"The disciple Jesus loved was reclining next to Jesus... He leaned back on Jesus' breast" (John 13:23, 25).
Brennan Manning restores the weight of such a historical event in his work, Abba's Child: "John lays his head on the heart of God, on the breast of the man whom the council of Nicea defined as 'being coequal and consubstantial to the Father...God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God'...God allows a young Jew, reclining in the rags of his twenty-odd years, to listen to His heartbeat!" (121-122).
I've wildly obsessed over the thunder of Abba's embrace depicted in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). I'm convinced it must be good to be neurotically beguiled by the imagery of tenderness in the life of Jesus. How great the temptation is to indulge the self-cynic and employ that tit for tat, impostor of a god who's identity is less famously known as insecurity, self-hatred, self-pity, and self-worship. There is a faith dichotomy growing in the culture of our Churches and hidden in our self-righteousness that announces, 'God loves, likes, accepts, and embraces me only when I am a good boy or girl.' Fathoming Jesus it is easy to distance ourselves from His heart and get heady because our minds are rambunctious. There is no stillness or freedom from all the inner commotion.
I went searching for a word from God amidst the tranquil beauty of Plum Island beach on the edge of Massachusetts. An odd, off-the-beaten path of broad, bulked, boulders formed a bridge out to the rougher waters of the shore. I perched at the cliff of this path atop the ten foot highth of a center boulder with music and Bible in hand...none of which was necessary. Beginning to schlepp back the leathered corners of my bible, I glossed over an opportunity to see our Abba in the eye of His beauty before a cantankerous boom shivered my sense of security so defiantly it nearly knocked me into the waters of a wintry beach. The boom was that of a crashing wave.
We need to be hushed to hear.
If we are not then all the clamor rips us apart from the birds in the sky and the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:26, 28) or in my case the rage of the sea. All the headiness, all the outpouring of time and energy in performance and persona, all the innocent questioning and pondering can create such a thick babel that we become deaf to the soft and tender nature of His heartbeat. I am envious of that disciple to have physically encountered the thump of our Abba. Perhaps you may recall the quiet oneness of resting an ear on the bosom of a parent or love. The experience can be so infantile and safe...so intimate.
We require such an intimacy to deliver us to a place of understanding that the Spirit is willing and present; that the resurrected Christ has come, ascended, and shall return and who resounds and surrounds us now. Manning refers to this with the term present risenness. I enjoy how Alexandre Dumas, Pere's character, Mercedes, speaks of God in the adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo, "No, He is in everything. Even in a kiss." Mercedes passion shares a sweet resemblance to the words, "I am with you always..." (Matthew 28:20). We are blessed when we receive moments in tune with the present risenness of God because it is this moment exactly where we feel unified to God and comfortable enough to lean back on His breast. We stop fearing Him and all His uncontainable majesty because we caught the simplest notion of His love and adoration for us. It must reflect similarly the eruption of emotion a drenched and well fed Simon Peter had at the shores of Tiberias (John 21:7-22). To build faith in His present risenness one must discover His present tenderness and this might only be possible through trusting the nature of divine Love.
"In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love: because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love" (1 John 4:18).Fear clogs the artery of the Great Rabbi's heart, thus His love will not flow throughout our being. Having faith in God's love bypasses the whispers of doubt circulating throughout our intellectuality. In fear and doubt the feet are like cement blocks that cling us to the worldly. In the wake of the Resurrection of the Christ, Thomas professed his doubt through the knowledge of how very dead the Great Rabbi hung at Calvary:
"So the other disciples said to him, 'We have seen the Lord,' but he answered, 'Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe' (John 20:25)"Jesus sought him out eight days later:
"Peace be with you,' he said. Then he spoke to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving any more but believe" (John 20:26, 27).It is through passages like these and that of John 13:25 that I believe God is saying to us all: "I am willing to let you touch Me. Hush and come closer...feel My wounds and hear My heart for it is yours. Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith?"
This profound vulnerability is the God whom my heart breaks for and whom I yearn to be defined under. Defining ourselves as the object of His affection claims the Truth of who we are: "I am my beloved's, and His desire is for me" (Song of Solomon 7:10). Awareness of our belovedness steals us from all the commotion and babel telling us otherwise and we don't become aware without an intention to remain in Him, the Great Vine.
"Our longing to know who we really are- which is the source of all our discontent- will never be satisfied until we confront and accept our solitude. There we discover that the truth of our belovedness is really true. Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ" (Abba's Child, 52-53).Having respect and awe for God is more than lovely, but too much so can border fear. When we cross that border we live in the heady adult-land that drowns out the beckoning voice of Jesus. How do we receive Jesus like a little child? A child has a silly entitlement to what they want; 'give me this- give me that' and they expect to receive in the most selfish and obnoxious manner. Having that silly expectancy of complete entitlement to the lap of our Abba and His arms and His lips and His heartbeat is what will sooth the soul. I cannot come near to Him without knowing Him as Abba. I cannot rest in Him unless I allow myself to. The only way I can trust myself to do so is to know who I truly am. It only hurts when I live like a slave to whether or not I've been a good boy- efficient, well-liked, righteous, sacrificial, wise, feeling impenitence through counting my penitence's. We must allow ourselves to be subdued by the awe of Calvary and the roar of Abba's heartbeat; to question and to tantrum like a child but at the end of the day lay exhausted on His breast and to understand that it is in the nook of His arms that we are home.
"As John leans back on the breast of Jesus and listens to the heartbeat of the Great Rabbi, he comes to know Him in a way that surpasses mere cognitive knowledge... In a flash of intuitive understanding, John experiences Jesus as the human face of the God who is love. And in coming to know who the Great Rabbi is, John discovers who he is- the disciple Jesus loved" (Abba's Child, 122).The Great Rabbi beckons, "I am willing to let you touch Me. Hush and come closer...feel My wounds and hear My heart for it is yours. Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith?"
