embody the life and spirit of Jesus in our world.
This is no simplistic what-would-Jesus-do, but rather an actual engagement with the world in the spirit of Jesus. With Jesus as our source and center, we allow him to live in and through us. The Apostle Paul called this being “in Christ.” And in Christ, we embody God in the world.
In the paragraphs below, Henri Nouwen says we are destined to become like the life of Jesus. We are invited into his life, here and now in our world.
Our lives are destined to become like the life of Jesus. The whole purpose of Jesus’ ministry is to bring us to the house of his Father. Not only did Jesus come to free us from the bonds of sin and death, he also came to lead us into the intimacy of his divine life. It is difficult for us to imagine what this means. We tend to emphasize the distance between Jesus and ourselves. We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings. But in thinking this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life. He came to lift us up into loving community with the Father. Only when we recognize the radical purpose of Jesus’ ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life. Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive. All that Jesus does we may also do. Jesus doses not speak about us as second-class citizens. He does not withhold anything from us: “I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father” (Jn. 15:15); “Whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself” (Jn. 14:12). Jesus wants us to be where he is. In his priestly prayer, he leaves no doubt about his intentions: “Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you. . . . I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so completely one that the world will realize . . . that I have loved them as much as you loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may always see the glory you have given me. . . . I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them” (Jn. 17:21 – 26).
These words beautifully express the nature of Jesus’ ministry. He became like us so that we might become like him. He did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself and became as we are so that we might become like him and thus share in his divine life.
This radical transformation of our lives is the work of the Holy Spirit. The disciples could hardly comprehend what Jesus meant. As long as Jesus was present to them in the flesh, they did not recognize his full presence in the Spirit. That is why Jesus said: “It is for your own good that I am going because unless I go, the Advocate [the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. . . . When the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learned; and he will tell you of the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: All he tells you will be taken from what is mine” (Jn. 16:7, 13 – 15).
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o I ponder God’s invitation to embody the life of Jesus in my moment-by-moment experience today. I seek to be conscious of his presence in all the ways I live, move, and have my being today.
o Intimacy with God can seem intimidating. Even if I am open to intimacy with God, I cannot make it happen. I can only receive it as it comes.
o I consider a time in my life when I felt most alive or most loved. I remember a time when I gave love to someone else. I think about how God was present in that experience.
ReplyDeleteI resonate with the phrase “we go where Jesus goes”. It seems Jesus often choses to go where there is pain. The challenge (and good news) for me, in “going where Jesus goes” or going towards pain, is that I have to also go where the “pain” is within me.
My initial response to this call is fear and resistance. The good news(or relief) is that - “what if where my pain is, Jesus is too?” . Now instead of instinctive or habitual resistance, I can gently lean towards “pain” and experience an intimacy with Jesus.
Thanks for your blog post!
Beautiful reflection! Thanks for sharing your own experience and observation. jw
ReplyDelete