CHARACTERS
JLM (NARRATOR) ---- Jerry Martin
JERRY ---- Jerry, a human
GOD ---- A mystery
JERRY
Should I address you as 'Lord'?
JESUS
“Jesus" will do.
JERRY
Jesus, please come into my heart.
JESUS
I am in your heart already. You just have to let yourself feel it.
JERRY
How do I do that, Lord?
JESUS
Sit and let down your defenses. You know how to do that.
JERRY
Yes, it's like relaxing a defensive stance, standing down.
JESUS
Exactly.
JERRY
And letting the soft inner core of my personality, which is normally shielded, take you in.
JESUS
Exactly.
JERRY
Jesus, the message of love is hard for me to take in. Well, love is hard for me to take in.
JESUS
The more you take in my love, the more you'll understand my message.
*
JLM
Some days later, the face of Jesus appeared again, just looking at me. It was a bit unnerving.
JERRY
Why are you looking at me, Jesus?
JESUS
Don't you know?
JERRY
I feel scrutinized.
JESUS
What is the meaning of that?
JERRY
I feel inspected, as if you are trying to see who I am, what I'm made of.
JESUS
That's right.
JERRY
Why does looking help?
JESUS
How else would I see you?
JERRY
Okay, so you need to look at me, but why do I need to see your face?
JESUS
I need for you to see my face.
JERRY
I want to look away.
JESUS
But you don't.
JERRY
No, I know I need you. God has told me so.
JESUS
I am also God. But you haven't accepted that. I am going to keep looking at you until you see me, until you see me for Who I Am, God and the Son of God, as well as the Son of Man and Messiah of the people of Israel, of my people.
JERRY
Why does your presence seem threatening?
JESUS
Because you’re afraid of me. You are still afraid of love--of full, unreserved, unremitting, unrelenting love--love that knows all, demands all, conquers all.
That is too much for you. You have trouble accepting it from Abigail. You have more trouble accepting it from me. You need to explore why you are blocking it. Why are you afraid of love?
*
JLM
I thought about that for a while.
JERRY
Well, I do not feel worthy of love.
JESUS
That is your mistake. Everyone is "worthy" of love. Love is not something to be earned or deserved. It comes to you in virtue of the kind of being you are, one of God's creatures. You feel you have secrets, that if God knew what was in your heart or your libido, He would not love you. But everything in you was put there by God. Nothing is shameful. Feeling that shame is a legacy from your childhood. You have no secrets and need none. Everything about you, even your sins, is blessed in my eyes.
In a sense, it is only sinners I love. I do not love people in spite of their sins but for them. It is their hurts, their wounds, their incompleteness that calls forth my love. Love, even the love of God, is always the love of something incomplete, something in the process of fulfillment, of moving to completion.
JLM
At the time, I thought he meant to say "love from God," but that was before I learned that God is also incomplete.
JESUS
You do not have any desires that I have not myself felt. Remember that I took the sins of all on myself. That does not just mean carrying them; it means actually feeling them. I have personally felt all human sins.
JERRY
Still . . .
JESUS
Do not deny me the right to love you. Love yourself as I do, flaws and all, and you will serve me and our Father all the better. I love you, Jerry. That is a direct, personal love--not generic or abstract or empty--and I know all there is to know about you. And Abigail loves you almost as much as I do, and she is not blind to your " faults" either. Accept our love and become more whole, and better able to do Our Service.
I am looking at you, searching your face, for an invitation to let me into your heart. I will not stop until I succeed, and I will not stop then either.
Ponder this--take it all seriously. Nothing is more important to you. Nothing is more important to Us, and to Abigail.
*
JLM
I thought about all the things I might feel shame about--ego, sex, overeating, and so on--but of course God already knows all those things. Then it occurred to me. My shame is about being looked at. So, of course, Jesus is looking at me--with love. It is especially about being looked at when I am expressing feelings, even feelings of joy or pleasure.
Since birth, I have had a stain on my forehead, a reddish-purple birthmark, like Gorbachev's but much larger. A mark of Cain. Everyone could see at a glance what an unworthy creature I was. That makes me uncomfortable even to be seen. Laser treatments have lightened it, but childhood feelings leave a deep imprint.
Meanwhile, Jesus' image had appeared. He kissed me on the lips as a parent might kiss a child, and it did not feel strange, as a male kiss usually would. At the same time, he put his hands on my cheeks and, with the kindest eyes I had ever seen, looked lovingly into my eyes. A warm, affectionate, forgiving smile spread across his lips.
JERRY
It's okay for me to feel what I feel, to be me, to be seen--and to be seen being me and feeling these feelings?
JESUS
Yes, it is. Indeed it is.
*
JLM
What needed to be opened was not so much the recesses of my heart as the very surface of my skin and the feelings that move just beneath the surface--to turn my face toward him and receive his loving glow, like letting the sun bathe and caress your face on a summer day.
His smiling eyes continued to look at me, tracing the surface of my skin, including the stain, and loving it all, his fingers touching the trickle of feelings just beneath the surface. He was almost making love to me.
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