The Deeper Jesus
January 11, 2004
Dear Friends,
An effective exercise for reading and understanding the Scriptures is to put yourself in the role of the people about which you are reading. Imagine being at the foot of the fiery mount at the giving of the Ten Commandments. Imagine what it would be like as a Ninevite to see this strange prophet, Jonah, walk into the city and declare its impending destruction.
One of the more profitable exercises along these lines would be to imagine following Jesus through the hills of Judea and along the Sea of Galilee. What would it be like to witness the raising of Lazarus or the healing of Legion? What would it be like to see the Son of God crucified?
One of the things that I do not think we fully appreciate is how difficult it was to be a disciple of Christ. We tend to look at the prospect of actually following Christ though the idyllic “Norman Rockwell-esque” pictures painted by popular Christianity rather than the picture of Christ as presented in Scripture. The difficulty in following Jesus is somewhat self-evident to an extent by the very limited number of disciples who actually were successful in following Jesus to the end. The large throngs were continually thinned by the hard to understand and sometimes harsh words of Jesus.
In imaging ourselves to be among those followers, we can feel the impact of some of these difficult words. The benefit in doing so is to see Jesus as he actually is. The “rougher” or “harder” side of Jesus is very important else it would not be presented to us in that fashion. Rest assured, if we find ourselves having the same reaction as many of his disciples did — whether it be bewilderment, anger or disbelief — the problem lies with us and not with the Lord. It behooves us then to work through each Biblical presentation and understand what the Lord was trying to teach us.
For example, when we read of Jesus being anointed by Mary in John 12 and really understand what is going on, I must confess that I can sympathize with the reaction of Judas Iscariot. Mary takes a costly perfume that is worth A YEAR’S WAGES and puts it on the Lord’s feet. Judas and the other apostles are quite upset. Judas verbalizes what the other apostles are thinking when he says “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” My own image of Jesus begs the same question. This seems like a very indulgent — dare I say extravagant act — that Jesus allows to be perpetuated on his person. One would expect the Lord to chastise Mary and tell her that he doesn’t need such pampering (even if he is about to die). We expect him to tell her that he is going to his Father and that those he loves will need these valuable resources more than he. This is the expectation we might have from the one who saud “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Matt. 8:20)
To the contrary, the Lord not only refuses to admonish her, but praises her. He goes so far as to say “Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.” (Matt. 26:13 AV) Quite opposite of our expectations, Jesus’ response is to rebuke his apostles for thinking this way. His simple explanation is without elaboration. “”For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always.” (v.11) John’s gospel offers a little more. “Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.” (12:7 AV)
The bottom line is that we need to learn to think like Jesus and not by the dictates of the flesh. It is neither satisfactory for us to gloss over the account without being able to see it as the Apostles saw it nor is it profitable just to ignore it. Why did Jesus allow this act of extravagance? I’ll leave this one for you to ponder. As we said, the inescapable conclusion we must reach is that it was the right thing to do. But why?
Next week we will ponder some more of these incidents and not hold back our suggested solutions to the problem.
Have a great week!
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