Do you ever wonder what Jesus would say to you, right now, if He were sitting beside you? 

Oh Jesus speaks to be sure through Scripture and Sacrament, through preaching and people. It is certainly still true that “the heavens are telling the glory of God, the firmament proclaims His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). And ministries far and wide seek to bring the message of Jesus and His love into the reality of our lives.

But what place does imagination have in God’s loving us into life? Is it possible we can become adequately saturated with God’s Word and work that we can indeed imagine what Jesus would say, or does say, to us today? Is that what Paul means when he speaks of  being “…transformed by the renewing of your minds…” (Rom. 12: 1)?

Certainly our music is filled with imagination. We sing of what it would be like if we could put time in a bottle, or if there were  no more wars, or if a picture could paint a thousand words how we would paint someone we love. We sing of our imagination of heaven and of unbroken circles of our loved ones beyond this earth. The artistic world certainly revels in the rich realm of imagination. Do we need to cultivate the art as well as the behavior of discipleship to Jesus?

Are we so obsessed with what we can prove by Scripture or reason or history that we have forgotten the imagination with which we first knew God as children? Is it possible that Jesus Himself invites our use of imagination when He said with a wink, kids playing at His feet, that we won’t get this Kingdom of God stuff unless we learn to let God love us like a child would?

Just imagine that!