When Was the Last Time You Saw Jesus?

I was in sixth grade when I read L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables for the first time and while yes, many, if not most, books are better than the movies, it was not the book I fell in love with, it was the PBS mini series starring Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst. 

Anne (with an “e”) Shirley was irrepressible.  She was an orphan who had been rejected, used and abused and yet, somehow, managed to be filled with a joy she could not contain.  She found joy in stories, both those she read and those she told.

I could relate to Anne.  I could relate to her getting caught reading her favorite book instead of doing her schoolwork. 

It was Anne who introduced me to the poet who would become my favorite poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson, as she reenacted the words to “The Lady of Shalott,” all the while drifting down the river in a sinking boat.

Anne felt things deeply.

And what child doesn’t at one point in their life feel things so very deeply.

Anne wasn’t afraid of feeling things deeply.  She loved deeply.  She didn’t simply make friends with others, she found “kindred spirits.”

But she could also hold a grudge as she did with Gilbert Blythe who made the mistake of calling the red-haired Anne, “Carrots.”

At one point, Anne complains to her guardian, Marilla, that she is in the “depths of despair,” and Marilla chastens her for using that word “despair.” 

She tells Anne, “To despair is to turn your back on God.”

Today we would call Anne, overly dramatic at best and “sensitive” at worst and probably send her to therapy, but sensitivity is not a bad thing.  Refined and enriched with love, sensitivity eventually becomes empathy and it is empathy that this world needs a whole lot more of today.

What does it mean to be empathetic?

When I was a teacher, the only time I ever cried in front of my students was shortly after the Columbia shuttle disaster.  I wasn’t sobbing, but I got teary-eyed and choked up, reading about the tragedy to my eighth graders.

It was at the exact moment when I had to stop talking to gather myself that a handful of sobs resonated throughout the classroom.  Several of my girls began crying, not because they themselves were that upset about the loss of the shuttle and the astronauts, but because they felt my pain over the loss. 

Their teacher was crying.  Their teacher who never cried, who, honestly, never got real emotional about anything in front of them, and they realized the depth of my pain in that moment.  They recognized it and they felt it themselves.

That is empathy.

The Bible tells us in Psalm 56:8 that God keeps our tears in a bottle, but true empathy is more than just recognizing that someone else is in pain.

It is feeling that pain yourself.  It is connecting on an extreme emotional and spiritual level with someone.  Empathy connects souls.

We see empathy from Jesus when he visits Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus.

Mary begins to cry and then Jesus joins her.

Jesus cries.

Now you can read this part in two different ways, either Jesus was crying because he, himself, felt pain over his friend, Lazarus’ death OR Jesus was crying because in that moment he had taken on Mary’s pain and the pain of the others who were also crying.  Perhaps it’s both.

But if you view Jesus crying as a moment of empathy, as a moment when Jesus took on Mary’s suffering as his own, then you might begin to see this moment as a perfect encapsulation of who Jesus is and what he came to earth for—to suffer and die for us.

To suffer and die for all of us, not just those he considered friends.

Jesus’ empathy in the Gospels extends to strangers and even those seeking to do him harm.

In Luke, chapter 22, when they come to arrest Jesus at Gethsemane, Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant and how does Jesus respond? 

He rebukes Peter and then he touches the servant and heals him.  He doesn’t ask the servant to prove himself first.  He doesn’t question whether the servant is friend or foe.  He doesn’t put any conditions at all on his healing.

He simply touches him and heals him.

Jesus feels empathy, he feels the pain of others keenly.  This is not the God of the Old Testament, standing apart from us, watching us from afar, from his heavenly throne, this is Jesus, God on earth with us, in the muck, in our wretchedness and our hopelessness and our pain.  He is with us.

He is Emmanuel. 

God with us.

Jesus is empathetic because that’s who he is, but his presence on earth is meant to show us that that is who we are too.

God created us in His image.

Empathy should come naturally to us.

It is in our core.  It is what were built around—this light, this goodness, this ability to look at another human being and hurt when they hurt and laugh when they laugh.  It’s the ability to share someone’s pain as well as their joy.  It’s the ability to look at another person and instead of judging them and their worth, we simply look at them and see that same light in them that is in us.

It’s the ability to look at anyone and see Jesus.

In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 11:34, Jesus says, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness.”

In other words, how you view the world is a direct reflection of who you are on the inside.

Are you filled with goodness and light and empathy or are you filled with darkness and hatred and anger?

Do you look at the homeless man on the street and think “lazy” or “drug addict,” or do you look and see Jesus?

Do you see the person crossing the border as “invader” or do you see Jesus?

Do you see those people who think differently than you as “naive” or “ignorant” or do you see Jesus?

Can you imagine what this world might be like if you saw Jesus?

At the beginning of Anne of Green Gables, Matthew is taking Anne back home with him and as they pass down a road filled with beautiful, flowering trees, Anne asks Matthew what this place is called.

Matthew says simply, “The Avenue, pretty ain’t it?”

But, no, Anne says, pretty doesn’t begin to describe it.  Nor should it be called “The Avenue.”  It should be called, Anne suggests, “White Way of Delight.”

Later when Matthew points out Barry’s Pond, Anne renames it immediately as “The Lake of Shining Waters.”

How we see the world, reflects the soul within.

Amen.