who are you jesus?

While the people that we have read about this week are similar to those we met in previous weeks—seekers, skeptics, disciples—the encounters seem to me to have a different tone. The very concrete physical world in which we live is where these questioners live. But the dialogues they have with Jesus push them into another realm. Sometimes they can make the leap but often the gap is just too wide. Misunderstanding, lack of comprehension, doubt plague most. And yet the Jesus John portrays continues to respond, to explain. Over the centuries we continue to search these lines of text, continue to pray these passages, continue to hold in silence this Jesus. And at times truth breaks through. We watch the angels ascending and descending; we are born of the spirit; we drink at the well of living water; we know the Son of God.

But more often perhaps I return to the world I know best, what we call the “real world”. My doubts and questions return with a vengeance. I plead; please tell me clearly who you are. Please make the way plain. And yet my plea is couched; I don’t want to know too much so that I find too much is expected. I want to follow at my pace and with the comforts I find necessary. Visions of angels and discussions of rebirth are for the far-out, the emotional fringe, the fanatics. I want no street corner preacher; I like church the way we do it. I want no passionate healer who demands great change. I want no call to share the wealth or make friends with enemies.

Is it not clear who Jesus is? Is it not our closed eyes that prevents our seeing? Is it not our hard hearts that prevents our believing?

Lord Jesus, forgive. Amen.
Blessings, Caroline