God's personal touch

Bishop James V. Johnston, Jr. is the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

This past week, I was asked by two different groups of people to share my personal faith story and how I was led to the priesthood. It is something I enjoy sharing, and something I still marvel at as I get older, much as the Samaritan woman did after meeting Jesus at the well that day.

Part of what still fascinates me is that Jesus pays such attention to me personally. It is easy to imagine that God casts a broad vision from beyond the edge of the universe and sees the world in general — that blue planet with all those billions of people, all busy with things. But God is God, and each of us is his child, precious and unrepeatable. God knows us intimately; as the Samaritan woman realized in her words, “He told me everything I ever did.”

One sees this amazing realization reflected in Saint Paul’s letters too, along with those of the other apostles. In one of his most beautiful testimonies, Saint Paul writes: “I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me. I still live my human life, but it is a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20) He loved me and gave himself for me; he is living in me.

This realization is one of the most important in a Christian’s life, to realize that Christianity is not just a movement, or a set of teachings, but a personal encounter with the living God. Some theologians have referred to this Christian belief that God loves us personally, and stoops to become involved in our little lives, as a kind of scandal. How could God care personally about each tiny creature so intimately? The late Carl Sagan, the celebrity astronomer, was so overwhelmed at the immensity of the universe and its incomprehensible vastness that he would remark at how small and insignificant we humans seem to be. A mere speck of a speck, from his perspective. Indeed, God’s love follows a divine logic which is hard for humans to understand and, for some, too good to be true.

But this is one of the keys to the Gospel and its Good News. God is love, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) This, too, for some, strikes as scandalous; that God, almighty and all holy, would stoop to assume our humanity so that he could die and then rise from the dead for me.

Our challenge as disciples is to recover our wonder and love at what God has done for us — personally — and, like the Samaritan woman at the well, and like Zacchaeus, and like so many others in the Gospels, give our own testimony when presented the opportunity about what he has done for me.