How Will You Respond to Jesus?

Large crowds surged to hear Jesus in villages and in Jerusalem. They even swarmed into wilderness areas to find the one who spoke like no one else spoke, who healed disease, and who loved the outcast. Even as they praised him, voices from among them challenged the credentials of the teacher, the content of his teaching, and his faithfulness to God’s law (How dare he heal on the Sabbath, a day of rest, was among their complaints.). When Jesus spoke of sacrifice, commitment, and death, crowds diminished. After his arrest, the voices of his supporters were drowned out by the clamor of those demanding his execution. Two of his closest associates betrayed him, one by taking money to hand him over to authorities, and the other by denying that he knew him. Paradox surrounds the ministry of Jesus. Crowds wanted to make him king (John 6); others denied him, saying they had no other king than Caesar. He healed disease, but his priority was healing the soul. He was criticized because he socialized too much, and with the wrong people; he withdrew often to quiet places by himself. He marveled at the faith of a Roman Soldier, talked with women (which just wasn’t done), touched a leper, and prayed for the unity of his disciples, but demanded an allegiance that would create friction in other relationships (Matthew 10:34-39). Large crowds still gather to hear the message of Jesus. Voices from among the crowds still challenge his claims and denounce the content of his preaching. Others still follow him when it is convenient, but drift away when his call to take up their cross and sacrifice for him interferes with their goals or their schedule. His prayer for unity remains, but his followers bicker among themselves, demean one another, and still, like the earliest disciples, seek to be the greatest rather than the servant. The question for us is, “What will we do with Jesus?” Will we praise him when it is convenient, but renounce him by our silence or absence when it is not? Will we follow him, or live life our way? Jesus’s words remind us why our answers to those questions are critical: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).