Simple Chats

Chapter 1
Chats with Jesus
“Jesus, may I have a talk with you? It is presumptuous on my part, perhaps, to put it that way, but I think you will understand. My purpose in coming to you is to be instructed, to learn. I know that you became Man in order to redeem us, but I have also heard that you are the model of men and that you were sent by God to show us what the highest kind of manhood is. You once said: “Learn of me.” Well, that is what encourages me to try to look at you. If I knew you better I might be more Christlike in my actions.
It does not matter much what we talk about. In fact, there are so many sides to your character that it probably will take me a long time to grasp any one quality in you. How would it be if I just follow you through your public life and pick out points here and there on which I might do a little thinking and praying? You spent two and a half years in the face of men. You permitted them to come close to you. I would like to do just what the apostles were privileged to do, namely, to accompany you, to spend some hours with you in the hills, to observe you in the temple. It ought to be good for me just to be near you, to listen to some of those sterling truths which you spoke and to watch your character in action.”1
So why do I open with a long quote like this? A good question, I might say. But there is definitely good intentions here. I think that I am ready to begin some conversations with Jesus. I have found myself asking more and more questions while on the train. I am quite content with not knowing all of the details or all of the explanations. This is not something that is reserved for just today's blog, but will randomly appear throughout the blog postings. To me there is a real tension in the observation of who Christ was. Throughout history there have been heresies which label Christ more God than man or more man than God, some arguing that he was created by God later than God, or even that he was an angel sent by God, or I guess even as the Muslim's view him, as a great prophet. There is such a tension in how we talk with him, I suppose. I do not want to simplify him so much that I simply have meaningless conversations with him...and at the same time, I do not think that his intentions were to be a God that was completely removed from our lives, from our circumstance, and from what is important to us. The idea of tension, things that naturally contrast each other is heavy on my mind, there is a tension that is very real again in how we relate to Christ. So I am not sure if this is the most theologically sound approach, I am not sure that this is the best way to process or work my way through the conflicts that I walk through in my faith, but I think that it will work, I think that will help in my journey, and you know, if it does not help...I will probably just stop the conversation for awhile.
So I am not really sure how to start the conversation, I mean, he already knows everything about me, he definitely knows my name, he knows the number of hairs on my head, he pretty much knows it all, so now that he knows so much about me, maybe it is my turn to find out some more about him. That is not to say that he does not reveal himself quite clearly in all of creation, but there is still more to know, or perhaps a better way to phrase it, there is more that I need to understand about him.
So chatting with Jesus, not quite the fireside chats or the town hall meetings of the political hopefuls, more of two friends sitting out on a hill in the country, or maybe even on a crowded metro train car in Los Angeles. I am excited to find out more about Jesus, I really think he is the one who will help me struggle through the tensions that are all around me.

1.Russell, Rev. W. H. Russell. Chats With Jesus. P.J. Kenedy & Sons: New York, 1941.