First of all, you should know that this isn't the first Dear John letter I've ever written. That one I used to break up with my first boyfriend, who smoked menthols and was in a Green Day cover band.
Moving on...
This is really a fan letter, one I'm posting in a little corner of time and space sometimes called "The World Wide Web." You would really like it here, I think. I'm writing on a run-of-the-mill Asus laptop, but I feel certain that if you were alive today, you'd be smack in the middle of some sort of conference on the Emerging Church drinking a soy latte and using the latest Apple product to blog on the primacy of logos in cyber space. He is always already Lord of the Internet-- that sort of thing.
You've struck me, #4-- that is, I've taken a shine to you and your strident, confident ways. I like the Jesus that you write about. The Jesus I've come to love and admire is loving and admirable in all your Synoptic brothers, but what I love in your Gospel is there in the way you begin and just keep on building.
So much of what we make of things is in the way we begin. We have adages about first impressions, and we archive first experiences, and most of our favorite songs catch us on note one. We want these things to be smooth and hitchless, and sweep over us like the steps to a waltz.
Mark is immediate and rushed and a little harried, practically tripping over himself in the urgency to spit out what he has to say.
Matthew is steady, setting a massive table with genealogy that reaches back to Abraham, renting a banquet hall to seat all the fathers of the fathers of the fathers who, through exodus and exile and resettlement, share one massive placecard reading "Israel."
Luke surprises us with a baby. Not The Baby, but his cousin, and his astonished aging parents, whose news is instantly trumped by Gabriel's to Mary. The recipients of these two announcements are so enraptured by their circumstances that, when there's finally time for coffee, the Hail Mary and the Magnificat are born within five minutes of each other. (Sons come along soon after.)
And then there's you, #4. You go all the way back to the beginning of The Beginning, braiding together Jesus with God and the moment of Creation and even before, when the Word--Jesus himself--had not yet been spoken, and yet was.
Pierrot Lunaire by Paul Klee, 1924
I love Luke's Nativity, and treasure the infant, and all those angels and shepherds in the midnight clear, but you give us the "light of the world," the "true light which enlightens everyone." That's at least as compelling as the light of the star. There's no question here about what's going on with Jesus, #4. He doesn't need to grow into his ministry or even need to be transfigured on the mountaintop because his glory is an ongoing event.
You say that what is happening in Jesus is the same thing that was happening when God made the heavens and the earth, and is the same thing that happens whenever God's word is heard and followed. And if that's true, #4, then it's in reading your Gospel that for me, the words "living God" cease to be an empty and confusing word sandwich and begin to describe the basic situation of the Divine.
I can't lie, #4-- I'm a little bit infatuated. I might heart Luke, but I'm kind of in awe of you. In fact, on Facebook I recently referred to you as kicking the other Gospels' asses, phrasing none of you would really appreciate but an honest expression of wonder.
I can't imagine my savior without the ways you've imagined Him first.
Sincerely,
Me
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