To know Jesus Christ and to live in him—this possibility draws us. We meet him in the Scriptures, we think we hear his voice within our hearts. Yet, there are still questions that confront us. For example, because life is complicated and the human beings who seek God are coming from every direction, every stage of life, with different personality types and needs, where do we find the unity that Jesus promises? Just as importantly, how can we be sure of the truth?
For we are only human, and our reach is limited. I can sit on my couch, reading the New Testament, but like the Ethiopian eunuch who encountered the apostle Philip on the road, I wonder, who will explain this to me? (see Acts 8:26-40).
And then this Jesus of whom we read in the gospels, whom we are meeting and getting to know through his words, used more than words when he was on earth. He did not just teach. He healed. He shared meals. He fed the hungry. He forgave sins and made broken lives whole. He didn’t hover above the crowds and let his words drift down into people’s spirits. He had a body. He moved, spoke, touched, forgave, healed, died, and rose with that body.
Finally, at the very end, he gathered his apostles—such a disparate, flawed group of men!—and sent them out to the whole world to baptize in his name, assuring them that he would be with them always (Matthew 28:20). He would be with them always.
Not just his spirit, his ideas, his goals, or his intentions—but he would be with them always.
It’s not unreasonable to wonder how.
W