How can I Encounter Jesus in the Here and Now?
After Jesus stepped foot on Earth He changed everything. Jesus isn't just a Game-changer. He is the Author of the sport. He makes it what it is. The Mystery of Jesus' Incarnation changed the nature of our approach to encounter God. Pioneer and explorer He made way onto Earth so that we could literally meet God here and ever since nothing has remained the same.
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| The Annunciation of the Lord (Philippe de Champaigne, 1644) |
Though Jesus expressed to the Woman at the Well (Jn 4) that it was not upon this mountain nor in Jerusalem that God was to be worshiped soon after it is fact that even Jesus worshiped upon that particular mountain and in Jerusalem. Jesus joined the human community of those worshiping God and worshiped here on Earth.
"Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem." (John 4:20-21
While our worship is not tied down to a place here and now our every worship embraces a location, a place and a time. We pray from the heart yet that heart beats within a body in motion. We are not 'condemned' or "entombed in our bodies" as Plato and the Ancient Greeks spoke of. We are gifted with our bodies, made as one, in body and spirit.
Jesus also was Body and Spirit. His every movement was measured by duration and he took on the full measure of the human experience. He, though God, knew what it was to be a human being yet retaining every measure of His Divinity. This mystery is one that we'll never plumb. It will allude us to the Gates of Heaven.
So why Israel? To gain ground, to get one inch closer. To get to know Jesus better and to know His World, His Life, His People, and to fall in Love with Him ever more. That is my reason to travel there, experience His Mercy, and get to know the environs in which He became Him.
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| Sea of Galilee, 1900 |
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| View of Mount Tabor, Nazareth, Israel |
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| Jerusalem Today |
