Reading: 2-2 The Jesus We Emulate

The Jesus We Want to Emulate

Imagine with me a mighty nation. Let's say it is the country of China today. Over 1 billion people live there. The mighty engines of economic influence that sway the world's economies are focused in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and other great cities in China. Now imagine how the world would react to a baby being born in an obscure village in far northwest China. He grows up as a carpenter in a little village. He is a nobody as far as the world is concerned. We, in our naïve thinking, assume that only those in the center of power could be important to the whole world. This young man grows up and in his early thirties is accused of treason by those who do not like him and the government executes him. It would not appear on any of our Facebook pages as news, would it? The story would not even by noticed by anyone other than by those who were in his immediate family and friends group.

Now imagine with me that we go back 2000 years to the great empire known as Rome. We head to a little village in a backcountry area of a despised area of the empire. And there we find a young man is similar to our imaginary person. This young man's name is Jesus. He's from Nazareth - a village which even one of those who became his followers asked, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

But this Jesus has something about him. He has something going on that sets him apart from the rest of the people in his village. He has a character that impresses people. He has a personality that is magnetic. He draws people to himself. He is unique.

When he is about 30 years of age, he sets out on a journey of sorts. He becomes an itinerant preacher. He has a ragtag band of followers whom he is teaching the things of God as he goes about his everyday life. One of that itinerant band of people wrote about his experiences with Jesus as he neared the end of his life and he said, We saw his glory. Glory like he was the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. In the Hebrew Bible we find two word that go together many times - they are chesed v emet. Love or Grace and truth. So this follower of Jesus is telling us that as he thinks about Jesus what impresses him the most, is that Jesus was full of chesed and emet - grace and truth.

We go on in the stories of Jesus and we discover several things about this Jesus. He is the very embodiment of the Fruits of the Spirit that the Apostle Paul would write of in his letter to the Galatians.

 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." 

In Jesus you see love - unconditional love. It is the sort of love that moved God to send his only Son to this world he loved to save us all from our sins. 

We see joy. The sort of joy that can only come from having one's heart filled with the presence of God. As the letter to the Hebrews puts it in chapter 12 And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

We see peace that passes all understanding. When he stood before Pilate and knew that here was the man who would condemn him to death, Jesus spoke peace to him. He said, my kingdom is not of this world, or else my servants would fight.

So we could go through the rest of the fruits, but I hope you get the idea. When we see Jesus, we see the mysterious presence of God himself. Anyone who has seen Jesus has seen the Father. He is Immanuel, God with us.

So as we ponder what it means to be a chaplain who brings the presence of God into the various places we are called to minister, what we need to model is Jesus, God with us. We have the privilege and the calling to, by means of our very presence, to bring the presence of God into the situation. Listen again to Paul in Second Corinthians as he says,  And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin^[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We are Christ's ambassadors. The ambassador of a nation is the physical presence of that nation in another land. When  the ambassador speaks, he or she speaks on behalf of the whole nation the ambassador represents. So when they appear before a head of state, they bring the presence of their country into the highest offices of another country.

Let's think of this in terms of a chaplain. Paul tells us that we have a message of reconciliation. When people are in crisis, which is where the chaplain is most often found, when people are in crisis, they feel totally alienated from others and from God. Then here comes this person who in their very person embodies the spiritual presence of God - we are, after all, the temples of the Holy Spirit! - This person, the chaplain comes with a soothing message of reconciliation. "God is here and I need you to know God has time for you! God wants to be with you in your crisis moment. God is here to join in your suffering. If there is anything that can be said of Jesus, it is that he suffered. He knows what it is to suffer. He knows your pain, your guilt, your embarrassment, your loss. He knows what it feels like. He knows what it is like to have no home. He knows what it is like to have a friend betray you. He knows what it is like to feel totally abandoned by God. He has walked many miles in our shoes. He knows, and he is here.”

God has entrusted to us, says Paul, the message of reconciliation. He has no other plan. In our lives, we can often joke about when our first idea does not come about, well it is time to go to plan B. For God there is no plan B. He has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation. Paul goes on to mention the way he himself has been in times of crisis. He writes in chapter 6 of second Corinthians ³ We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. ⁴ Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; ⁵ in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; ⁶ in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; ⁷ in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;⁸ through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; ⁹ known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed;¹⁰ sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Paul knows what it is to be the servant of Christ, he himself has lived the life of Christ. As he says in another place, let no one give me any trouble, for I bear in my body the marks of Christ.   Paul knew what it was to be a follower of Jesus. And he knew that he was walking in the footsteps of Jesus, for he says, Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.  Imitate me, as I imitate Christ. That has been handed down over the generations. People, one generation after the next, seeking to imitate Paul and so to imitate Christ.

The chaplain has the unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Paul in the way he was a missionary to those outside the fold of God. Your calling is to go out and be present in the place of crisis with the holy presence of Jesus. We imitate Jesus as we bring the love of God to those who are in desperate need.

I am going to conclude this now, but I encourage you to spend a couple of hours thinking back over a situation where you could have functioned in the role of chaplain. Ask yourself how the fruits of the Spirit could bring healing in that situation and ask yourself what you might have within you that would prevent the Holy Spirit from moving through you to the other person. We are ambassadors of Christ. We do well to be fully open to his Spirit working in and through us!