PRESENT

What would it have been like to have been with Christ? 

Was there ever a man in more demand than Jesus of Nazareth? Thousands upon thousands of people waited eagerly day after day to see, hear, and meet Jesus the long-awaited Christ. Royalty wanted to meet with Him. Religious leaders wanted to meet with Him. The sick and infirmed queued to touch Him. All the while Jesus was on a mission of paramount importance and not only had all these enormous physical demands laid upon His shoulders, He also had unimaginably evil forces attempting to oppress, distract and thwart Him. Yet, with all this happening, the Gospels are punctuated with individual encounters with the Christ.

He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
¶ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
John 1:41-43

A night with Jesus by Nicodemus

I’m trying to learn from Christ. This involves paying prayerful attention to what He taught, but it also involves how He taught. For me this encompasses how He interacted with people. His interaction with Nicodemus is fascinating. 

The first thing I notice in John’s third chapter is that Jesus risked His reputation by befriending someone from a group of people He had publicly condemned for hypocrisy. Jesus didn’t just spend time with those who were already His friends.

And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that He was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to His disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:16-17

Jesus was surprisingly accessible to individuals. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Jesus made Himself available. Perhaps He had developed a habit of being in a particular place at night. Nicodemus knew where to find Him. When Nicodemus met with Jesus He attempted to give Christ His due, and while many preachers would welcome the stroking of their egos, Jesus immediately overlooked this and looked directly into Nicodemus’s heart, and answered the Pharisee’s unasked question. This exchange exposed Nicodemus’s religion as mere cold formalism – and not the heart-connected, soul-satisfying, intellectually enriching, entrance into GOD’s intimately love-drenched presence. Christ was not intimidated by speaking to ‘The Teacher of Israel’ and was prepared to give the first properly done rebuke in human history.

Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
John 3:10-11

The rebuke that Christ had offered in public to the Pharisees, He now gave personally in private. Unlike our rebukes, Christ’s must have been tender and soothing. Nicodemus welcomed what followed. What followed was Jesus giving the light that Nicodemus lacked.  

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
John 3:19-21

Jesus was a friend to Nicodemus.

In John chapter 4, Jesus befriends a Samaritan woman and heals her soul.

In John chapter 5, Jesus befriended an invalid and healed his lame legs.

In John chapter 6, Jesus has a conversation with Philip, then a small boy, and then Simon Peter, and then feeds them.

In John chapter 8, Jesus spoke with a woman dragged out into the dirt to be stoned and saved her life.

And so on.

In each of the nine days that John selects to paint a picture He depicts Christ as being present with individuals. Now that Christ has been resurrected and glorified, and dwells in eternity, how much more does He now have time to be with individuals? 

What did people feel who had been with Christ? 

It’s possible to be physically and geographically with someone but not present. What I am learning from Christ’s interactions with this sample of people whom He was present with, is that being present is a demonstration of God’s love. With each person that Christ engaged with, whether it was a religious Pharisee, a woman with a reputation, an elderly invalid, a young boy about to eat his lunch, an adulterous woman, a blind man, a grieving sister, a Roman Procurator, a thief on an adjacent cross, a beleaguered disciple, Christ was present.

We busy people are generally lousy at being present. We can be with someone and be a million miles away at the same time. While someone is chatting with us we are continually checking our phone screens. This is rude and a denial of our presence. Presence involves seeing and hearing. It involves connecting to some level with someone’s heart. This all takes practice. In the Gospels I see Jesus being present. What must people have felt when Jesus was present with them? We can do more than surmise the answer, we can experience it now.    

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am (present) with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20

Pastor Andrew.

HOW TO BE A BETTER LOVER

One of the most curious things about the greatest lover of all time, is that there is no record of him ever saying the words, I love you. In fact, it’s beyond curious. In reality, it’s not even startling: it’s amazing that He didn’t need to!

There can be no doubt that Jesus loved people. Even His enemies knew Him to be a person of love for others.

¶ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
John 11:5

So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
John 11:36

Dr Gary Chapman wrote a best-selling book a few years called, The 5 Love Languages. Perhaps the reason it sold so well was that we all really want to know how to love those we care about. Dr. Chapman identified 5 general ways that people like to show and receive love. He asserted that sometimes our actions are misunderstood or unappreciated because we may not have realised that someone was showing us love in a “language” because they were using a love-language we were not familiar with. Conversely, sometimes we attempt to show love to someone without appreciating that this person needed to have it expressed in a way they felt loved. For example, Dr. Chapman identified words of affirmation as some people’s primary love language. Thus, when a person whose primary love language was quality time spent the day with that person, they were surprised that the other person felt smothered and that the person spending time with them hadn’t been considerate of their dire lack of time. 

Learning someone’s primary love language takes time and testing.

Somehow, Jesus just seemed to demonstrate love perfectly to everyone. He dispensed all of Dr Chapman’s five love language prodigiously. He served others. He gave gifts to others. He spoke words of affirmation to others. He spent quality time with others. And He appropriately used affection as He touched people. 

Christ also demonstrated the fruit of love to others – forgiveness and acceptance. This was seen by how spoke of and to those who despised Him. While railing against the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus loved them. Many of them were deeply touched by this love. One of them, Nicodemus, even sought out a private meeting with The Christ and received one of the greatest acts of love any teacher could receive when Jesus gave him what has become the most famous verse in the Bible. Another member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea, declared his appreciation for The Christ who had shown him such great love, by offering over his tomb for the body of Jesus to be laid there. Even though we read of Christ railing against the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, His tone, His manner and His motive, were loving. 

¶ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
Matthew 23:13

In laying the foundation for His Church, Christ gave just one commandment for how His followers were to treat each other: love one another!

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:24-25

The kind of love which Christ conveyed to people was so foreign, incomprehensible, and unheard of, that when the Apostle Paul wrote some twenty years later to the licentious Corinthians about their confusion of love with sexuality and grace with unconditional forgiveness he was directed by the Holy Spirit to spell out in some detail exactly what this kind of love was.

¶ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
First Corinthians 13:4-7

And when he expounded to the Romans what the Gospel was and then its implications, he spelled out that once a believer had surrendered their life Christ (Rom. 12:1) there were to-

¶ Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Romans 12:9-10

He then went on to tell the Romans, and thereby tell you and me, that this looks like-

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
¶ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:13-21

If you want to be a better lover, take note of Dr. Chapman’s advice on speaking the right language, but particularly take note of how Christ loved, then consider Paul’s detailed description of loving imperatives, and by heeding each of these, you will be a better lover.

Ps Andrew Corbett