|
Friends United
Meeting |
 |
July/August 2007
SOUL FOOD:
An Easter Query: "Who are you looking for?"
By Jan Hoffman
The Easter story is full of queries in the Quaker sense: invitations to engage spiritually with ourselves and what God asks of us. The query “Who are you looking for?” posed by Jesus three times makes me wonder: If Jesus asked us that question, would our response be to see him any more clearly than the soldiers or Mary are able to do?
In John 18:3-8, when Judas comes with others to arrest Jesus He asks, “Who are you looking for?” When they reply, “Jesus of Nazareth,” He says, “I am he.” Instead of arresting Him, they fall to the ground. Why? Perhaps they expected their quarry to hide or resist arrest. They did not expect Him to greet them and identify Himself, willing to be taken.
Seeing them immobilized, Jesus asks again, “Who are you looking for?” Again they respond, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus affirms (again!) that He is the one they seek, but also asks that His disciples go unmolested: “So if you are looking for me, let these men go.” The soldiers’ expectation that “Jesus of Nazareth” would be a violent troublemaker blinded them to a Jesus who offered Himself calmly to them and was concerned that others not be arrested with Him.
In John 20:11-17, Mary Magdalene is weeping at the empty tomb after seeing two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had been. She turns to see Jesus standing there, but does not recognize Him. He asks, “Who are you looking for?” Thinking He is the gardener, she responds by asking Him where He has taken Jesus’ body. Finally, when He calls her by name, she recognizes Him as “Rabbi.”
Mary expected to see a dead body, so did not recognize Jesus Himself standing there—a living response to her distress. However, when He tells her not to touch Him yet, she knows now their relationship will be different. She has found who she was looking for in the deepest sense, a constant spiritual Presence.
This repeated question, “Who are you looking for?” at the end of Jesus’ ministry reminds me of a similar one at the beginning of His ministry. In John 1:35-39a, John the Baptist is standing with two of his disciples. When he sees Jesus passing by, he says, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.” John’s disciples immediately follow Jesus, who turns to ask, “What are you looking for?” Their response is, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” By addressing Him as “Rabbi,” they express their hope that in experiencing Him for themselves they will discover what they are looking for. Jesus understands this and issues an invitation to “Come and see.”
“What are you looking for?” feels different from “Who are you looking for?” Near the end of Jesus’ ministry, those who had been touched by Him had found who they were looking for both physically and spiritually. John the Baptist’s disciples knew what they were looking for (the Lamb of God), but needed to experience Jesus before they could know who they were waiting for. Thus Jesus began His ministry, then as now, by offering to those who may not have a clear sense of whom they seek an opportunity to experience Him for themselves.
In His encounter with Pilate in John 18:33-34, Jesus affirms the importance of direct experience. When Pilate asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus responds, “Are you speaking for yourself about this or did others tell you this concerning me?” (NKJ) George Fox echoes him in 1652: “You will say, Christ sayeth this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say?” When the resurrected Jesus asks, “Who are you looking for?” it is a deeply personal question. He expects a response drawn from our experience of His living Presence.
Thomas Merton says, “The Light in which we are one does not change.” Sometimes we wonder how this can be true when we see the incredible variety of ways those touched by Jesus express their experience of Him. In 1800 William Blake painted “The Last Supper” with Jesus and His disciples, one of whom is female, seated in a circle around a table. In the 20th century a Chinese artist pictured a Chinese Jesus and His disciples seated around a table set with small bowls and chopsticks.
To me this is evidence of Jesus’ incredible capacity to appear to people in ways that enable them to experience His love and redemption in their own particular time, place and spiritual state. The Light in which we are one is too bright for our human capacity to fully perceive, but by opening ourselves to see in how many unexpected ways Jesus has transformed the lives of others—ways we find hard to understand—we may perceive more of it. And whether we approach a stranger or a friend, let’s listen for Jesus deep within them asking, “Who are you looking for?”
A member of Mount Toby Monthly Meeting (New England Yearly Meeting), Jan and her husband have two grown children.