He called the 12 so that they…might be with him…

Mark 4.

If we are honest, most of Christianity isn’t that comfortable around Jesus Christ. If we were all at a dinner party and Jesus were there, most of us would have some polite, honorable, respectful words, be careful to look good, and excuse ourselves at the earliest convenience, as though we don’t belong with him all night. We would then find the 3 or 4 people with whom we can be ourselves and let our hair down. Cut loose. Have some fun.

When we can’t be ourselves around Jesus that is a problem. And why is that? Because our self needs the kind of treatment that makes dentists notoriously unpopular. The self that we are most comfortable with, the one which wants to let its hair down and be itself with its friends, that self is a real turd. And we intrinsically know that this self shouldn’t be taking up all of Jesus Christ’s dinner party. And that’s okay with us, because we don’t really like being all uptight and formal anyway.

So what is going on here? Is that the kind of heaven we are planning on? The occasional visit from Jesus while we ride his heavenly roller coasters and do our thing? Is that the limit of our expectation?

So then, the real answer to this curious problem we have identified must lie in Jesus’ ability to make us worthy of his standard of relationship. A standard which is not attainable as our current self, but which the cross happily can bond us to Christ. Hear that? Bond us to Christ.

How do you become special friends with someone? Go through some hard times together. Have some stories. Build up a backlog of trust. Learn to communicate. Build a special bond. Open up. This is the answer for our deepest relationships now, and they are crucial points for moving Jesus off the celebrity status and into our personal best friend.

There is, quite literally, enough Jesus to go around for all of us. There is no limit to our experience of a relationship with Jesus. At the dinner party he has all the time in the world to hang with each of us. He can be everywhere and every when. The limitation of relationship with God is not on his end. So then, we must ask him to help us with specific things that build up the real relationship available now, and forever. Then, spending an evening with Jesus, or a millennia, won’t be a stretch to imagine.