This week are readings are Ephesians 3.14–21 and John 6.1–21. 

The passage from Ephesians is extraordinary in the number of seeming impossibilities in contains.  The writer longs for his readers (us included) to comprehend the full dimensions of an eternal God... he, really drawing out the paradox, incites us to 'know' the love 'that surpasses knowledge'.  That, by definition, can't be done!  What's being attempted, it seems to me, is an invitation to explore the mystery of the fulness of God to the fullest extent we can, to be filled with it, and to be amazed by it.  He is inviting us to be lifted to worship as we are consumed by and inhabit the mystery that is God. 

Clearly here 'knowing' is something more than a head-based recall of facts, theories, or theologies.  What practically might it look like? If we let the passage from John speak into the question, the answer that emerges is by experience.  By seeing, feeling, and participating in what God is up to.  It's not the teaching of Jesus that convinces the crowd - it's the way he feeds them, 'when they saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.'   At that point they believe in him so much that they decide they want to make him their king!

Jesus, of course, slips away - there was still much to do before his crucifixion and enthronement.   Perhaps we feel that same distance from him.  Perhaps we wonder, as that crowd must have done, how can we now touch him?  How can we see what he's doing?  

Lets turn back and let Ephesians speak into that question.  The writer reassures us that we can - because Jesus, who is now enthroned as King of Kings, dwells in our hearts.  There is nowhere we can be that he is not; there is nothing we can do to which he is not party.  Maybe the trick is remembering to remember that, to start noticing, deliberately, his presence in us and through us - and in and through those around us.  If we can get the hang of that we may just find that we don't just hope for his presence in our lives, we know it.