I want to start with an old joke you may have heard:
A vicar was giving the children’s message during church. For this part of the service, he would gather all the children around him and give a brief lesson before dismissing them for children’s church. On this particular Sunday, he was using squirrels for an object lesson on industry and preparation.
He started out by saying, “I’m going to describe something, and I want you to raise your hand when you know what it is.”
The children nodded eagerly.
“This thing lives in trees… and eats nuts…”
No hands went up.
“And it is grey… and has a long bushy tail…”
The children looked at each other, but still no hands raised.
“And it jumps from branch to branch and chatters and flips its tail when it’s excited…”
Finally, one little boy tentatively raised his hand. The vicar breathed a sigh of relief and called on him.
“Well…,” said the boy, “I know the answer must be Jesus… but it sure sounds like a squirrel!”
Yesterday, we were asked what sets Christian spiritualities apart from other spiritualities. We’d spent the term exploring different traditions and approaches, so it was a chance to gather everything together.
Except… the first thing that came to mind was that joke. The answer is always Jesus.
It felt almost too obvious. Too simple. A bit flippant. I did offer some more considered responses in the discussion, but that first instinct kept returning. Because, actually, it’s not wrong.
At the heart of any Christian spirituality is not just a set of practices or ideas, but a person. The aim isn’t simply self-improvement, or inner peace, or even wisdom in itself. It’s to draw near to God and, in doing so, to become more like Christ.
In other words… it really does come back to Jesus.
That thought followed me into another conversation. We were looking Luke 22, at Jesus before the council, and what struck me was what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t argue his way out. He doesn’t grasp at power or try to prove himself. There’s no scrambling for status, no performance to secure his position. He stands, calm and self-assured, secure in who he is.
And that led us to think about identity. About all the places we tend to root it. Jobs. Relationships. Possessions. Status. Appearance. Success. Approval.
None of those things are inherently bad. But all of them are fragile. They can shift, or fade, or be taken away entirely. If that’s where our identity sits, it doesn’t take much for it to start unravelling.
But if our identity is grounded somewhere else… If it’s rooted in our relationship with Jesus, in being known and loved by him, in being part of the family of God… That’s not something that can be taken away.
“It sounds like a squirrel… but I know the answer must be Jesus.”
Maybe that’s not such a bad answer after all. Because beneath all my learning, all my exploring, all my attempts to understand and explain… I keep circling back to him.
Not as the easy answer, but as the true one. The one who shows us who God is. The one who shows us who we are.
And in a world where so much of our identity can shift or slip through our fingers, that is something we can hold onto.
Or perhaps more truthfully… something that holds onto us.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 