Who Jesus Is To Me

The friend who originally asked the question "Who Is Jesus To Me?" answered his own question this way:

I haven't really articulated in any way like you have. I don't think Tessie has, either (although I will ask her).

All I know is that when I come to prayer, God (my notion of Him) is the great God, the Creator of everything; whose Wisdom I see in every created "miracle" around me (especially my body); and Jesus is the Word (God) Made Flesh so that he (Jesus) can communicate this mysterious Love of God for me in a way that I can understand. And He died for me in a way (in the way He suffered, was scorned, reviled, crucified) that maybe I cannot fully understand because I have not suffered that way (nut which maybe the poor and marginalized and near-desperate can better understand).

God loves me--and "plays" with me--in somewhat an analogous way to the way I love and play with our dog. And that's alright. He wants me to cuddle up to Him, and I do.

But Jesus I still have to get to know in a more personal way.

That's why--as I said in my "original" e-mail that started all of this--I turned to resolving to study more of Jesus's life . . . as expressed in the Gospels, as I must try to "interiorize" for myself.


My Response:

Yes, I love the way the Father plays with us and the way we can cuddle up to Him. When life gets too much for me, God Papa (that's how the Papua New Guineans call Him) sits on His rocking chair, pats His lap motioning me to climb on. I lean my head against His heart. He rubs my back and pats my hair while I "suck my thumb" and He croons a soothing song to quiet my heart.

To Jesus, I say, "Bend over, Lord, I want to ride piggy back." And He does and I climb on. I used to think that was just a whimsical thought I came up with until I found this line from Deuteronomy, "The one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders."

We often hear of prayer as communication with God. I believe it goes deeper - it is the entire relationship with God. After all we "communicate" with the cashier at the store or people we work with. Prayer is the relationship with God that is on a par with the relationship we have with our spouses, children, closest friends.

When we go to the Gospels to learn more about Him, we do because we see the way He relates to others, the way He deals with circumstances, His responses to the way others treat Him. We get the hang of Him, so to speak. But that is just one way.

As time passes, we realize there are other ways of "knowing" Him. In His relentless pursuit of us, the Hound Of Heaven reveals Himself to us in every possible way He can use. If we are paying the slightest bit of attention, we will notice that He "leaps" at us from every vantage point.

Nature: when I see a bird on the wing, I marvel at the gift it is from Him just to delight me. A totally blue sky without a cloud I count as a loveletter from Him. The stars at night are all jewels from His bounty just for me! I feel so loved by Him then. As Hopkins says, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God!" "Earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush is afire with God" agrees Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Add to that the Edna St. Vincent Millay line you gave me 61 years ago, "Oh God, I could push the grass apart and lay my finger on Your heart."

Other people: I come to understand His love when others love me as He does. Jack made God's love for me real by the way he loved me. I didn't realize how deep it went before. I understood God's compassion when a priest said to me in confession, "Why are you so hard on yourself? God isn't."

Scripture - just as you said.

The Sacraments - Receiving Him in the Eucharist is about as close as we can get to Him this side of heaven. Experiencing His mercy and forgiveness in Reconciliation is like being hugged by Him outright.

The Lives of Saints - reading about His friendships with the likes of Francis, Therese, Peter and the rest of them gives me perspectives of Him I might not have discovered by myself. When I observed how other couples related to each other, I learned more felicitous ways of relating to Jack.

Myself - I think this is what you mean by interiority. I finally understood how God loves us when I became a grandmother because though a bratty grandchild exasperated me beyond endurance, I still thought he was cute. When I hurt, it brings to mind that He was willing to assume humanity and also feel that pain; He didn't have to. When I watched "The Passion Of The Christ" and saw what He went through, all I could think of was "You loved us that much?" "You loved us that much?"

It is true that Jesus relates to us as individuals. All relationships are individual to individual. There is no one we relate to in exactly the same way we relate to another for the pure and simple reason that no one is ever any other. But when a friend tells me about how she and Jesus relate to each other, I learn a new way of seeing Jesus I had never seen before. When you tell me that He plays with you, it affirms His playfulness with me. It assures me that that isn't a figment of my imagination.

Thank you for starting all this because I find that I have been thinking of little else since and they are wonderful thoughts to think about.