If You're Looking For Jesus (We Have Him and You Can't Have Him!)

Last Sunday evening I was facilitating our current discipleship study, The Way of Prayer,and we were focusing on the chapter that deals with prayer by gazing. As we spoke about icons and other visual aids used in prayer, Catherine reveals that we have a door in the church with Jesus on it.

"Like a picture?" I ask, "Or in the grain?"

"It's in the grain," she answers, and I am intrigued. I have been at this church for four months now, and I haven't seen Jesus emblazoned on any doors.

The very next morning, when I came to the church I headed straight for the choir room, which is where Catherine claims the Jesus apparition is. As I stepped into the room, I squinted at the door, but couldn't see anything. So I reached out and flipped on the light switch for a little added illumination... and there it was! This wasn't something you had to stare at for a moment to see. This wasn't something that required imagionation. This was Jesus, bright as day, standing there in the wood of the door. He had a big burly beard, two eyes, a heart in the center of his chest, two hands at his side. Where the stigmata should have appeared were two pieces of some sort of adhesive tape. I wondered what had once been posted there.

I stood in breathless wonder. I had seen things like this in the paper and on the internet... but somewhere deep inside I wondered if those images were doctored. But this... this was real and it was awesome.

I later told another member of the church, Joan (name changed for privacy) that I had witnessed this door. I expressed how amazed I was and I said we should take a picture of it and let people see it.

"Ted was the the one who noticed it," she said, referencing an old pastor who had served a 13 year stint back in the eighties and early nineties and seems to be a saint to this church, "He told us not to tell anyone because we'd have every nut in the world coming in here."

I stood in dumbfounded silence. Joan is prone to exaggerations and had a tendency to put her own words into other people's mouths, so I couldn't be for sure if the pastor had actually said that, or if Joan was trying to persuade me not to reveal it. This is the same woman who does not want me help they poor when the come in, so who knows?

However, the implications of what she said was staggering: We have Jesus and we're going to keep him to ourselves! What is that about? No wonder American churches are dwindling. No wonder we can't grow. We have Jesus, but we won't share him with you. We'll beat you over the head with our Bibles and demand you live, act, dress, talk, and think like us... but Jesus is ours and until you conform to us, you can't have him.

So, if any of you out there is looking for Jesus, he's at First UMC in Welch, WV.