What Is It to Love Jesus?

Now this is interesting…

While trying to get my memoir together, I discovered this little piece that I jotted down in February of 1996, aged 21. At this time, I was trying to live out my inherited Christian faith without truly wanting to be a Christian. I had grown up with the Televangelist scandals of Swaggart and Bakers, and I was witnessing the growth of “far-right Christians” influencing politics with little compassion. Much of what I saw and heard on TV didn’t impress me at all. If this was being Christian, I didn’t want it.

But what was it to really be a Christian… I wondered this and wrote some thoughts. (Note the use of the French for Jesus at the end, as I often cringed whenever I heard “Jesus” because the name seemed to be misused by so many people. I would have written this whole thing differently now, but I thought you might like to see young Christina’s mind.)

February 23, 1996

What is it to love Jesus? Is it to know you are always in the right, when all around you seems wrong? Is it to step up to a holy place, where those that try to pull you off only fall further down? What a smug and selfish jerk I’d be if that is what it means to love Jesus. Is it to be given a great gift that you ogle and delight in, then go out and buy 20 of to give to your friends and 50 more for complete strangers, insistent that they’ll adore it as much as you if they just give it half a chance? Surely love can’t be shown off, presented, or forced, like a bauble, candy, or a piano lesson. 

What is it to love Jesus? Is it to uphold and foster compassion and humanity in society, emulating Jesus’ gentleness, kindness and humility? If that were true, then I would only need to be good, practicing a philosophy that I find wise in service to my fellow man. What ordinary love it would be to see Jesus as Marx or Jefferson. 

Loving Jesus must be more. A nun in her cloister loves him as her mate, she surrenders to him most willingly and joyfully, giving him her body, heart, mind, and soul. Each voice that speaks to her is his voice, each hand that grasps for her is his hand, every word that passes from her lips is whispered into his ear. So much faith has she in his love, she knows she is undeserving of nothing. The storm clouds that surround her at times and the sun’s warm light that caress her at others, are gratefully blessed because he sent them to her. The muddy worms and winged birds are equally beautiful in her eyes for he fashioned them, and their life and death struggle is a dance profound, for his is the silent music they heed. She is blown like a petal in the wind, aware of the wind’s reckless whimsy and the strength of her fragility in his arms. 

Yes, this is how I want to love Jesus! For no other love answers in blood the beating of his heart in this spinning planet, and makes me one with eternity, once faceless, now, calling my name. 

My Jesu.

for copyright purposes © 2023 Christina Chase

---

Feature Photo by Michael Fenton on Unsplash