Only Jesus

My 2020 resolution has been to reread the New Testament. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover previously, but it’s been a good while. A friend of mine tackled the whole book last year, and while this holds appeal to the perfectionist in me, I felt it might be prudent to lean towards something less arduous.
But as there are more days in a year than chapters in the NT, I think it might actually happen.

Today in my reading I was struck by Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration, when Jesus took his best friends up Mount Tabor. He became dazzling white and His face was like the sun. Peter, James, and John watched the other-worldly scene, ‘exceedingly afraid.’

A bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe.
But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”
And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

So often with the Father, I find that what He is doing is too grand, too incomprehensible, too other. I don’t perceive the gentleness, the mercy, the kindness. He is the bright cloud and the booming voice from which I hide. He does things—hard things—for my greater good, and I’m deaf to the sweetness of the words that accompany his actions. I'm unable to hear “beloved Son, well-pleased.” I simply bury my face, uncomfortable and afraid, certain He is asking something I could not possibly give.

And I guess this is where it really hits me: While I'm lost to perceiving the Lord (and the disciples were too), the Father is unwilling for this to be the place where it stops. He loves too grandly.

Jesus became human, became the very image of the Father. He came to be the person we could see with our eyes and touch with our hands and know with certainty. He made the divine accessible. He touches me, banishes my fears, and tells me to rise. With Christ, I can perceive love, however challenging and foreign the rest of His message (or that moment) is.

Years ago, when I was first dating Edward, I was a ball of nerves. Every time I wasn't with him my mind went in a thousand directions, certain suddenly that he was not the right thing for me. I needed to get away, needed to end it all. It was dizzying. But whenever I saw Edward again, his eyes calmed me and set all the madness to rest. I suddenly could remember who he was, and understood that I had nothing to fear. He was Edward, a good man who loved me.

Yes, the metaphor falls short, but I see the same idea in this passage.

Jesus is the picture of mercy, the mercy of a Lord who will not rest until I perceive that it is Him standing before me, not a fearful Other.

I merely need to look up, for it is only Jesus.