When did Jesus happen to you?
Reflections
“…perhaps, a first step on the way back to amazement might be gratitude. We could start by giving thanks. We could start by naming before Jesus all those things we know to be ‘gifts’ in our lives…like the memory of a small boy almost trembling in anticipation and excitement about a waterslide ride with his dad,” says Bishop Jeremy Greaves
This week as I looked through photos taken on a holiday some years ago, I came across several from a visit to the waterslides at Glenelg, a beach-side suburb of Adelaide. I remember queuing up with my son Thomas, then five years old, for the biggest, fastest, scariest waterslide and him turning to me with a grin and saying, “It’s like waiting for the special bread at church on Sunday!”
I don’t know about you but I can’t remember the last time I was filled with that sort of excited anticipation waiting for Holy Communion, and yet surely this is what the Eucharist should evoke in us. The Episcopalian priest Sara Miles remembers her first Communion well. A committed atheist, she walked into a church one day, more out of curiosity than anything else. She walked in and found a chair:
“We sat down and stood up, sang and sat down, waited and listened and stood up and sang, and it was all peaceful and fairly interesting.”
Then came the invitation to communion and Sara followed everyone else and then, “Someone was putting a piece of fresh, crumbly bread in my hands, saying ‘The body of Christ’, and handing me the goblet of sweet wine, saying ‘The blood of Christ’, and then something outrageous and terrifying happened. Jesus happened to me.”
I wonder if you can remember when “Jesus happened” to you?
When I prepare people for marriage, I always ask them to tell me the story of how they fell in love. What was that first spark like? When was the moment that they ‘knew’? And, I tell them how important it is to remember that story and to occasionally get it out and dust it off and re-visit it because it is good to remember.
I wonder if you can remember when “Jesus happened” to you?
What was it, or who was it, that first captivated you about the faith, or the scriptures, or Jesus of Nazareth? And, when did that captivation, with its accompanying excitement or awe, possibly fade into habit or chore or duty?
The late Rabbi Abraham Heschel once wrote:
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement…get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted…never treat life casually.”
Is this what it means to ‘never take life casually’? Thomas Greaves enjoys the thrill of a waterslide at Glenelg in South Australia in January 2017.
“Live life in radical amazement” might be too big a step. So, perhaps, a first step on the way back to amazement might be gratitude. We could start by giving thanks. We could start by naming before Jesus all those things we know to be ‘gifts’ in our lives…like the memory of a small boy almost trembling in anticipation and excitement about a waterslide ride with his dad.
This week that little five year old, so full of excitement, turned 15. Some of the childlike excitement is gone, but his passion for life is undiminished and while he would probably use different language, I have no doubt that Jesus is still “happening” to him.
Editor’s note 23/03/2021: The YouTube video link of a young Thomas Greaves was added to this post since publication.
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