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Making Space to Enter the Mind of Christ

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by the Rev. Paul McLain

“John the Short said, ‘I will invent a man composed of all the virtues. He would rise at dawn every morning, take up the beginning of each virtue, and keep God’s commandments. He would live in great patience, in fear, in long-suffering, in love of God; with a firm purpose of soul and body; in deep humility, in patience, in trouble of heart and earnestness of practice. He would pray often, with sorrow of heart, keeping his speech pure, his eyes controlled. He would suffer injury without anger, remaining peaceful and not rendering evil for evil, not looking for the faults of others, nor puffing himself up, meekly subject to every creature, renouncing material property and everything of the flesh. He would live as though crucified, in struggle, in lowliness of spirit, in goodwill and spiritual abstinence, in fasting, in penitence, in weeping. He would fight against evil, be wise and discreet in judgment and chaste in mind. He would receive good treatment with tranquility, working with his own hands, watching at night, enduring hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness and labor. He would live as though buried in a tomb and already dead, every day feeling death to be near him.’”

One of the things this time has taught me is the sheer fragility of life. I want to be gentler with the people around me, and I appreciate the gentleness given to me. Perhaps a better term for social distancing is “compassionate distancing.” An open question is, “What, if any, ways will this time change us?”

Today is Good Friday, a day in which we reflect on Jesus’s self-giving response to torture, humiliation, and death. My honest response is that I’m glad I didn’t have to go through what he did. But this day of all days calls us to enter the mind of Christ. Rowan Williams writes, “Jesus, because as a person he is one with the Word of God, in perfect communion with the Father, changes human nature by his personal loving surrender to God in every detail of his life and death. Those who live in him by grace are in the process of having their human nature changed as their personal relation with him develops; they are growing into what is always fully present and accomplished in him.”[1]

Jesus’s loving surrender is salvific for us, but it also calls for a response in how we are to live going forward. The “invented person” described in the beginning of this post by the desert father John the Short may seem out of our reach. But one thing we’re given right now is more unscheduled time to reflect on ways we can live more like Christ. For by making space to enter his self-giving love, we “have been appointed to ask for mercy for the world, to keep vigil for the salvation of all, and to partake in every person’s suffering.”[2]


[1]Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another, 63-64.
[2] Isaac the Syrian, The Fountain and the Furnace, 165, as quoted by Maggie Ross, Pillars of Flame: Power, Priesthood, and Spiritual Maturity, 118.

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