A while back I took all my understandings of Jesus and placed them over to one side. I put them in a box labeled ‘jesus’ with a lowercase j, a box with the name “Jesus” in quotation marks.
And I set about finding out, as best as I could, who the one with a name so big really is.
I have come to find that many people have stolen, copied & hijacked his name for their own agendas, beliefs & causes. Yet, underneath all the sludge & attachments there is an amazing figure worth following. For what it’s worth, this is what I have found in the midst of it all…
- I believe that God has indeed created us & wants to be in relationship with each of us. Therefore, he communicates with us. The greatest way he has done that is through the person of Jesus.
- Jesus loved, laughed, loved, ate, loved, drank, loved, lived, loved, taught hard things & loved some more.
- In Jewish culture, a rabbi would have his own interpretations about the words God had handed down through the years. This set of teaching & interpretations was called a ‘yoke’.
- Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
- Jesus did not seem at all interested in judging people for breaking other rabbis’ rules.
- He seemed more interested in sharing his own interpretation, his own yoke. And he believed that by teaching and living it out, he would show us the ‘Father’.
- He seemed quick to forgive anyone who truly wanted to be more like him.
- Matthew chapter 5 seems to be Jesus’ outline for living a life pleasing to the one who created us.
- I wonder if ONE ANOTHER is really what it’s all about…?
- Jesus said that to love God with all your heart & to love your neighbor as yourself are the two greatest commandments and that everything else hangs on these two truths. And then he showed us what that looked like by actually living it out himself…
- From that place of authority Jesus said, “Follow me.”
- So I have set out to see what that looks like. I have committed to living a life of following this Jesus. Not the one who’s been hijacked & stuffed in a box too small for him - not the one trapped behind stained glass.
- The only yoke I have found that fits right, is the yoke of Jesus himself. I am still looking for a ‘rabbi’ & a community that teaches & lives out the yoke of Jesus as I understand he taught & lived it.
- At this point, I am living out that yoke in the context of family & friends - loving one another, serving one another, praying for one another, turning the other cheek, loving when it costs me something…
- I believe that all truth is God’s truth & that his attributes show up in many places and are made manifest through many & varied means. I strive to keep my eyes open for his hand in the world.
- Jesus’ yoke seems to me to be about pleasing a God who makes it easy to please him.
- Jesus’ yoke seems to me to be about doing what we know we should be doing anyway, and reaping the joy that flows out from an others-centered life.
I still have many questions, much to learn & much to unlearn. Among them...
- On the cross, Jesus said, ‘It is finished’ and then breathed his last. How universe-altering was that moment? Or the moment his spirit & body were reunited & resurrected? Do we even vaguely understand it?
- What does it really mean to be ‘born again’? What is the pure, unhijacked version of what Jesus meant by that beautifully pregnant phrase?
Jesus spoke a lot about the “Kingdom of God”. I want to purposely live in it & help others be a part of it. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” I feel freer than I ever have, yet I want to be freer still. So, I continue to seek him out - the truest, purest Jesus - the only one spelled with a capital J.
