After Pentecost Devotional - Day 36

“The Son of Man did not come to be a slave master, but a slave who will give his life to rescue many people.” Matthew 20:28

It has been almost two thousand years and we still have not figured out that Jesus neither came as the master of slaves nor to lead us into a similar position. As Christians, we want to hang onto privilege and force others to accept what we have come to believe. We want to utilize the halls of political power as a tool to advance some version of the gospel. We want others to respect our values, priorities, and rituals unchallenged.

We want the gospel to grant us the power of security and privilege. We want it to hand us wealth and comfort. We want the gospel to give us the right to tell others how to live and to make economic gain at the cost of their sacrifice. We want all these things because our society has told us they are possible and we should want them. They are the ideals of the society and culture in which we live.

When we look at Jesus, however, we see something very different at work. We find in Jesus the image of a servant. We find one who is strong, but who uses that strength for very different purposes than we are taught to do. We find in Jesus one who arises before daybreak to be alone with God, only to be waylaid by crowds forcing themselves upon him. Rather than pressing forward with his personal objectives, he gives preference to the needs of the crowds.

He does not wield power for personal gain. He wields compassion for the gain of those around him. He wields grace and mercy as the tools of justice. He wields love to open the hearts and mind of the people to reconciliation with God. He wields peace to establish stability upon which to bring people together in community.

Jesus is so very little like us. He is so different from the ideals of our society and our economic structures. He is so different from the objectives of our educational systems and our entertainment productions. He does not speak a polished message designed to impress as a slick marketing product. Instead, he calls us to the very thing our entire society deems anathema. He calls us to serve one another in humility.

How many humble politicians have we elected to the highest offices in the land? How many of our CEO's exhibit the humility of genuine service Jesus taught and exemplified? How many of our cultural heroes are anything at all like Jesus? Are the traits we glorify in them related to the values Jesus espoused?

We don't make people who are like Jesus our heroes. We hold them off somewhere to the side, cherishing them, but not at the center of our lives. Often, we find them being lampooned in our society and culture as simpletons, dupes, and ignorant of the way the world functions. We cast them as irrelevant to real life.

At heart, we really don't want to be very much like Jesus. We don't want to give up on our dreams of power and self-importance. That is what keeps us so far from God's purposes for our lives.

What areas of your life need to be molded in humility to express Jesus' character?


"Lord, I don't want to be very much like you, but I need to be. Mold me, anyway."


—©Copyright 2016, Christopher B. Harbin
http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/ 
My latest books can be found here on amazon

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