jesus

July 2013

Portland Brew, Nashville, Tennessee

I am thirty-three years old.

At this point, Jesus and I have lived on earth about the same amount of time, give or take. We both lived through our twenties — he with no mistakes or regrets, me with enough for both of us. Something gets very real about Jesus being human when you are the same age as him.

I’ve known Jesus since I was five years old, but I love him more today than I ever imagined I could as a little bitty thing.

We always went to church when I was a kid, at the time more out of obligation and the social norms for Georgia life in the 1980s than out of an actual passion or relationship. We attended First United Methodist Church in Marietta, where my mom was in the youth group in the 1960s and there was (is) a Sunday school classroom named after my grandfather. As a child, it was rare that I had to attend “big church.” Sunday school was usually an hour well spent, but there were a few times when I sat with my parents in the large sanctuary.

I can probably show you which pew I was sitting in on that May Sunday in 1985. There was nothing unique or abnormal about that morning. I just remember our pastor, Charles Sineath, making some sort of altar call, though I don’t remember the exact words he used. I remember the feeling — that push on my insides that I now know is the Holy Spirit — and I remember looking up at my mom and telling her, “I think I’m supposed to go down there.”

I know it seems impossibly crazy that a then five-year-old could remember such clear details, but I do. I think God did that on purpose for me, for the days when things felt too hard or for those teen years when I just was never sure of myself or him, so I would always know that what I had decided on that day was true, even if everything else felt like shifting sand.

Mom and I walked forward, and I knelt on the red, padded cushion and leaned my little chest into the mahogany railing. Maybe my dad was there too? Pastor Sineath came down to me and asked me questions I don’t remember word for word, but I knew I was asking Jesus to forgive me for doing bad things and to come into my heart and live there.

It was real. It was a decision I made. I knew God was real. I knew Jesus was God’s Son. And I knew Jesus had died for me because I was a sinner.

My childhood years and teen years are just a plethora of stories cycloning around God and Jesus — reading the Bible and trying to understand it, being so involved at church that if the doors were open and the Coke machine was taking quarters, I was probably there. I saw God answer prayers, and I tried to love him as best I could.

I went to the University of Georgia and immediately got involved in the Wesley Foundation, a campus ministry run by the former youth pastor from FUMC. So yes, it was virtually the college version of my youth group — same leader and lots of the same students involved.

I went to the freshman Bible study, and to be honest, I kinda thought I was too mature to be there. I mean, I had been a Christian forever and I lived with my best friend (who was a junior), so it felt hard to relate to many of these college freshmen. It was old hat for me. I went to the Bible study mainly because I was supposed to, which by that point had become a big reason for a lot of the things I did in my faith. Because I did not really know life without being told to have quiet times and read your Bible and pray, it became just a big checklist that you go down day after day until you die.

Obviously I had a real understanding of what it is like to be in a relationship with the Lord. (Yeah, right.)

At that first freshman Bible study, I was put in a small group with a leader named Kimberly. One of the first questions she posed, which I was sure I’d be able to answer easily because, hello, I was the professional Christian here, was “How is your relationship with God different from your relationship with Jesus?”

Like an atomic bomb set off in the middle of the life I had always known, that question blew up everything for me. I had never considered it. The Trinity — Father, Son, Holy Spirit — in my mind are all God (they are), but I did not ever think of them as individuals as well (they are). And that question changed everything for me.

I started to see Jesus as Jesus.

That may sound mystic and weird to think of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three unique relationships, but I think that’s part of the mystery of all of this — that they are three, but they are one. And if you look at the language throughout the Bible, God is our Father. We are described as the bride of Christ. The Holy Spirit is our counselor, our advocate. It’s clear they are three distinct persons while sharing one essence.

But when you only think about Jesus as divine (which he is), then you sorta miss the fact that Jesus is human (which he is). So when my mind and heart began to reflect on the two natures a bit, everything changed. The things I read about Jesus changed. Wait, he turned water into wine? Wait, he walked on water? A human? Wait, his friends turned on him — they slept when they should have prayed, pretended they didn’t know him, sold him out in the most literal sense ever?

And here we are. Both thirty-three. I can’t imagine my friends turning on me the way Peter turned on Jesus. I can’t imagine church leaders hating me the way they hated Jesus. I can’t imagine being brave in all the ways he was. I can’t imagine not knowing him. I’m so glad I get to. Something changed the closer I got to his age. I started to know him differently. I saw him like one of my friends, like one of the dudes I hang with all the time. He’s not some adult doing adult things; he’s my age.

It stokes my fires of courage, remembering that Jesus was human, that Jesus did some majorly brave things right here — right where I am. Single like me. Thirty-three like me. Human like me. Sinless, unlike me, but tempted like me.

And he took a risk on me.

At this point, you’ve realized I’m not always great at this. “This?” This being life. So for another human like Jesus to bank on me seems a bit unwise. He knows I’m a screwup, and for that, he gave his life. I am so grateful for that salvation. But over and over again, I ask Jesus for forgiveness and rescue, and he always provides them. You would never buy a car that got a flat tire every time you test-drove it, and you would stop eating at restaurants that repeatedly got your order wrong. And yet, Jesus does that for me all the time. I have a flat tire and get his order wrong and sin and everything in between. He risks for me, and he risks on me.

Courage was born on Christmas Day.

The truth of who Jesus is and what he did on earth — the Son of God who came to earth to take on our sins — is the most courageous thing this planet has ever seen.

I recently heard Andy Byrd, a teacher at the YWAM Circuit Rider School, say, “Jesus fasted from heaven for thirty-three years.” And it broke my heart. I guess I had never considered all that Jesus gave up — I mean, I knew he laid aside the glory he had with the Father and I knew he took on human flesh, but I guess I forgot he gave up freedom from temptation. He gave up being worshiped and adored and fully loved by everyone around him. He gave up all the things you dream heaven could be like.

As if that wasn’t enough, for those thirty-three years on earth he healed and set free and forgave sins and poured love into those around him.

Then. He died on the cross, taking away our sins and bringing us salvation.

Then. He was resurrected so we could have eternal life and be set free from the guilt of sin.

“Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe; sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.”*

That is courage.

While it is important to celebrate bravery in others and call it forth in ourselves, it would be ridiculous to believe that anything we do can hold a candle to the courageous things Jesus did for us.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death — and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth — even those long ago dead and buried — will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5 – 11 MSG

Right? Brave.

I love him.

*“Jesus Paid It All,” lyrics by Elvina M. Hall, 1865. Public domain.