WHO IS JESUS CHRIST FOR ME?
Jesus is
love and He has been to me everything that love needs and desires to be for the
beloved. He is my God who desires so much for me that He wants me with Him for
all eternity, who asks only that I come to know Him and to receive His love not
because I deserve His love but that He is love itself and His abundance desires
to share Himself with me; to share all He has and all He is with me.
In this
pouring out of His infinite, unconditional, selfless and sacrificial love for
me, I am drawn increasingly deeper into a relationship with Him, called
increasingly to respond to His love with my love for Him. He is God who forgets
His own dignity as God and comes running after me to pursue me.
In times
of my unfaithfulness, Jesus’ faithful love in His graces to me softens my heart
and steers me back to Him. He knows I can only be truly happy when I walk with
Him. He left us with the story of the prodigal son so that in moments when my
sense of unworthiness keeps Him far at a distance, I can return to the
assurance that He stands waiting, looking out into the distance for me, and He
cannot wait to wrap the cloak of my identity around me and restore me again as
daughter of our Father. He knows I can only be my most authentic self when I
live with inner freedom as the person God has made me to be.
In my
anger and disappointments with others and at times, even with myself, Jesus comes
as a Mediator to persuade me to relent, to understand and to forgive. He knows
I will become bitter by accumulating such negativities. In my woundedness, He
comes to fill me with His love and life, to comfort and heal my brokenness. His
love for me desires to see me whole again and to live a life that is free from
the bondage of sin, committed by others and myself.
Jesus
sends people into my life to celebrate life’s joys and laughters with me. In
times of trouble, He sends help through generous people, even strangers.
Through the sacrament of human love that I have come to receive from family and
friends, He facilitates my understanding and acceptance of His love for me. When
the storms of life threaten me, He invites me to stop running away from the
storms but to remain, to learn to stand strong in them with Him as my Anchor, and
then to be the beacon of light that shines the way out of the storm for others.
Although I am weak and paralysed by fears, Jesus strengthens me and leads me to
a more mature faith in Him. His love will endure the pain of watching me
struggle through the storms because He knows it is the only way for me to grow.
Though I
always fall so short of loving Him, He is the Gardener who toils tirelessly in
the garden of my life; overturning plot by plot, patiently planting and
pruning, clearing and landscaping. This garden becomes more beautiful each time
and may even be the space for others to rest in and receive goodness that will
nourish their own lives. Jesus knows that my life is only worth living when it
is spent for others.
Jesus is
my companion through life. There is no sorrow too deep that His heart has not
yet been pierced by, no joy too intense that has never caused His heart to skip
a beat, no temptation too strong that He has not yet fought and overcome. He
knows everything I experience and if I turn to Him, I will never be found lacking
a compassionate listener who fully empathizes with what I am going through. His
is the peace through the Eucharist that calms my inner turmoil, the tranquility
through nature’s beauty that stills my anxious self, the joy through music that
transports me closer to heaven. His is the love, which becomes my energy to
love others.
Yet,
even with all these and more that Jesus is to me, my response of love can only
be an imperfect and incomplete one. And even knowing that this is all I can
give to Him, He still continues to be everything that love would be for the
beloved because being love itself, Jesus does not know how to be anything else
but love.
Who is Jesus for you?
