As an introvert, it’s not uncommon for my body and my mind to be in different places at the same time. In my marriage, this penchant often operates like a mischievous little spirit, contriving scenarios in order to make me look comical. One of its favorite tricks to play is the one where it engages my mind with a particular thought while engaging my mouth in a conversation completely unrelated to what I am thinking about. Sometimes conversations can last as long as five minutes or more until Becky, observing the glassy look in my eyes, turns and says to me, “Chad, what did I just say?”
In my mind, one of the most remarkable things about human beings is how one can be in the same room with them—even talk to them—and yet not actually be with them. This usually happens in one of two ways: (1) either one or the other person has their mind on something else; (2) or, both people are using the same words to describe different things. How often do we not find that people who appear to be sharing in the same conversation are really talking about different things? That there is more to people than meets the eye can be both inviting and forbidding, but in either case it is part of what it means to be a human being.
The chasm between knowing a lot of facts about a person and really knowing a person is surely very wide
I sometimes think, “If this is how it is with ordinary individuals, how much more so with Jesus?” The chasm between knowing a lot of facts about a person and really knowing a person is surely very wide. It is sometimes said that one only knows a person when one knows their heart. But one can only know the heart of another person by choosing to believe what they say of themselves—risky business. That’s how it is with Jesus. It seems so hard, yet knowing Jesus is as simple as believing in what he says of himself: I and the Father are one (Jn. 10:30); and I have come down from heaven to do the will of the one who sent me (Jn. 6:38). If we believe that the heart of God is expressed in the work of Jesus, that the death and resurrection of this person accomplished the greatest possible good, then we know who Jesus is.
In a certain sense, many of the people who were “with” Jesus were not really with him at all
The world we live in today is not so different from that in which Jesus lived: there were a lot of questions about who he was. It is, perhaps, for this reason that Jesus said to Peter, “who do you say that I am?” In a certain sense, many of the people who were “with” Jesus were not really with him at all—they, in fact, could not have been further apart. Jesus understood that the only one who could be with him was the one who knew him, and that the only one could know him was the one who believed in him. It’s astonishing to think that a believer in the 21st century could be more contemporary with Jesus than the thousands who saw him face to face, yet never believed. Astonishing, yet true: the question of who Jesus is does not depend so much upon being with him, but upon being with him: His presence here on earth never becomes a thing of the past, never becomes more and more distant… As long as there is a believer, this person must be just as contemporary with Christ’s presence as his contemporaries were (S. Kierkegaard).
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