Would I Like Jesus If I Met Him?

This is a question I’ve asked myself more and more the older I’ve gotten.  It grows more haunting as the years go by, perhaps because each passing year is a big step closer to actually meeting Him.  Not that haunted is the only thing I feel when I anticipate meeting Jesus.  But you get the point.

Would I like Jesus if I met Him, here, today?  I don’t know.  I know that I’d love to meet my ultra-nice conception of Jesus with His perfect smile and soothing words and non-judgmental tone.  I know I’d like to be the child on His lap, the adulteress being forgiven, the Mary being affirmed for sitting at His feet.  But I wouldn’t want to be a compromised political ruler or an argumentative Jewish intellectual or an out-of-line disciple.  And I wouldn’t want to be me.

Sure, it’s not just His kindness that’s attractive.  I’d like to meet Him in His perfect righteousness, too, but I’d prefer that it be a long line of other people being compared to Him.  Otherwise it would be beyond awkward (for me).  It would be devastating.

Yes, I’m convinced that He’s a heroic radical for flipping tables in the temple, and I love His denunciations of the religious hypocrites.  But I’d be foolish to think that He wouldn’t flip over some of my tables if He showed up today.  And that would be embarrassing.  And I don’t like to be embarrassed.  Don’t you know that I’m respected, that I’m weighty and influential?  Everyone knows I’m not hypocritical.  In need of a tune-up and some tweaking, always, but never an overhaul.  Sure, dust the table, reorganize a few things, and send a tainted coin or two flying, but no need to overturn the whole set-up.  Yeah, there are obviously some tables on my right and left that need to be flipped, but this one just needs a couple adjustments.  Flip someone else’s tables, thank you.

What about His compassion?  Well yes, like you, I’m moved by His radical love for the poor, the handicapped, the outcast, and the marginalized.  But just because I feel comfortable reading about His 18-hour days of ministry to the dirtiest members of society doesn’t mean I’d feel comfortable if He got up in my grill about my own missionless heart and merciless priorities.  And I can’t pretend that I’m not voluntarily enslaved to man-made traditions and falsely religious principles that protect me from having to exercise mercy and compassion.  So He’d have plenty of targets to fire at, and even though I love His compassion, I wouldn’t be fond of Him pointing out my lack of it.

Of course I enjoy the stories about His run-ins with the Pharisees and Sadducees — His masterful set-ups, His clever theological arguments, His pervasive knowledge of the Old Testament.  He didn’t fear anyone, and He was never defeated.  Like you, I marvel at that.  But I don’t know how I’d like my own precious theological notions eviscerated and left lying on the ground quivering and exposed.  I’m pretty sure I would be offended to hear Him telling me that I don’t understand much about Him, that there’s so much more to learn, that I need to repent and radically change some of my views, and that that I’m really just like the disciples in my half-baked understanding.  I like to learn new things, but I don’t like being wrong, and especially publically, sharply, humiliatingly wrong.  And just because I grew up in a pastor’s home and attended a sound Christian college and seminary doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have a good amount of my theology and even more of my opinions sliced and diced by the one who is the very embodiment of the truth.

The whole boy-discussing-theology-in-the-temple is a gripping story, but I’m not sure I would want a Hebrew junior higher joining my staff meeting discussions, especially if “all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers” (Luke 2:47).  I like the idea of child prodigies as much as the next guy, but not when they’re competition.  And in that vein, I most certainly wouldn’t want the local carpenter’s son returning to town making bold Messianic statements about Himself, no matter how good of a boy He’d been growing up.  If we’re honest with ourselves, what He said in Nazareth was just over the top, and we all know it.  But somehow we act like we would’ve been the only ones seeing things clearly, the only ones truly on His side, the only ones who would “get it” — like we would’ve been the only ones who would’ve opened our minds, exercised sincere faith, put our pride aside, and embraced God’s Son.

Really?  I’m not so sure.

