Mothers came close, lifting their children up to the Teacher to touch and bless; but the disciples, considering it their job to run interference, began to rebuke the mothers for bothering the Teacher. However, the Teacher had other ideas. He called for the children saying, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”[i]
[i] Luke 18:16
UNPREDICTABLE
It must have been puzzling to the disciples and crowds for Jesus to elevate the status of children and even equate the kingdom of God with them; but this was not the first time Jesus surprised His disciples. The same man who invited little children into His presence also turned over tables in the temple and made a whip of cords to drive out money changers and sellers. He was, as the scriptures call Him, both a lamb and a lion. He was simply unpredictable. If we want to know Jesus in deeper ways, we need to consider the complexity of His nature. This is important because it can broaden our understanding of the ways of God in our own lives.
PARADOXICAL
Author David Limbaugh poses a number of questions about the paradoxical nature of Jesus such as, “Is there a single idealized historical or fictional figure who is portrayed more supremely powerful yet comparably humble? As morally exacting but merciful? The following looks at these two areas: moral exactitude and mercy, humility and Jesus’ redefinitions of goodness and love as examples of His predictable unpredictability.
EXACTITUDE AND MERCY
As Limbaugh suggests, Jesus held exacting moral standards but mercy was also just as conspicuous in His teaching and interactions. Teaching the Law to crowds gathered on the mountaintop, Jesus exposed the deception of externally complying with the law while internally missing the mark. For Jesus, the issue was the unseen, the heart. He interpreted the law in ways that left traditional interpretations standing in the dust. To be angry and unforgiving toward your brother, He taught, submits you to judgment just much as murder and to look with lust is to commit adultery. Asked to carry another person’s load one mile? Go two. Sued for your tunic? Give your coat as well. Love your neighbors and those that love you? Not good enough. Even tax collectors do that. Love those who could care less about you or perhaps even do you harm, emulating the perfect love of your heavenly Father who does good to all.[i]
[i] Matthew 5
On the other hand, Jesus delivered a verdict of mercy for an adulterous woman brought before Him by a group of Pharisees, “Woman, He asked, “where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? …Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”[i] Mercy and forgiveness more than matched the exactness of His standards.[ii]
[i] John 8:10-11
[ii] James 2:13
Although seemingly unreconciled, Jesus perfectly understood and practiced the relationship between unchangeable standards and mercy. As Christians, we cannot avoid the conundrum of exacting standards and mercy. It explains the cross.
HUMILITY
Jesus and the disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gadarenes. On landing, immediately, a man with an unclean spirit ran to meet Jesus. The man was wild, living among the tombs, crying out day and night, cutting himself. The demons in the man recognized Jesus’ authority and knowing He would cast them out, begged to be sent into a grazing herd of pigs nearby. Jesus complied sending the pigs violently hurtling down a cliff to drown in the sea.
On learning of all that had happened, instead of delighting in the tormented man’s restoration to sanity, the Gadarene people from the nearby town and country became afraid and begged Jesus to leave. Despite His power and authority, Jesus did not force Himself on the Gadarene people; instead, as He and the disciples got into the boat to leave, He instructed the restored man to return home and tell the people what wonderful things God had done for him.
Uninterested in defending or promoting Himself, Jesus let the healed man tell the story of what had happened to him. On other occasions, Jesus would sternly instruct those He healed not to tell what He had done for them. Self-promotion was not on His agenda. If people were not drawn by what He had to offer, Jesus moved on. Although endowed with all authority in heaven and earth, humility governed His life.
Another undeniable display of humbleness occurred as Jesus washed the disciples’ dirty feet at the last supper. While a task most often delegated to a servant, not the Son of God, this did not stop Jesus. The Son of Man, He said, “did not come to be served but to serve.”[i] Most likely this is not the script we would have written for the Son of God,
[i] Matthew 20:28
When instructing the disciples before He left to return to His Father in heaven, Jesus gave His disciples (including us today) His authority to do the same works He had done. He did not jealously guard His power, but was humble enough to generously share it.
Recognizing the humility of Jesus, Paul tells the Philippians, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.”[i] No reputation! How do we understand a man of unequalled power and authority who also exemplifies humility par excellence?
[i] Philippians 2:6-8
WHAT IS GOODNESS?
To know Jesus in His paradoxical nature leads to questioning how we define basic human qualities. For instance, Psalm 119 tells us that God is good and only does good, but Jesus shows us goodness in ways that rattle our expectations. Goodness is obvious in acknowledging and calling young children, but where is the goodness in overturning tables in the temple? Does He not cause us to question and reconsider what goodness consists of and thus how it translates to our own lives?
WHAT IS LOVE?
Likewise, we know Jesus as exemplary of perfect love. He does not change—perfect love one day and something less the next. He shows us what the generous and giving nature of perfect love looks like in its complexity. He Healed all the sick who came to Him, turned water into wine to save a wedding couple from embarrassment and fed thousands so they would not faint on their way home but He also strongly rebuked the Pharisees with seven woes and sternly compared His close disciple Peter to Satan. Considering all His actions pushes us to search for a deeper comprehension of what is love.
Lord Jesus, we would do well to throw out simplistic understandings, discarding the tendency to gloss over that which doesn’t easily fit into our ways of thinking about You.
There is no question all twelve of the painted forms carry a shared resemblance. Large curved form, smaller curved form and sharply pointed projection describes each but their positioning—upside down, facing left, facing right, turned upward, turned downward, makes them unpredictable. The shared similarity provides a certain satisfaction and stability, but the irregularity of their positioning animates and adds life that would otherwise be missing. Both sameness and difference are required to bring the work to life.
Just as we don’t want to be known in one-dimensional terms, but desire to be known as intricate and complex individuals, Your desire is for us to know You with multi-dimensionality. Rather than resist or ignore, help us to be willing to see You in unplanned and unpredictable ways. We ask You to dislodge familiar patterns that limit our grasp of who You are. Give us a willingness to examine all Your life, not just the parts that fit our image of You. We may experience confusion and questions but You will never disappoint. You will always emerge as more wonderful, magnificent, arresting, impressive, towering than we could ever expect.
You created the world with a strong measure of constancy, an essential element if we are to make sense of the world, but the unexpected, veering from the norm, is also part of life. It can rock our boats.
Although the unpredictable was prevalent in Your life, You were always in control. Yours was not a life of havoc and disorder; Knowing Your life in its complexity, broadens our understandings of what God is about and His ways. Maybe we need our boats rocked.
Show us the value of avoiding narrow ways of thinking about You because they’re comfortable and predictable. Show us how our relationship with You can thrive on seeing that which we have not previously seen or thought. You were always surprising the disciples, but they stuck with You because they believed in You. Even when there was confusion, You were teaching them the ways of God. In the interim, they had to trust You until they understood.
Let us find pleasure in Your surprising ways of interacting with us. Help us not to work so hard to keep You in the same boxes we have always known.
Sydney Walker, November 24, 2023
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