Jesus Today. . .

THINGS THAT IMPRESSED JESUS

People can be measured in part by the things that impress them, whether it be medals, money, or merchandise. The poet that saw honesty as the noblest work of God was impressed by a virtue that many people treat indifferently. More people are impressed by love, humility, and gentleness than seek to cultivate such virtues. The evils of our society really concern some folk, but by no means all. Pornography doesn’t seem to concern many people, and lawlessness, when it gets what one wants, seems to be all right. Ouida and I often listen to our record of William Barclay’s comments on the beatitudes where he tells a story of Lincoln that profoundly impressed him. Young Lincoln was watching black men sold on the auction block, and he was heard to say, “God being my helper, I’ll smash that system to hell,” or some such words. It says something about Barclay that that episode would impress him.

I recall while visiting with Robert Meyers in Wichita when he was minister to the Riverside Church of Christ that he went out in the morning and gathered the beer cans that had been tossed in the yard of the parsonage the night before. “They think that shocks me,” he said to me, with some amusement. I’ve often thought of that. The church is hardly understood by a world that thinks it is shocked by beer drinking. Any discerning man like Robert Meyers is well enough acquainted with our troubled world to know what is really evil. If the world sees us as shocked by empty beer cans but not by racial injustice, we have missed it.

I’ve been thinking about people and things that impress me. It changes with the years. A Ph.D. degree once impressed me, but not anymore. People with big vocabularies once impressed me, but they now bore me, especially when they make it so evident. I am still delighted when folk can have luxurious homes, especially when it is the fruit of their industry and frugality, but I am still not particularly impressed. And the Dallas Cowboys do not impress me at all and never have, even if Tom Landry does! Ouida impresses me with her “gentle and quiet spirit” and for always being the same. In 37 years of marriage she has never raised her voice or shown an ugly spirit, not even for a moment. And that also impresses the Lord, for an apostle says that such a spirit is “very precious” to God.

So there are two people that impress me, Tom Landry and Ouida Garrett, but not exactly for the same reason! If a man would run his business or a parent his family or an elder his church or a king his country the way Tom Landry runs a football team, the kingdom of God would be closer than it now is. The virtue of no nonsense. I see some of this in President Reagan. If terrorism becomes a problem in this country, Landry should be put in charge of handling it, he and his neighbor Ross Perot. When the hostage crisis in Iran was at its peak, some bumper stickers around Dallas read, Send Ross!

This is a virtue we need to value more in the church. We put up with a lot of nonsense. To put it another way, discipline impresses me, a disciplined mind, a disciplined body, a disciplined spirit. I’m also impressed by transparency and vulnerability. I deplore phoniness and I see those who “play it safe” as less than courageous. I admire the person that is willing to lay it on the line, even if it tousles his hair and bloodies his nose. Those who wait for the smoke of battle to clear before they speak or act will never change anything, except perhaps their bank deposits.

I’ve taken this subject of impressions into the life of our Lord, asking: What impressed Jesus, the evil as well as the good? Sometimes he seemed surprised or amazed, which points up his humanity, such as the people’s response when he returned to his home congregation: “He was greatly surprised, because the people did not have faith” (Mk. 6:6 TEV), or as the KJV puts it, “he marveled because of their unbelief.” Disbelief is staggeringly impressive. In the light of all that God has done, how can anyone not be a Christian? The synagogue at Nazareth had nurtured the Christ in its very bosom, and yet it rejected him!

Sometimes Jesus was impressed by a person’s faith, as if it were more than he expected, as with the Roman officer in Matt. 8. When Jesus offered to go to his home and minister to his servant, the officer said: “Oh, no, sir. I do not deserve to have you come into my house. Just give the order, and my servant will get well.” This surprised Jesus, and he said to his followers: “I have never found anyone in Israel with faith like this.” It was probably the quality of the man’s faith that impressed Jesus more than the fact that he was not a Jew. There should have been that kind of faith in Israel, Jesus was saying, and it was hardly to be expected from a Roman army officer. He was a man who knew what authority was, and he really believed that Jesus had the last word when it came to authority, for “Just say the word” and it will be done was the depth of his faith.

Jesus was now and again impressed when someone sensed his power and sought through faith to appropriate it, such as the woman with a hemorrhage in Mark 5. “If I just touch his clothes, I will get well,” she said to herself, with implicit faith. Mark tells us that her bleeding stopped the moment she touched Jesus’ cloak, and that Jesus knew that power had gone out from him. Like a mother’s fathomless love, Jesus had no less power once the woman tapped his wellspring of strength. Jesus realized that his power was being appropriated, that someone had plugged in. Jesus was impressed and it is an impressive story in that it reveals the nature of true faith. The woman was certain that she only needed to plug in and that by a mere touch. She realized she needed to do something to show her faith, to appropriate what was available to her. Her only question was of her own strength, as to whether she could negotiate the crowd around Jesus and reach him. Him she never doubted; his power she never questioned. If I can but touch . . .

Does such faith elude us in our pragmatic world of self-reliance? Do we reach inward to ourselves, as if dependent only upon our own strength, which is the creed of humanism, or do we reach outward to Jesus, who has resources of power greater than we can imagine? Man is slow to learn that even when he is good enough it is not enough. Jesus stopped where he was when the woman made her gesture. He always had time. He was impressed. He reassured her amidst her tears and fears. Can we not believe that he will be equally impressed when we believe like she believed, a simple, childlike, trusting faith?

Jesus was impressed when people learned the lesson of love, as with the teacher of the Law in Mk. 12. As Jesus spelled out the two greatest commandments, the teacher immediately caught the essence of all law, not just the Law: the point of all response is to love God with all one’s personality. He saw that if this is not what sacrifices are about, then they are pointless. “It is more important to obey these two commandments,” he said, referring to man’s duty to love God and his fellows, “Than to offer on the altar animals and other sacrifices to God.” Jesus saw that he got the point and he was impressed.

You are not far from the kingdom of God, he said to him, which is about as revealing of the nature of the kingdom as anything Jesus ever said, for it is tantamount to saying that love is what the kingdom of God is all about. Jesus came to a people who had lots of religion but who missed the point of it. Here was a man, a teacher of the law, that got the point. Love is what it is all about, even when one offers a sacrifice at the temple. Jesus was impressed with the teacher’s wisdom, for it was the wisdom of Scripture, which is much better than silver and gold, as Pro. 16: 16 puts it. Religion is love, love for God and love for man.

Don’t you believe he is equally impressed when we learn that lesson, really learn it? I can hope that as Jesus reads Restoration Review, he can say, “Leroy, you are beginning to get the point of what it is all about. You are not far. . . “ Never mind about being on top of it with my hands in full control. Never mind about the crowd, if he says, You are not far, that will be my glory! --- the Editor