Just Jesus
What is the truth Jesus testifies to?
The truth of Love!
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Pilate doesn’t know this truth. Maybe in the end he learns it. But right now, he doesn’t understand what Jesus is getting.
If I am a king, Jesus seems to tell Pilate, I am not a king in the worldly sense. I lead and guide in a much deeper sense. I reign in the spiritual sense. My kingdom is made up of those born of the spirit. I’m king of the heart.
What Pilate doesn’t get, and what so many ever since haven’t gotten, is that the revolution Jesus forges is a revolution of the heart! If hearts are changed, people are changed, communities are changed, nations are changed, the world is changed.
Jesus’ revolution is a spiritual revolution. As a seed it begins in the heart and grows outward, transforming everything in its wake – people, communities, towns, states, nations, the world!
And this kind of revolution from the inside out - it’s a change that lasts forever, because it mirrors heaven.
Our task is to grow a new garden around the Tree of Life that is Jesus!
Jesus once said, you cannot live by bread alone. Good job. Good finances. Good house. Good political plans and economic growth. These things are what they are. But more than temporal things, we need spiritual sustenance, spiritual healing from the inside out. We need the truth of love moving in our hearts and moving into the world in real, potent ways.
Jesus is the king of that side of things, the spiritual side, the essential side, the heart side. And it’s from this side that true and lasting change happens and can only happen.
This side of things, the side of the spirit, the side of love, the side that transcends all sides, let’s be clear, it’s not something this world thoroughly embraces. Jesus’ revolution of the heart, the Jesus way, doesn't win popularity contests.
If Jesus and his way were a high school clique, it wouldn’t be the cool kids. It wouldn’t be the jocks or the popular crowd. Jesus’ way would be a combo of the weird kids, the nerdy kids, the band kids, the rebel kids.
Jesus’ way is a foreign way to the world. Jesus’ way doesn’t fit in, doesn’t conform, doesn’t easily belong. “My kingdom doesn’t belong to this world,” Jesus says.
One big reason for this unpopularity is that Jesus rejects the idea of battling it out. Lord knows our culture loves a good battle. 108 million watched a battle between a 20-something millionaire Youtuber and an almost 60 year-old former champion just last week! The next day world leaders attended a UFC match. And who doesn’t love football?
But Jesus, he points to another way.
As Jesus points to in his words to Pilate, he could easily put up a fight. He could arm his followers and lead them into battle, and they’d follow. Peter, the one whom Jesus will call the Rock of the church, just tried to start that battle. Jesus stopped him – “Put your sword away. Those who live by the sword will die by it.”
The side of love doesn’t do battle as the world does. Love seeks to win the soul and win the world over to the way of love. That’s the Christian revolution. And we, the church are called to lead it. Jesus commissions us for this.
Now, we must be honest, the church gets a lot wrong in the decades following Jesus’ earthly stay. The church will join hands with the state, with empires all around, and do deadly battle again and again. But Jesus, I think he’d have said no, not in my name. He’d have said, you’re missing the real revolution, that of the heart. He’d have said, remember who you are – the weird ones, the artsy ones, the rebels standing against the ways of the world.
Resist the battle-loving world of the popular and the powerful.
I’d like to close by saying how the world needs this Jesus, leader of outcasts! How our society needs this Jesus, king of the heart. How our culture needs this Jesus, the one who resists the world’s me versus you, us versus them, Paul versus Tyson approach. How our cultural needs this Jesus, the countercultural Jesus.
I’ve been thinking lately how the church does in standing against the prevailing culture. To be frank, I don’t think the American church does too well. Instead of being countercultural, the American church chases culture, choosing one side or the other instead of the transcendent way of love.
The American church has lost its way. Its looked past Jesus. Yes, we’ve looked past Jesus. We sing of him in our hymns. We insert his name in the Trinity and call him Christ. We even read his words on Sunday morning. But we’ve looked past the Jesus that says, I’m not of this world. We’ve looked past the Jesus who resists all these silly battles and chooses only love. We’ve looked past the Jesus who comes into the world to help it transcend the way of conflict and choose the way of peace. We’ve looked past Jesus and have replaced him with what seems too often like bread alone, material matters, political idols, culture wars.
We’ve looked past Jesus and his clear, unambiguous third way, the life, the truth and the way of love!
Just Jesus.
That is what the world is starving for. Jesus and his way is the truth people need now more than ever. Jesus and his way uplifts all, beginning with those who need uplifting the most. Jesus and his way destroys our cubby holes and silos that we’re walled up in and separated by.
Just Jesus. Our pursuit of justice, inclusiveness, care for the vulnerable, a necessary pursuit, this pursuit comes through Jesus. We see the world with the eyes and heart of Jesus and build the beloved community by changing hearts. That is the way!
All are invited to walk the Jesus way. No matter who you are, you are welcome here! Each of us uniquely made. Each of us carrying our own histories, our own stories, our own triumphs, heartbreaks, and insights. There’s room for all of us, for all of us, for all of you seeking to follow the Jesus way.
Thank God, for that!
Let us be what we are and heal the world around us.
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