That the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.” That’s very aspirational and not easy. Tougher than seeing the face of Christ in everyone we meet. Jesus is such a worthy model—the best example, many of us would say—so it makes sense to emulate him. But how?
One answer: Imitate a practice we witness in Jesus throughout the Gospels—being proximate. He’s proximate to events, to people, to the context of life in his society. When a terrified woman faces an early morning stoning by what sounds like a lynch mob, Jesus is there. Likewise with a man crippled for thirty-eight years who’s lying by the pool of Bethesda. Jesus gives special attention to the poor and marginalized, and he’s also proximate with the privileged in society. He has a sycamore-tree conversation followed by dinner with Zacchaeus, two encounters that change the previously dishonest tax collector’s life. He agrees to see the sick daughter of Jairus, the synagogue leader but interrupts the trip to heal an unnamed hemorrhaging woman. So for the life of Jesus to be more visible in our mortal flesh, how then are we to live? Volunteer at a shelter for temporarily homeless women. Share a meal with someone whose circumstances differ from yours, and discover the similarities of your lives. Tutor a bilingual child, whose undocumented parents speak only Spanish at home, and learn the challenging nature of the child’s life. Join a prison support group and get to know the parents of a son caught in the web of mass incarceration. The news photographer Robert Capa is quoted as saying, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” We can say the same for Christian discipleship. Let’s get proximate.