The Journey With Jesus

I decided back in January to spend a year with Jesus. Reading a chapter a day in the Gospels, I could read all four Gospels four times in one year – actually, 356 days if I don’t miss any. I am on my second pass through and it has been an interesting journey.

First and foremost, I have found it difficult to read just one chapter a day. Some days I get so caught up in other things I miss reading a chapter – other times I start reading, and I can’t stop, I want to see what happens next. But all in all, as I said, I am on track – I finished my first pass through before the end of March.

Second, because I spent 2009 preaching through Mark’s Gospel, my journey has actually been a bit jarring. I got to know Mark really well in 2009, preaching close to fifty messages from the book. I knew something of the rhythm of the book, the journey with the Lord, and so when I began to read the other Gospels as an attempt to continue the journey, I noticed something striking. Each Gospel gets at Jesus in a different way. It is like four different pictures of the same person, taken from different angles. You begin to notice things. Matthew is so orderly, and he waits until chapter 8 to give the miracles Mark gives in chapter 1. Luke has the rich parables that speak of the Father’s love for us. John knows we have read the story before, so he lets us see things from a different perspective, catching us off guard, including things not told elsewhere, like the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Four different angles to understand and appreciate Jesus more.

Third, I have been amazed at how respectful Jesus is of the decisions others make. He is content to share the good news of the Kingdom and then let us decide. He believes fully that it is the Holy Spirit who convicts and converts, something I need to remember. He looks with love as a rich young ruler chooses to walk away, but he doesn’t go running after him and say, “Wait a minute, maybe I can make it easier for you, how about you sell just half of what you have?” He lets us make our own decisions, even if those decisions have dire consequences. I have been encouraged to trust God’s work more, and to love others more deeply with no strings attached.

At times my reading is more disciplined – I read through four chapters in Joshua for my Wednesday Bible study, I pour over a half dozen passage in preparation for Sunday night, I print out and pray over the text for Sunday morning... oh yeah, I have to get that Gospel chapter in! Those are the days I wonder if it does any good – except the Lord has an amazing ability to bring to my attention some passage, some verse, some word. Sometimes I think it is like the meals we eat – we may devour some meal mindlessly, preoccupied with something else – but at least our bodies have been nourished. I have learned that God can take what we expose ourselves to and do amazing things.

Isn’t that just like God?

The first pass through I read from the New International Version. This quarter I am in The Message. It is one of my favorites for devotional reading of Scripture – in many ways, it is like a Bible and a commentary rolled into one. I recommend it highly.

This morning I read these verses from Matthew 6: “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.”

And so I did.

Christ the Victor

John 13:1 declares, “... Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.”

The full extent – the breadth, the length, the height, the depth.

Literally John says, as the New American Standard words it, “He loved them to the end.” To the point of completion. To the very end of His strength, His heart, His soul.

To the wondrous cross.

How can we get at such extravagant love? It always exceeds our ability to comprehend or fully understand, and so all we can do is give an example, an approximation, an image.

There is a classic image of the cross that has always intrigued me. As Good Friday approaches, maybe it will enrich your meditations on the tremendous sacrifice of our Lord.

Through the years the image of what Jesus accomplished on the cross has been called Christ the Victor. There on the cross Jesus struck the deathblow to evil and sin.

Like a warrior He went to battle – only this was a battle unlike any the world has seen.

Typically a warrior sought to defeat his opponent by inflicting a wound so severe that it renders a response impossible. That is not what we see on the cross – it looks just the opposite.

But there is another way to defeat an opponent. Instead of hammering an opponent into submission, a warrior could choose to stand still and take his enemy’s best blow – to absorb all the blows, one after another, until the enemy literally exhausts his power and collapses.

That is what Jesus did on the cross. He suffered the worst that evil could hurl at Him.

Rejection by His own people in the streets of their capital city.

Hatred from all the experts in His own religion.

Injustice at the hands of the Roman court.

Disloyalty and betrayal by two of His closest associates, Peter and Judas.

Abandonment by His followers.

Public shame at being stripped naked and ridiculed as an impostor, “King of the Jews.”

The agony of the torture of crucifixion.

And in it all, the constant pressure of temptation to give it all up, to smash these ungrateful creatures with thunderbolts from heaven.

Jesus just stood there and took it -- taking on Himself the sins of the world, holding Himself in place – it wasn’t nails that held Him there, He chose to stay there. He took all that was thrown at Him, suffering to the end, taking every sin that could be thrown at Him -- and finally dying.

Had sin won? Was it left standing? Who would get up?

We know.

“Jesus, my redeemer, name above all names;
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, Hope for sinner’s slain.
Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son,
and leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done.”