Watching Him intellectually undress the religious elite with simple and sharp arguments is great spiritual entertainment, but fast-forward 2,000 years and cast me as the religious hypocrite and the show’s not so fun.  I cheer Him on in the gospels, but what if He showed up on my doorstep challenging my traditions and condemning my lukewarmness and outloving and outobeying anyone I’d ever seen before?  What if, unavoidably, His light began exposing my darkness?  It’s hard to say that my own Sunday ”Hosanna!” wouldn’t turn into a Friday “Crucify!”

I’m not saying that I don’t love Jesus.  I just want to love the right one.  And yes, that statement presumes that there’s more than one Jesus, at least in our imaginations and our conceptions and our preferences.

I remember sitting on the shore of the Sea of Galilee four years ago, watching the sun setting over the Arbel Cliffs on the other side of the lake and hearing the water lap up against the shoreline.  I thought about how wonderful it was to be there, and how what I was seeing and learning was radically altering my perspective.  But I wasn’t convinced that my tour of Israel would radically alter my life.  In fact, I was convinced that in and of itself, it wouldn’t.  As my eyes moved around the north shore of the lake, something struck me, something I’ve never forgotten.  If most of the people who knew of Jesus, saw His life, observed His miracles, and heard Him teach hardened their hearts and rejected Him, how in the world did it make any sense for me to presume that simply touring the land (and sea) that He walked on would change me?  So many who knew of Him hated Him.  Why was I so convinced that I would’ve loved Him had I been alive back then, or that I would love Him now if He showed up in person?

Don’t get me wrong.  By the electing, redeeming, forgiving, sanctifying grace of God, I do love Jesus.  Not like I ought, not like I could, and not like I will, but honestly and sincerely, I do love Him.  And I know that He loves me, deeply and eternally.  The veil has been torn from top to bottom and the way to God has been opened.  Because of Christ I can now enter the presence of God boldly and with confidence.

But I don’t want to be blind.  I don’t want to be foolish.  I don’t want to be ignorant and arrogant.  The fact is, Jesus Christ is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.”  He came to save us, but that doesn’t mean He came to make us comfortable in our sinfulness, or that He came to affirm our personal renderings of Him.

I’m not asking you to question Christ’s love for you or even your general love for Christ.  I’m just asking you to join me in considering who Jesus really is, in all His fullness, from all the angles we see in the gospels, and then to ask if we truly love Him for who He really is, in all His fullness, from all the angles we see in the gospels.  He has some jagged edges, in case you haven’t noticed, and we don’t tend to like jagged edges, especially when they cut us up.

There was a man whom Jesus loved deeply, and who loved Jesus deeply in return.  He was quite possibly Jesus’ best human friend.  In his later years, after his friend Jesus had ascended into heaven, they had a brief reunion.  “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

Would I like Jesus if I met Him?  No — I would love Him, because of who He is and because of what He’s done for me, and in me.  But in my sinfulness, there are a lot of things about Him that I wouldn’t like at all — not because of Him, but because of me.  And the sooner I acknowledge and confess that, the better.  Better to acknowledge that I don’t like aspects of who Jesus is and to seek forgiveness and transformation than to blindly and ignorantly declare my love for a Jesus tailored to my own preferences and personality.

Yes, I want to love Jesus — just not one of my own making.

Stronger

This song has greatly encouraged and refreshed me this week since we sang it in chapel on Monday.  Perhaps this (below) is a faint resemblance of what the heavenly assemblies will be like, with every tribe, tongue, people, and nation represented, with lives of holiness that will forever match the heat of our singing, and with Jesus Christ Himself in the lights and on the stage and in the video.  May He purify our hearts and gladden our souls for heaven as we linger in His presence on earth.

Stronger from Hillsong’s This Is Our God

There is love that came for us,
Humbled to a sinner’s cross.
You broke my shame and sinfulness,
You rose again victorious.

