Spiritual Heroes: "Saint Jesus"

On the first Sunday of each month, we’re asking members of our Rolling Ridge community to share how their spiritual lives were transformed by the great heroes of faith. (Read the series introduction here.)

Today's article is written by Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes. In time for Transfiguration Sunday and the start of Lent, Steve begins our series with a profound and provocative meditation on Jesus.

When Michael Reed first suggested this series, many heroes and saints came to my mind who have taught me, modeled faith for me, and lived in a way that made me want to follow in their footsteps: prophets, artists, and mystics galore. But the one who really presented himself—in fact who sat there at the front of the group, smiling—was Jesus.

Whoa. Wait. Isn't that cheating? A “saint” implies a real person, not just a biblical character, right? Well, stay with me here. There are four Jesuses. There was Jesus of Nazareth, the historical guy who lived 2000 years ago. And then there's the Jesus of the Gospels, who is a different fellow. Yes, that Jesus is “based on a true story,” as we say, but he's a different Jesus. A Gospel is a faith statement in narrative form. The writers often presented Jesus doing and saying stuff they believed to be true about Jesus, but they weren’t writing a historical account as we'd see it today. Then there's a third Jesus: the Jesus of the church, different even from the one in the Gospels: Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, the host of the Eucharist, the one some people pray to, one encrusted with all sorts of theological and ecclesiastical jewels.

Then there's a fourth Jesus: my Jesus. Not a biblical character—though I first learned of him there—and not a theological composite or ecclesial icon, but a person, a presence in my life, just as real to me, just as much of a “saint” as my grandmother, or Julian of Norwich or Thích Nhat Hanh. The one who “walks with me and talks with me...” He's not like anybody else's Jesus... but he's not just my imaginary friend. He's too slippery for that, too free. Too real.

Of course I'm taken by his wisdom and his good stories and his healings. But deeper than that is how he relates. “Come to me, “ he says, “you who are weary...” And I totally fall for that. There's rest for my soul... with the weird paradox that it comes not from a cozy chair but a yoke. He says the yoke is light. So, Jesus, do you mean it's not heavy, or that it shines? He smiles, a twinkle in his eye. See, that's what gets me.

Saint Jesus is all about paradox. When in his most profound moment of pain, abandonment, and humiliation, he says "Today you shall be with me in paradise." I hear, "Today you shall be with me in paradox." With Jesus everything has a flip side, the dark side, the side of the Other. Everything means more than it says. The Great Commandment is just like another that's different. Dying is really about being born. Lose your life to find it.

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[H]e says "Today you shall be with me in paradise." I hear, "Today you shall be with me in paradox." With Jesus everything has a flip side, the dark side, the side of the Other. Everything means more than it says.

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This Sunday is the day of the Transfiguration, when the disciples behold the profound paradox of Jesus: He’s just told them he’s going to die, and he’s shining with resurrection light. The disciples receive this brilliant revelation and it’s also obscured by a cloud. They witness something remarkable and, at least in Luke’s telling, they can’t think of what to do about it. The cloud and the light are both true.

That paradox isn't just an intellectual puzzle; it's being taken out of my life and put into God's life, which is actually my real life. It's all about dying and rising. He says, “Look. Here's everything I ever taught and did: Trust God; be kind.” That's it. Trusting God and God's grace feels like dying because you have to let go of your worthiness. But then you get more life, straight from God. Born again. So then you pass on that kindness to others. Seeds in soil, coins in treasuries, time spent with lepers and prostitutes and ne'er-do-well disciples—it's all dying and rising.

Of course if you extend kindness to everybody you soon see how this world withholds kindness from certain people—and those are the ones Saint Jesus spent his time with. If you do, the world will be unkind to you. Hence the cross. But trust God: you'll receive new life despite the world's unkindness. Hence Easter. St. Jesus leads me in this dying-and-rising pilgrimage of kindness.

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Jesus teaches me joyful humility, to keep remembering that I'm undeservedly beloved, and to do my best to extend that belovedness to others. I watch Saint Jesus bless sinners and touch lepers; and something in the easy power of that makes me want to do the same. I watch him at the Last Supper, putting Judas in the place of honor, and it stops me. I can't do that, not quite. But I keep trying to learn. Sometimes I'm a slow learner.

But what I treasure about Saint Jesus is that as spiritually inept as I often am, he has never made fun of me. Oh, he nails my foibles, all right. But always with mercy, like even my worst sins are not faults but wounds. “I'm pretty messed up, aren't I?” I say. “Oh, you're so much more messed up than you think,” he says, laughing and shaking his head, putting his arm around me. And keeping it there. That's what gets me.

That arm around me is the profound paradox of being loved, but not because I'm worthy. I'm no less worthy than anyone, but to Jesus there's no such thing as “worthy.” There's no such thing as “deserving.” Everything is a gift. Everything. My belovedness is about his goodness, not mine. And yet, I am good. I am worthy. And I am most certainly beloved.

Saint Jesus acts with such easy grace, with authority, and yet with a kind of gentle openness that never makes assumptions. I watch him ask an obviously blind man who's clearly in need of healing “What do you want me to do for you?” And I'm almost disturbed by his patience, his willingness to ask and wait. Because it occurs to me he might ask the same of Donald Trump. That openness mystifies me. That willingness. He sees clearly, yet he's always curious, open to what he doesn't yet see. There's a dying-and-rising in his openness: willingness to surrender himself and his agenda for the sake of others, and somehow receive new life out of that. Even if that openness might get him in trouble, or at least engage him in something troublesome.

And Jesus always heads toward pain. He asks, “Where does it hurt?” though he already knows. I think he was there the first time I died.

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‍And Jesus always heads toward pain. He asks, “Where does it hurt?” though he already knows. I think he was there the first time I died. ‍

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Stay with me. It was back in the 1990's. I was working hard at a church, caring for my wife with cancer (she's fine now) and our three boys, performing music and comedy around the country and trying to save too many people's lives—basically being a SuperSteve. And then it all collapsed. I thought, “I can't do this.” And what I meant by “this” was to be Steve. And Saint Jesus said, “Yeah, let him go.” “Then I won't exist anymore!” I protested. He wasn't impressed. “I've seen worse.” So I died. I let “myself” go, let go of my self-made creation, and let God start me over. It took time. It was Holy Week, and on Easter I'd have to preach “Christ is risen.” Jesus, I said, what could I possibly say about that now? Jolly old St. Jesus walked me right through the valley of the shadow, and took my crummy despair and turned it into wine and I preached “Christ is rising. He is rising indeed.” Resurrection is real, even when we can't feel it. Trust it anyway. Jesus is the hero who always shows up for me. He doesn't do magic tricks very often, just keeps that arm around me. That's enough.

I count on that inspiration. I write a lot of poetry, and for me the process is not so much trying to think of what I want to say as listening for what the Spirit is saying. Listening for that voice. I love poetry for the paradox, the way it stretches language so it works in ways it wasn't designed to work. Which seems how St. Jesus used it.

I keep reading and re-reading the Gospels, allowing St. Jesus to become more and more real, not just a biblical character but a living, breathing person doing his best to live a life of trust and love. I keep learning from him. And he was right. That yoke, it really is light.