Lenten week 1, reflection

I must make it clear that I don't write this blog to proselytize. To tell you the truth, I don't even know how to proselytize. I don't even understand the mechanics of how you would talk someone into believing a different religion. Religious belief and faith are such an intricate combination of both heartfelt feeling and rationalizations that I can think of no way to do it, so I don't even try.

Nonetheless, I do write from my religious perspective - not in the hope of prompting conversion to my brand of religion, but because it is the very air that I breathe in and out. So have no fear as I exhale that I am trying to make an incense-wielding, fish-eating, St.-Patrick's-day-marching papist out of you, my dear readers. :-) Nonetheless, if the deep inner love song of a Christian for his saviour is something that makes you uncomfortable, you should read no further.

I recently read someone's assertion that Christians are not given any reason to consider Jesus a friend. The reasoning goes something like this: the New Testament offers no phsyical description of him, tells us little about his upbringing, and the history of Christian iconography is a history of trying to close the gap on this mystery.

Well there is certainly no shortage of mystery regarding Jesus. Even with the narrative we do have, there are many things Jesus says and does in the gospels that are inscrutable and hard to fathom. But that is the beauty of every friendship people form - the delightful wonder of discovery as you learn new, surprising, and interesting things about someone whose depths seem unlimited.

St. Paul acknowledges the limits of our knowledge - "now, I know in part, but someday I will know fully, even as I am fully known." But does that mean we cannot consider Jesus a friend? Of course not. For salvation - saving someone - is the act of a friend. To me, he has already proven his friendship, many times over. I remember when I was 14, and waterskiing for the second time, a boat crossed my towline, between myself and the boat pulling me. I had no experience, but I let go the line. When I was 16, I flipped a three-wheeled ATV into the air, and fell to the ground. The vehicle landed on top of me, bounced, and fell into the ditch, an accident that should have killed me. I had nothing more than scratches and a bloody nose.

Were these things luck? Yes, dumb luck. But the day of my confirmation I had a vision of all these things, and I saw the friendship of Jesus and his saving hand in every one of these little incidents. That does not (and should not) prove it to you. But that is the nature of friendship - it is personal, private, and it does prove it to me.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father." (John 15:12-15)