He who was going to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21)

Someone gave me a book a few years ago written by a Jewish man.  His main purpose in the book, whether stated or not, I don’t remember, was to help young Jews not become Christians.  He explained why Jews are not Christians, why Jews should not convert to Christianity and laid out the differences between Christian and Jewish understandings of the Messiah.

He said that the Jewish Messiah was going to come and set the Jewish people free from the oppression they are in politically at the hands of their enemies.  But he said that the mission of the Christian Messiah was “just to set humanity free from its bondage to sin”.  Just.  Option 1: the Messiah sets free God’s chosen people and leaves the rest of the race of men to burn.  Option 2: the Messiah opens the doors of freedom to the entire race of men.  Which would you choose?

Now, before you call me anti-Semitic, you should know that I am Jewish.  Not in a “we are now all part of the Israel of God” way, but in the “my mother was Jewish, her mother was Jewish and her mother was Jewish” kind of way.  And I’m not making fun of this guy who wrote this book.  I think he did a great job of showing that Christianity is a better option, not only in the section I mentioned above, but throughout the book.  His points made Christianity look much more appealing to me, I think I got saved again at least once while reading.

It is true, the Lord committed Himself to redeeming Israel, but He is just one of those guys who does more than is required of Him.  Paul put it well when he wrote that He does “exceedingly, abundantly beyond all we could ever ask or think”.  Call it over-achieving, call it excellence, call it whatever you want, I’m just glad He didn’t just stop with one people group.  It seems to me that it is more like Him in His character as I know Him to search for any way possible to bless whoever He can in whatever way He can.

He has a greater vision than us.  He thinks bigger.  He loves larger.  He believes in us more than we do in ourselves or each other.  He waits longer for the perfect moment to spring up and ambush us with blessings we cannot contain.  He invests more in us than we think we can handle.  He trusts us more than we think we are worthy of.  He knows us deeper.  He understands us better.  He is more creative than we can imagine.  He is more kind.  He is never worried about what is going to happen.  He is your biggest fan.  He does it right but doesn’t freak out when things don’t go the right way.  He can do anything, except remember what you did wrong.  He is not irritable.  He can handle anything you can dish out.  He is very patient.  He is love.

Sure, He was going to redeem Israel, but then He figured “Why stop there?”  Just like in Mark 6, when He walked on water, His intention was to go past the little boat of scared disciples and beat them to the other side.  But He saw that they needed Him, so He stopped by to help out by stopping to contrary winds.  And when He was about to go to the Father as our Great High Priest to sacrifice His Blood to complete the necessary atonement, He stopped to comfort Mary in the garden.  He is still a big proponent of redeeming Israel, setting them free political oppression, but He won’t stop there.  His sights are set slightly higher than that.

*Redeemer, give us Your heart so that we live like You live.

Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people (Luke 24:19)

Whoever said it first, I don’t know, but some very insightful person once said that the Lord never asks a question to obtain information, but rather to provoke thought and reveal truth.

Obviously these two guys on the seven mile road to Emmaus had no idea Who they were talking to.  It seems that they have a divine blinder on their eyes to keep them from recognizing Jesus, much like Mary had when she met Jesus in the garden by His empty tomb.  With Mary, Jesus waited for her to pour out her heart and then He spoke directly to her and she recognized Him in His Voice.  With these men, they poured out their distress at hopes deferred, then He spoke to them so that they could feel Him and only allowed them to recognize Him when He gave them broken bread – a symbol of His body broken.

There are two things that mark the life of Jesus, both in His personal earthly ministry and His corporate earthly ministry through the Church, He speaks prophetically through both His deeds and His words.  People believe for one of these two reasons, He does something and they change or His Word breaks through their circumstances and the Truth sets them free.  For Mary, it took a word from Him to clear the blindness, for the two on the road it took a prophetic act.  But in both cases Jesus left them without them getting to touch Him.  This is a divine strategy.  He will bring illumination, then our responsibility is to walk in the Light that He has provided.

As great as it is to be mighty in deed and word in the sight of people, it is better to be mighty in deed and word in the sight of all the people.  But how much greater it is to be mighty in deed and word in the sight of God?  Elijah saw himself as one who did all that he did before the Lord, identifying himself as such to Ahab.  Even more so, Jesus lived before His Father.  This may be why Jesus could say that He only did what He could see the Father doing, because His eyes were focused beyond the veil.

Yet Jesus said that we who simply believe will do even greater things than He did.  He is only in the earth changing and shifting things as much as we, His Body, are making ourselves available to be mighty in deed and word in the sight of all the people.  He has been raised from being dead by the very Spirit that now resides in us who have been born again.  It is our turn to do deeds that will slice through the blindness of the world.  It is in our job description to speak words that will illuminate the spirits of men and women who are destined and made to know God.

With the two men who walked with Jesus, as soon as they recognized Him, He vanished.  This, too, is to be our practice.  As soon as we have done what we intended to do in being the light of the world, we are to disappear so that we do not become the object of worship, but merely a bridge from Heaven to earth.  Our job is to become transparent with Him inside of us so that when we look in the mirror we are no longer visible but are carriers of His image.  This will so mark us that when someone encounters Him at our hands and they look to us they see Jesus alone.

As my friend said today, “The Holy Spirit is in the Jesus-cloning business.”

*Thank You for speaking Your cleansing Word over us and making us like You.