Maybe you remember the words to this little song: “Jesus loves me this I know, because the Bible tells me so.” Did you get a warm and fuzzy feelling when you heard it as a kid? I certainly did. But as I matured my understanding of who Jesus was in my life becamse more and more complicated to the point that by the time I was 30 I really didn’t want much to do with him at all. I remember being in a faith-sharing group at church and telling others that I had no problem with God the Creator nor the Holy Spirit, but I really couldn’t relate much to Jesus. I always believed, and still do, that some friendships have an expiration date and mine with Jesus had definitely expired.
So what happened to change my mind. Much. The change began when I was driving one day and decided to listen to a CD of Handel’s Messiah. The music is glorious and I had listened to it many times previous but never really paid much attention to the words. Wow, I thought as it was playing, so this is the story of Jesus in the gospels. (I cop to being a rather a late bloomer theologically.) The next event on my journey with Jesus was a number of years later. It was Good Friday and I attended the service at my local Episcopal church. After hearing the Priest recount the events of the first Good Friday I remember returning to my seat after receiving communion, putting my hand on my heart and saying these words silently to Jesus “What happened to you today will never happen again. They will have to go through me to get to you. You are finally safe.” Fast forward two years later. I had a dream in which I was in Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. I was in a crowd of people milling around Jesus before his entry in the city. He broke away from the crowd and came up to me so that we stood face to face. He embrased me tightly and the love that passed between us was mind-blowing. I really have no words to decribe the feeling. It was so much more than love between friends. We were in love with each other. Nothing was spoken but understood heart to heart. He turned back to the crowd and I woke up. I couldn’t go back to sleep because I was physically shaking. It felt like all the electrical circuits in my body had just blown big time.
Over the last several years I’ve gone through a period of deconstruction, leaving behind all the dogma around Jesus and organized religion and arriving at my understand of who the man Jesus was in first century Palestine and who he is today for me. I’ve read and studied much about the genesis of the early Christian Church and frankly no longer identify as a Christian. But Jesus remains my north star and will always be that for me. His message of love, compassion, inclusion, care for the poor, the lonely, the untoucables, the imagrants, the marginalized resonates with me big time.
In closing I’ll share one last experience of Jesus with you. I am a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Fredericksburg, VA. One Sunday several months back while attending the service and sitting in a seat next to the right aisle, I sensed that someone was standing in the aisle next to me. I turned my head but no one was there. A couple of minutes later I turned my head again, and while there was still no one there, I instinctively knew this time that it was Jesus. I didn’t see him but I could feel his presence. So I said silently, “Do you want to sit in the seat to my left?” It happened to be empty. He said “No, I’ll sit on your lap.” So he did, stayed and enjoyed himself for a few minutes and was gone.
This article was difficult to write because it is self-revelatory and personal. My hope is that my words might resonate with someone who has had a mystical experience of some sort in their spiritual journey. If you have, don’t be afraid to share it. It is your truth.