Faithfulness none can deny
Through the storm and through the fire.
There is truth that sets me free:
Jesus Christ who lives in me.

You are stronger, You are stronger,
Sin is broken, You have saved me.
It is written, “Christ is risen,”
Jesus, You are Lord of all!

No beginning and no end,
You’re my hope and my defence.
You came to seek and save the lost;
You paid it all upon the cross.

So let Your name be lifted higher,
Be lifted higher, be lifted higher!

The Things That Matter Most

I’ve spent the last year adjusting to a leadership position where there are so many little things demanding attention and so many trivial topics clamoring for discussion that it’s frighteningly easy to neglect the things that matter most.

I don’t yet know if most of life is like this.  I anticipate that this temptation is present everywhere, but I don’t have a clear way of knowing (from experience) if this is true, or how true it is in different seasons of life and other ministry contexts.  Maybe I’m just a fool who’s easily sucked into giving undue attention to small things.  Maybe I’m part of a subculture that’s particularly lively when it comes to batting around minutiae.  Perhaps this new position is viewed as much more of a campus-wide sounding board than my previous position (well, I know that’s true).  Maybe I’m a magnet for criticism, or more preferably (I hope) an approachable leader.  Maybe I’m just getting used to holding a position in a ministry that calls for a lot of administration at an institution with a number of policies with a student body that’s increasingly unapprised, dissatisfied, and vocal (at times legitimately, at times out of understandable immaturity).

Whatever the cause(s), this relentless convergence of small drops has tended to create quite a current of activity and conversation that continually threatens to sweep me (and I think others) away from the things that matter most.  Not that conversations about sweat pants and meal plans and prank guidelines and dorm policies and chapel sign-ins and exemption requests have nothing to do with anything important.  If I’ve learned anything, it’s that every detail of life revolves around the blazing center of Jesus Christ and finds its meaning and significance in that relationship.  So anything and everything holds a degree of importance, if only by implication and connection.  I’ve preached that sermon often, and I will continue to preach it.  There aren’t too many life lessons that are more central.  Likewise, I’ve always been a detail-oriented person (for better and for worse), and I’ve always believed that faithfulness in the small things is a strong indicator of integrity and maturity.

But there’s a difference between being dependable in little things and being distracted by them, between discussing them and being dictated by them, between airing an appropriate grievance and turning that grievance into a full-scale mission.

At the end of this first year, I find myself trying to revive my soul from this year’s long journey through the desert of ministry minutiae.  This is part of the reason why I’ve been trying to write more in the past week — to remind myself and others (mostly myself) of some brilliantly precious things that are easily overshadowed by the eclipse of detail.  I’m once again pursuing what’s begun to seem dangerously like an oasis — that place where glory and beauty and power and ultimacy and purpose and gospel and passion and mission and the things that matter most are displayed and discussed and deepened and delighted in, and where all of the details really and truly serve only as pixels that make up a tiny part of the picture.  I’m reminding myself that that place is not an oasis, and I’m journeying back there to enjoy it anew (and by enjoying it, to prove it).

I want to zoom out, to pull back, to rise above — to look out over (instead of overlooking) the breathtakingly beautiful and barren landscape of the world and to interpret it through the lens of Scripture’s great story of redemption.  And not just to see the story and its hero and its implications afresh, but to take it all in and to contemplate it deeply and proportionally and refreshingly.  In a few words: to meditate, to admire, and to marvel — and then to move into the fray with a confident and measured walk, ready to labor with a fullness of love that comes better from the burning motivation of a grand story than the harried agitation of an upcoming deadline.

I’m not looking for pity.  I think of single mothers and job-searching fathers and families of seven and overworked pastors and confused graduating seniors and dissatisfied businessmen and overwhelmed missionaries and lonely teenagers.  I write this for all of us who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and have been adopted into the heavenly family and have been commissioned to reach the world with a glorious message of salvation whose glory is undiminished by the trivia or the to-do list or the trial.  May we all, in all our weakness, be about the things that matter most.

