With Ben leaving, it’s caused me to ponder a lot about what makes him such a good friend. Ultimately I concluded that what I appreciate the most about Ben is the Christlike example that he sets. The more I get to know him, the more I feel I get to know Him.
In fact it’s remarkable how much this has triggered a change in how I am approaching coming to know Jesus Christ. My whole life Christ has been “untouchable,” a perfect, yet remote figure. Like, say, Mitt Romney or maybe even President Hinckley. People that I know because of what I hear about them, what I read about them, what I see of them on TV. But Ben—I know Ben. I’ve worked with Ben, I’ve played with Ben, I’ve listened to Ben, I’ve asked Ben tough questions, I’ve seen Ben in tough situations, I’ve seen him in situations where it would be tempting to get frustrated, to say something negative, or to give up—and I’ve seen him do the right thing. And I’ve experienced a feeling each time I watch that, a feeling that that’s the way I want to be, that that’s the way we all need to be to be truly happy.
So at what point does the way I feel toward Christ change from being the way I see and feel toward Mitt Romney to being the way I see and feel toward Ben? Because Ben directly inspires me and Mitt Romney—well, somewhat less so. I love Ben. I want to follow his example, I feel the Spirit when I’m around him.
Now I’ve never had the opportunity to meet Jesus Christ. I really don’t know much about him personally. I don’t know what he’d say to a Costco hot dog. I don’t know what kinds of things would make him laugh. I don’t know how he feels about an Elder’s Quorum move. I don’t know how he prefers to get his exercise. I don’t know how he reacts when he’s happy. I don’t know how he reacts when someone says something awkward. Except of course beyond trying to find some scripture that seems to relate to those things.
Yes, I may have learned a lot about Him, but I don’t really feel like I know him, with the lower-case ‘h’, if that makes sense, and knowing him, at least as far as might be mirrored by my experience having been friends with Ben, makes an enormous difference in how it inspires me to see a man, with foibles and who is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” “in all points tempted like as we are.” I need to see the ways that He is like me, both for His successes and for His struggles, to see that my potential is somehow related to His. To see that the greatness I see in Him comes in ways that I am able and inspired to follow. I guess, as Lehi puts it, to see the “opposition in all things,” because without that element, without that attribute, as Lehi continues, “righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.” Picturing a Christ who “cannot be touched” or is even in some degree less touched is to picture a Christ who “[has] no joy, for [he knows] no misery; doing no good, for [he knows] no sin.”
Since coming to that realization, I’ve thought a lot more about Christ. I even catch myself thinking about him while watching random TV shows. I’ve tried to picture the “him” behind the “Him”. I’ve read the scriptures about Christ more carefully, picturing a man “touched” and “tempted” and “yet without sin”. I’ve found myself pondering who He really was. I’ve found richer meaning in simple phrases that I’ve read hundreds of times like, “then Jesus was led up of the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be with God,” and “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
I’ve never understand exactly what it meant to know Christ. I’ve always known that I should want to know Him. But now I really want to know him. My friend, Ben, taught me more than I think he’ll ever know about the Savior, because he reflected something that directly emanated from the Savior, something that caught my eye and touched my heart. I realized that beyond the love for my friend, I had a love for the goodness, for the light, for the truth he bore. Recognizing that what I saw in my friend was but a reflection from somewhere or someone else made me realize that the source of all goodness is a real, tangible source. It made me realize that were I to come to know Christ as I have come to know my friend, those feelings of love, light, goodness, truth, and inspiration would be deeper than perhaps I ever thought imaginable. This is not just some man who changed the world. This is not just some person my Sunday school teachers tell me I should want to know better. He's not just a name in a book. He is a “treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and *for joy* thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”
