What's on my mind today is not the medical mystery tour but rather the mystery of the spiritual life I am walking with Jesus. I've just begun reading a book called
Drawn Into the Mystery of Jesus by Jean Vanier. At the end of Chapter 3, which is focused on John 1:35-51, Vanier wrote these words:
In this chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus gathers around him a little group. This is the beginning of their journey with Jesus. It begins with enthusiasm: they have found the Messiah, the 'one who was to come' to liberate their people. This enthusiasm grows as Jesus does wonderful things. They believe in him more and more. He is truly the Messiah. Many of us live this enthusiasm when we begin in a community and with friends to follow Jesus. We give ourselves to an ideal. We admire our leaders and we want to become like them. This is the period of childhood in our spiritual journey. Later we will experience all that is broken in our community, in the church and in us. We will live conflicts and opposition. We will discover that it is not going to be easy to live the ideal. We will have to struggle to be truthful and free and to be servant-leaders like Jesus. We have to grow from spiritual childhood and adolescence to spiritual maturity, and discover the presence of God in the pain of reality. Later, as we move into old age, we will encounter physical weakness and even failure. Like Jesus, and with Jesus, we will be called to enter into the pits of pain, failure and rejection and into a new communication with God. We will discover the weakness and foolishness of God. The journey is just beginning for the first disciples. So, too, we are called to begin a journey of faith with Jesus.
I find myself in this depiction of this mysterious sometimes painful but glorious journey. Perhaps others will also.
