“Is Jesus real? I mean really real?” I had that asked of me following a service not too long ago. The person hung around late after the service and after the fellowship time. Caught up with me in my office as I was reading to go home and asked very intently. “Is Jesus real? I mean really real? A great question. An honest and searching question!
Did a group of guys just sort of get together and decide to pull off the greatest trick of all time? And did they write down some stories – quite alike, but not too much alike?
Sometimes, in our frustration with things, with our sadness about how “things” are going; especially when we hurt, or get angry at the headlines, or wonder about meaning or purpose – Sometimes we think we could believe that.
But what would I do with all these people who talk to me in gentleness, those with Christ shining out from their eyes? If Jesus didn’t exist how’d he get inside so many people? Over and over people drop their lives, walk away from destructive habits & addictions, embrace folks who they have been at almost violent odds with, and walk in and with the Christ.
Spend a day looking for Christ living in others. Jesus is often in the most unlikely people in the most unlikely places. If Jesus isn’t real, then you’re going to have to exterminate thousands and thousands of people who live in him.
The one who asked me this says they’re really thinking about trusting him and living in and for Him. It’s a question from this person whose rocking on the precipice of giving their life to Christ!
I love it when people argue that there is no love, and then stand stupid before an act of selfless love. I love it when people argue that there is no mercy, then “whistle and look away” when an act of mercy looms in front of them. I love it when people say there is no Christ, and frown and mumble at a life lived in Jesus; the Jesus who is out stalking the world. This Jesus who seeks to establish himself in people’s hearts.
Selfless acts of mercy and powerful acts of justice lived out or acted out by ordinary, not perfect, people. People whose lives are turned into new life-giving, meaning-giving, purpose establishing, community (even world) transforming, restorative directions. People who talk about changed priorities and knowing a living presence of grace in their lives: they call it/him Jesus!
Is Jesus real? I mean really real? Yes! Really, Yes!
Be God’s, Pastor Jim
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