Take a moment and think along with me.
Think about the people you know best….your child, your best bud, your lover.
You think you know them….and then they do something that offends or triggers you. How do you respond?
I don’t know you at all!
Or they share something so deep and so personal. All you can say is…
Wow. Just wow. I never knew.
How is it possible to know someone so deeply, so intimately…and yet not know them?
I think about the story of a man named John*, who, while still growing within the womb of his mother, leaped when hearing the voice of the Anointed One’s mother. It is evidence of unusual timing…or the fact that John, while in utero, recognized the presence of Christ in his midst. But years later, when both boys were men, John TWICE said,
I myself did not know him
How can this be? How can John recognize Christ before birth but then not know Him as an adult?
Can it be that Christ can be both known and unknown at the same time? He, like us, was born of a human mother, so he is fully human. Can it be that as HUMANS we can be both known and unknown at the same time?
And is that okay?
I figure that it is and that I can grow in appreciating that I don’t really know Christ….and yet, in some ways, I do. If this is true for John, Jesus’s cousin, and he is okay with it – I can be too.
And, I’m working on being okay with knowing….and not knowing those I love most.
What have you learned about knowing…and not knowing the ones you love?
*Source: Luke 1:41; John 1: 26 – 34