Dean’s Series, Part 5: Fellowship and Evangelism

Another prominent yet subtle false dichotomy is fellowship and evangelism (I’m thinking of specific expressions of this divide at TMC along with general expressions in contemporary, western Christianity at large).  Happily, there’s currently a reformative trend towards missional living that’s long overdue, and I for one rejoice at God’s continued (and needed) work in my own life here.  Yet sadly, I’ve also seen and heard many expressions of this fresh evangelistic emphasis that blend missional zeal with an unhealthy sense of frustration at the fellowship and edification that the church is meant to be and provide.

I can spotlight as well as the next guy those tempting versions of so-called fellowship that exclude evangelism and the lost — the holy huddle mentality, the us-four-no-more attitude, the spiritual tree house where not only do we gather as a distinct group (which is appropriate) but also through our passivity keep others from coming, seeing, believing, and joining.  Yet this kind of fellowship is unbiblical not because fellowship with believers is less pleasing to God than relationships with unbelievers, but because this type of selfish, mission-less, centripetal fellowship is misled, incomplete, and abortive.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that theologically conservative, holiness-preaching, fellowship-emphasizing churches have not often led gospel-centered, love-driven charges into the world (though I know some wonderful pastors and churches that do).  But this stereotypical neglect (which has come to be vastly overstated, for the record) doesn’t mean that spending time with each other, enjoying each other, and edifying each other is a bad or lesser thing.

I’ll be the last to proclaim that TMC students need to spend more time on campus (though many could and should spend more time in their local churches).  This is not at all my point.  Overall, there’s a dire need for us to live normal, human lives in our communities and build normal, human friendships in our communities, no matter how cliché “get-out-into-the-community” may sound.  Yet this need doesn’t diminish the need for sincere, perpetual, Spirit-saturated fellowship.  In fact, it enhances the need.

In reality, our goal of missional effectiveness demands the joy, instruction, conviction, refining, sharpening, and celebration of biblical fellowship.  And our experience of proper fellowship functions as both the vehicle and the fuel of mission.

On the one hand, if we are intensely joyful, obviously loving, biblically instructed, constantly refined, perpetually sharpened, and ever-celebrating our deliverance in Christ, we will be better heralds.  On the other hand, it is precisely our happy experience at this banquet of fellowship that drives us to invite others to the party and that attracts them to come.

The very purpose of evangelism is to bring people into God-exalting, Christ-embracing, Spirit-baptized fellowship with the Triune God and the people of His blood-stamped covenant.  And the major purpose of our fellowship (on earth) is to mold us collectively into the image of Christ so that we are clearer, cleaner, and brighter reflections of His character, so that we can demonstrate to the world what God is like and attract them to a sincere relationship with Him and His people through the gospel.  Evangelism draws the lost into fellowship.  Fellowship overflows in evangelism.

Most importantly, the very nature and presence of the church in the world is evangelistic.  The church is a missional organism.  The actual creation of the church is a missional strategy, an evangelistic move by God!  God has ransomed a diverse bunch of sinners from darkness and is sanctifying the church to be an ever-brightening light to the world.  So emphasizing the church doesn’t mean de-emphasizing the lost.  Rather, a proper emphasis on the church, and the right kind of time spent with believers, makes the church a better and brighter witness to the world.

Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.  Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:9-12).

The church is a lighthouse.  The church is a megaphone.  The church is a broadcasting company.  We broadcast God’s glory, His fame, and His worth.  We echo the resounding chorus of His praise.  And we beam into the darkness the light of the the Shekinah glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ.  We declare to the world that our God is great, that our God is good, that our God saves, and that our God is God alone.  We proclaim — in word and in deed, by the grace of God and in the power of the Spirit, through out-reaching fellowship and in-bringing mission – that the Father sent the Son.