This is the picture our daughter sent us when she learned of my scheduled installation as pastor of St. Matthew’s.  This is what comes of a quirky sense of humor and the photo-shopping proclivities of a graphic designer.  Jessica found a way to send sincere congratulations and a loving sentiment, and she managed to wrap it in irony so neither of us would be embarrassed (unless she reads this).

I like the humor.  My hard-as-nails step-father’s heart melts at the sentiment, no matter how ironic.  But I especially love the theology.  Jesus as our biggest fan.  Yes, that’s all right.  Too often, we in the church business (amateurs as well as us professionals), depict Jesus as a standard of moral and religious perfection who just barely reluctantly accepts our flailing, haphazard and often half-hearted attempts to live lives of loving service to God and others.  I don’t think Jesus is eternally looking down on us with disappointment, shaking his head at our pitiful performance.  On the contrary, I think Jesus really is cheering us on and is pleased as punch with every act of love and generosity we manage to eke out.

More than that, I think we have to get beyond the whole conception of an extraneous Jesus – outside us, looking in.  St. Paul repeatedly talks about being “in Christ.”  He ceases to recognize himself as a person who can be separated from Christ:

“[I]t is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Jesus too, before the Ascension, promised his disciples that he would be one with us.  The life of one who has new being in Christ is one in which we are made radically one with Christ.  He is in us and we are in him.  He is neither looking down on us with disdain nor merely cheering us on.  Through the Holy Spirit, Christ is united with us, shaping our will to serve God and to offer ourselves in love to one another.

Prayer:  God of my heart, keep me mindful today that you have made yourself one with me.  Make me one with you that I may know you at the core of my very self.  Amen.