Morning time with God is failing. It's just not working for me. I need to find a new time of day, a new message, something. But in my last ditch effort, I read through the Book of Matthew, about 4 chapters a day. It was really quick, I didn't look at any commentaries, I didn't check any Old Testament references. And that was difficult - more proof that I still sometimes look at the Bible like a textbook - but it was helpful.
When you just read the story of Jesus's life, it looks very different. When you look at how He speaks and what He says to people (without trying to find some kind of hidden code that only first century Jews would understand) you see a side of Him that sometimes gets lost. From my vantage point, Jesus's ministry is summed up in the two words he says at the very beginning. Come and see. He gives His Sermon on the Mount and then goes out and does what He's telling people they should do. When people ask Him questions, He explains Himself, and goes on His way. He has a reason, He has integrity. He simply does what He says He's going to do - the will of His Father.
Revisiting Matthew reminded me that Jesus was not necessarily extraordinary at His job. There were other rabbis working miracles, healing people, and casting out demons and there had been several prophets talking about the destruction of the temple. The only miracle that we know set Jesus apart from rabbis in this time period was that He raised the dead. But Elijah did that, too. No wonder people got them confused. Anyway, raising the dead is a big deal, yes. But when you look at how rarely this happens, Jesus's method of ministry is pretty....average. Don't misunderstand me, folks - His message is absolutely extraordinary. Nobody else in history has claimed to be the Son of God. But His method wasn't that outrageous. He was simply obedient to the will of His Father. In mulling this over and discussing it, someone told me that "Jesus is not more powerful than us, He is more obedient than us."
Because let's be honest, the Sermon in the Mount is good, but it's not great. I could open literally any page of C.S.Lewis or N.T. Wright and have my mind blown by their beautiful language and astonishingly accurate analogies. What did Jesus say? Come and see. Love people and serve them. Pretty basic. What Jesus's ministry tells me about my ministry is that it doesn't much matter how much I know and it matters very little who I know, but it matters a great deal how I serve.
My recent move to Enterprise, OR has been really busy and a little traumatic. I dove into leadership alongside my fiance's youth ministry and instantly crashed into a wall of really fantastic kids. I've only known some of them a few days and they are already rocking my perception of Jr. High and High School students. Last weekend, we had an all-nighter that included games, worship, break out sessions and tons of food. The theme was Contagion and we used a modified version of Humans vs. Zombies to start discussions about how our faith should be contagious. We began with the understanding that there is a disease rampant in our world (sin) and our faith in Jesus is the cure - we then asked questions like 'How do you know you have the cure?' 'Are you excited enough about the cure that you want to share it with people?' and 'Can other people tell that you have the cure?' Would you believe that all of our breakout sessions expressed not only a real concern for the spiritual well-being of their friends, family and classmates, but also a strong desire to band together and live out a truly contagious faith?
I'm still in awe of the discussions these students had. Because they got it. Fourteen hours, 20 liters of chilled caffeine and a ton of missing nerf darts later, these kids understood Come and see. Just like Jesus, they aren't doing anything that's never been done before; their methods for living out the Gospel aren't Earth shattering. They are just average kids on a supernatural mission to do what Jesus told them to do. Now, forget having faith like a child for a moment and ask yourself if you are brave enough to have the faith of an obedient teenager in America today.
