We stand on the brink of receiving a wealth of riches. For once he is inside our hearts, once we are totally loving him, he is free to pour his love over us and into our lives. Jesus will never violate our freedom. He will never go where he is not wanted. He already lives in the center of our souls. But he cannot bring us forward more and more into the light of his love until we ask him to be present to us in our hearts. He cannot embrace us until we embrace him, just as any true Lover will never push himself upon us.
Inviting Jesus into the stable of our hearts can - and will - be a life-changing experience. Steve Mueller says, "When he steps across the threshold of our hearts, everything will be changed - ourselves, our relationship to him, our relationships with others, and our relationship to our world."
But there is only one way that Jesus can enter your life so personally. It can only happen if you realize that faith is about more than assenting to an orthodox belief system that gives you entrance into the Christian Club. Faith in Jesus is more than just an assent to his existence as Second Person of the Blessed Trinity Who became a human being, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. Belief in Jesus means, as St. Paul says, to put on the mind and heart of Christ. We can only do that if we come close enough to Jesus to really know him, to know how he lived, what his priorities were and are, what he asks us personally to do with our lives.
When the disciples asked Jesus if they could follow him as their rabbi, he invited them to come see where he stayed so they could spend time with him. "John 1:37-39: When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning round, Jesus saw them following and asked, ‘What do you want?’ They said, ‘Rabbi’ (which means ‘Teacher’), ‘where are you staying?’
‘Come,’ he replied, ‘and you will see.’So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon."
In that era, disciples lived as close to their rabbi as possible so that they would know their rabbi in the most intimate way. Later in life, Jesus' followers even remembered that highly significant day and hour when they first were accepted as his disciples and entered the place where he was staying to sit as his feet and absorb everything about him that they could. Later, they went on the road with him to "see him in action."
The disciples also knew and accepted that Jesus understood and loved each one as an individual. The Gospels show Jesus interacting individually with each one, from calling Peter to walk on water and later forgiving Peter for denying him, to calling Matthew the tax collector to follow him (probably over the others' objections), to kindly showing the doubting Thomas his wounds so that Thomas would believe. Jesus already loves each of us as complete individuals. He wants to be free to comfort us, challenge us, lead us, and walk in solidarity beside us. If we will allow him to!
When we invite Jesus into the stable of our hearts, we're inviting him to come live with us - Come, Lord Jesus! - and we're admitting to ourselves and to him that we accept his power to change our lives. And then we discover that having faith in Jesus is much more than faith in a belief system. Faith is also a practical, daily way of life. It is a practical way of love. It's learning to see with Jesus' eyes and love with his heart in our own homes and lives - with his priorities, which are always care for those who are our responsibility, and care for the most vulnerable among us. And this is true for everyone who is a Christian.
Fr. Richard Rohr says:
"Practical, practice-based Christianity has been avoided, denied, minimized, ignored, delayed, and sidelined for too many centuries, by too many Christians who were never told Christianity was anything more than a belonging or belief system. Now we know that there is no Methodist or Catholic way of loving. There is no Orthodox or Presbyterian way of living a simple and nonviolent life. There is no Lutheran or Evangelical way of showing mercy. There is no Baptist or Episcopalian way of visiting the imprisoned. If there is, we are invariably emphasizing the accidentals, which distract us from the very “marrow of the Gospel,” as St. Francis called it. We have made this mistake for too long. We cannot keep avoiding what Jesus actually emphasized and mandated. In this most urgent time, 'it is the very love of Christ that now urges us' (2 Corinthians 5:14)."
Daily, may we say, "Enter into my heart, Lord! Teach me how much you love me as an individual. Change the ways in which I avoid or am afraid of following you." Inviting Jesus into our lives does not mean that we're going to hear this voice loudly speaking in our heads, or experience Jesus physically present. No, the changes are more subtle than that. A dawning awareness of our personal priorities. A dawning sense that we are loved deeply by God. Things happening in our lives - wonderful and unexpected - and it dawns on us that God is active in our lives. A dawning sense of God's peace resting deep down in us beneath the storms. The words of Jesus in the Gospels seen clearly now as his comfort and strength for us as we endure and/or tackle experiences in our lives that "Before Jesus" we would have considered impossible for us to handle.
May the Light of the Lord dawn on you in radiant beauty. Only then will you see the darkness that has held you down, suffocated you, and kept you from experiencing and making your own his peace, joy, and capacity to love.