Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20:19b-22)

As I am known

It is not enough for me to hear. I need to see … and feel. I do not want merely to hear Jesus' words. Nor is my heart satisfied to stand apart, looking at him as he looks at me, even in the light of resurrection morning.  

I want to know what is in him … in me … that I may know as I am known. More. I want to know the world as he knows it, embracing it all in the all-embracing love to which he welcomes me to this morning place where I receive the day.

Waves of pink petunias flow from the pot beside me on the balcony, each bloom a miniature megaphone proclaiming love’s abundance. Their voices blend with the chatter of sparrows, deep within the honey locusts that line the street. A lone cardinal perches higher up, calling to his more prosperous neighbors in the oaks of the next subdivision.

Creation sings, and my privileged heart hears, but it is not enough. The heart longs for something much more. I want to embrace them in a heart full of love for every blessed thing I see, delighting in each finger leaf of the locusts, feeling what Jesus felt as his gaze lingered over the wild grasses and yellow flowers sprinkled on Galilean hillsides.

I want to feel the delight of holding and cherishing them all in a great and imponderable love, hungry for my heart to expand and extend to people going to their jobs on this May day and across oceans to battered souls far removed from my morning reverie.

In other words, I want to know the love of Jesus surging within me. It is an audacious prayer and foolish, because I know I am weak and cannot stand the pain of loving a broken world the way he loves it … and me.

Still, I surely want the joy of it, and joy comes as I see him appearing in the light of his resurrection, his hands raised in blessing for his frightened friends, his lips forming a single word, Peace.  And in my heart, I am right there beside them, as surely as I sit here contemplating the scene.

I see … and feel … his light stretching out to envelop us all and fill me whole, freeing me to breathe as he breathes his Spirit, his imponderable love, into the poverty of my heart so that I am rich with the Mystery he is.

And for one precious moment among the petunias, my prayer is answered. For, I know this weary and wondrous world … and myself, as I am known.

David L. Miller