“How do you mean, different?” came his soft voice out of the darkness.
“Well,” Mack paused as he thought about it. “More real, or tangible. I don’t know.” He struggled with the words and Jesus lay quiet, waiting. “It’s like I’ve always known you. But Papa isn’t at all what I expected from God, and Sarayu, she’s way out there.”
Jesus chuckled in the dark. “Since I am human we have much in common to begin with.”
“But I still don’t understand…”
“I am the best way any human can relate to Papa or Sarayu. To see me is to see them. The love you sense from me is no different from how they love you. And believe me, Papa and Sarayu are just as real as I am, though as you’ve seen in far different ways.”
“Speaking of Sarayu, is she the Holy Spirit?”
“Yes. She is Creativity; she is Action; she is the Breathing of Life; she is much more. She is my Spirit.”
“And her name, Sarayu?”
“That is a simple name from one of our human languages. It means ‘Wind,’ a common wind actually. She loves that name.”
“Hmm,” grunted Mack. “Nothing too common about her!”
“True, that,” responded Jesus. “And the name Papa mentioned, Elo… El…”
“Elousia,” the voice spoke reverently from the dark next to him. “That is a wonderful name. El is my name as Creator God, but ousia is ‘being’ or ‘that which is truly real,’ so the name means the Creator God who is truly real and the ground of all being. Now that is also a beautiful name.”
There was silence for a minute while Mack pondered what Jesus had said. “So then, where does that leave us?” He felt like he was asking the question for the entire human race.
“Right where you were always intended to be. In the very center of our love and our purpose.”
Again a pause, then, “I suppose I can live with that.”
Jesus chuckled. “I am glad to hear that,” and they both laughed. Neither spoke for a time. Stillness had fallen like a blanket, and all Mack was really aware of was the sound of water lapping up against the dock. It was he who eventually broke the silence again.
“Jesus?”
“Yes, Mackenzie?”
“I am surprised by one thing about you.”
“Really? What?”
“I guess I expected you to be more,” be careful here, Mack, “uh… well, humanly striking.”
Jesus chuckled. “Humanly striking? You mean handsome.” Now he was laughing.
“Well, I was trying to avoid that, but yes. Somehow I thought you’d be the ideal man, you know, athletic and overwhelmingly good looking.”
“It’s my nose, isn’t it?”
Mack didn’t know what to say.
Jesus laughed. “I am Jewish, you know. My grandfather on my mother’s side had a big nose; in fact, most of the men on my mom’s side had big noses.”
“I just thought you’d be better looking.”
“By whose standards? Anyway, once you really get to know me, it won’t matter to you.”
The words, though delivered kindly, stung. Stung what, exactly? Mack lay there a few seconds and realized that as much as he thought he knew Jesus, perhaps he didn’t… not really. Maybe what he knew was an icon, an ideal, an image through which he tried to grasp a sense of spirituality, but not a real person. “Why is that?” he finally asked. “You said if I really knew you it wouldn’t matter what you looked like…”
“It is quite simple really. Being always transcends appearance-that which only seems to be. Once you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simply no longer matter. That is why Elousia is such a wonderful name. God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things-ultimately emerging as the real-and any appearances that mask that reality will fall away.”
Silence followed as Mack wrestled with what Jesus had said. He gave up after only a minute or two and decided to ask the riskier question.
“You said I don’t really know you. It would be a lot easier if we could always talk like this.”
“Admittedly, Mack, this is special. You were really stuck and we wanted to help you crawl out of your pain. But don’t think that just because I’m not visible, our relationship has to be less real. It will be different, but perhaps even more real.”
“How is that?”
“My purpose from the beginning was to live in you and you in me.”
“Wait, wait. Wait a minute. How can that happen? If you’re still fully human how can you be inside me?”
“Astounding, isn’t it? It’s Papa’s miracle. It is the power of Sarayu, my Spirit, the Spirit of God who restores the union that was lost so long ago. Me? I choose to live moment by moment fully human. I am fully God, but I am human to the core. Like I said, it’s Papa’s miracle.”
Mack was lying in the darkness, listening intently. “Aren’t you talking about a real indwelling, not just some positional, theological thing?”
“Of course,” answered Jesus, his voice strong and sure. “It’s what everything is all about. The human, formed out of the physical material Creation, can once more be fully indwelt by spiritual life, my life. It requires that a very real dynamic and active union exists.”
“That is almost unbelievable!” Mack exclaimed quietly. “I had no idea. I need to think more about this. But, I might have a lot more questions.”
“And we have your lifetime to sort through them,” Jesus chuckled. “But, enough of that for now. Let’s get lost again in the starry night.” In the silence that followed, Mack simply lay still, allowing the immensity of space and scattered light to dwarf him, letting his perceptions be captured by starlight and the thought that everything was about him… about the human race… that all this was all for us. After what seemed like a long time, it was Jesus who broke into the quiet.
“I’ll never get tired of looking at this. The wonder of it all-the wastefulness of Creation, as one of our brothers has called it. So elegant, so full of longing and beauty even now.”
“You know,” Mack responded, suddenly struck anew by the absurdity of his situation; where he was, the person next to him. “Sometimes you sound so, I mean, here I am lying next to God Almighty and, you really sound, so…”
“Human?” Jesus offered. “But ugly.” And with that he began to chuckle, quietly and restrained at first, but after a couple of snorts, laughter simply started tumbling out. It was infectious, and Mack found himself swept along, from somewhere deep inside. He had not laughed from down there in a long time. Jesus reached over and hugged him, shaking from his own spasms of mirth, and Mack felt more clean and alive and well than he had since… well, he couldn’t remember since when.
Eventually, they both calmed again and the night’s quiet asserted itself once more. It seemed that even the frogs had called it quits. Mack lay there realizing that he was now feeling guilty about enjoying himself, about laughing, and even in the darkness he could feel The Great Sadness roll in and over him.
“Jesus?” he whispered as his voice choked. “I feel so lost.”
A hand reached out and squeezed his, and didn’t let go. “I know, Mack. But it’s not true. I am with you and I’m not lost. I’m sorry it feels that way, but hear me clearly. You are not lost.”
“I hope you’re right,” Mack said, his tension lessened by the words of his newfound friend.
“C’mon,” said Jesus, standing up and reaching down for Mack. “You have a big day ahead of you. Let’s get you to bed.” He put his arm around Mack’s shoulder and together they walked back toward the cabin. Mack was suddenly exhausted. Today had been one long day. Maybe he would wake up at home in his own bed after a night of vivid dreaming, but somewhere inside he hoped he was wrong.