Thoughts on Jesus and my Heart

*This idea, and most of its development, is due to Quinten Miller, in a conversation we had over breakfast this morning. 

  

The Christian idea that Jesus lives in your heart has always troubled me.  I know that it is meant to be poetic, and representative, and spiritually speaking, but still, it has always sat funny in my mind.  Allow me to be a bit critical for a moment – it has always seemed that if Jesus could fit in my heart, he is a very small Jesus, because my heart seems like a small place.  When I imagine the scene of Jesus moving into my heart, I imagine it looks something like this.

Me: “Hi Jesus, come on in…oh, you didn’t need to wipe your feet, but thanks anyway.  Woah, it got pretty cramped in here, didn’t it?  Lemme just…no, well if you…yeah, I’ll stand here and put my arm liiiike this…so then you have room to sit down on that corner right there.  There.  Comfortable?  No?  Sorry about that.  Can I get you something to drink?  Oh, I can’t quite get to the sink…oh, you brought living water?  That was nice of you.  Well.  This is….cozy…..*long pause*…..so…..you’re here for eternity huh?  …know any games?

To really understand the poetics of what happens when the idea of Jesus living inside us, we need to broaden our understanding of what our internal selves are.  Imagine the space you are in right now.  Move out to the building you are in and imagine the whole aerial view.  Picture the city block.  Move out again to the side of town.  Move out again the whole city with its surrounding cities.  Move out again to the view of the state as a whole.  The country.  The hemisphere.  The world.  Move out again to the solar system.  The galaxy.  You can’t even make out the speck that is the world you live on at this point.  Move out again where our galaxy is a small part within the surrounding galaxies, and further and further out. 

This is not simply an exercise in the grandiose or the awe inspiring or the sublime.  Come back to the room you are occupying right now.  Zoom in on your chest cavity.  Zoom in again on your lungs and internal organs.  Zoom in to the fluid that surrounds and maintains the environment that keeps you breathing without any conscious thought on your part.  Zoom in again on the droplets of fluid that keep you alive.  Zoom in again on the molecules that comprise that drop, and the smaller elements that comprise those molecules.  Even closer at the atoms that make up those elements. 

There is an infinity in both directions – outward and inward.  Socially speaking, we could give our lives and energies to developing the external infinity, the impact we can have on others or the affect we can have on the world.  We can put up a front of caring or empathy or a façade of love, and neglect the infinity that is our internal selves.  How many pastors or ministers have given their lives to ministry, only to wreck their marriages and compromise their integrity?  What good is it to give your life for a cause, when you have neglected the infinite inward self that makes up your soul? 

I now have a new understanding of what it means for Jesus to be inside my heart.  Here is what it looks like:

Fog is rolling in from somewhere in front of me.  It is quiet and dark where I’m standing.  I take one step and the sound of my foot goes out into the darkness and seems to never stop.  There are no markers for me to get my bearings, and there is so little light I can hardly see past the fog that my breath makes.  It’s cold.  I shout.  Jesus is supposed to be here somewhere.  I wave my hands around in a circle trying to feel for anything.  Suddenly, Jesus is next to me.

Jesus: “Hi Stephen.”

Me: “Hello Jesus.”

Jesus: “Do you know what I want to do in here?”

Me: “Live, I guess?  There’s more room in here I think, you’re welcome to set up camp wherever you like…”

Jesus: “Live?  Yeah, sure, we’re going to live, but what I’m really looking forward to, is turning everything you see into something.”

Me: “What are you going to turn it into?”

Jesus: “A garden.”