The intimacy portrayed in the icon caused me to double take. I had never seen anything like it. I’m speaking, of course, about the piece depicted above. It’s an early Coptic Christian icon depicting Jesus and Abbot Mena. Some refer to it as “Christ and his friend.” I see that, and I see in this icon something of an icon of lectio and life.

Jesus stands taller than the Abbot Mena, and he holds the Bible, reminding us that he is the One we encounter in the words of Scripture. He is the greatest fruit of lectio divina. Jesus has one eye on Mena and the other one on the viewer. He sees Mena and he sees you. He sees me.

Then, we have the figure of the good abbot, surely struggling through all the things any abbot — or priest, or abbess, or father of a family, or mother of a family — struggles through. Meno’s trying to be a good shepherd, and here is the Good Shepherd shepherding him. Jesus is guiding him into Scripture and guiding him in life. Mena holds a scroll, possibly the rule of his monastic community, and he, too, has one eye on Christ and one eye looking out. He raises his hand in blessing. He is blessing Christ in return, but in return for what?

An embrace.

The whole scene is wrapped in an embrace. Jesus, draws close to the Abbot, puts his arm on his shoulder. This is a gesture of intimacy, vulnerability, and friendship. He is pulling the abbot closer to his heart and under the wing of his protection. “Under his wings you may take refuge” (Ps 91:4). In drawing the abbot closer to his heart, he is simultaneously drawing him deeper into the Gospels.

The icon teaches us that it’s Jesus we encounter in Scripture, in Christian friendship, in the created world “out there,” and in the mysterious depths of the heart.