Thursday October 26, 2017
Jesus was a young man, full of fire. When we get older we lose our fire and settle for a little warmth. But it is fire that transforms and purifies. I never imagine Jesus now as he was portrayed in repository art: with sad dreamy eyes (blue!), beautifully dressed, hair in ringlets, tenuously masculine. I think of him with fire in his eyes, with searing clarity in his speech and his actions, showing for the first time what a human being is, and what God is.
It’s unlikely that he came by it without a struggle. Many times he had to throw off the false identities that others had imposed on him. As a child he already knew that he was not just a nice family boy, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” Twenty years later the villagers wanted to keep him a villager; while some others wanted to make him a king. Others again thought he was “Elijah, or Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (all dead men!).
When he climbed a mountain late in the evening or stayed there all night in prayer, all labels, all old identities, were left far below. It may have been in times like those that he realized, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). Later he said of his life, “It is the Father living in me who is doing this work.” Living! Life is more frightening than death. Jesus alive is more frightening than Jesus dead. We have many strategies for keeping him dead.
