Good Wednesday morning! No grace is so precious as the grace we gain in Christ Jesus! In this world, we often miss the point. We would like to be as graceful as that dancer on the telly, or show the grace of the ballerina on the stage, but in Christ we are already full of the grace that we need. This play on "grace" isn't just for amusement. We tend to miss things at times. Peter didn't always get what Jesus was talking about. Peter was often our front man with Jesus.
If we had lived in the first years of Christianity, those years when Jesus began his ministry, we might have held an image of the King of Israel that didn't fit with what we saw in the man Jesus of Nazareth. The people tried to make Jesus king by force at one point, some of those same folks thought their promised king had arrived on what we celebrate as Palm Sunday. Peter often tried to take Jesus to task and make him act more like his image of the King. We can recall from our Bible study the time that Jesus called Peter "Satan" when Peter tried to stop Jesus from going to his crucifixion. Peter also refused to have his feet washed by the king he had in his mind. Even today, nearly 2,000 years later, we have yet to see Jesus arrive as King.
Jesus simply didn't fit any one person's image of the newborn King of the Jews, as the wise men from the east called him at his birth. Where was this king the wise men came to worship? Peter, our front man, tried to make Jesus act the part. The people of Jerusalem tried to make him take the part. Pilate had the cross inscribed with his title, but Jesus still didn't look like a King of the Jews. Of course, the high priests then tried to refuse the title to Jesus even after his death, imploring Pilate to change what he had written on the sign above Jesus' body. Even as Jesus came in his one almost royal entry into the city of Jerusalem, he stopped to weep over the sin he saw in the city.
Jesus fulfilled a prophecy with his entry on a donkey's colt. Jesus also fulfilled prophecies of his servant's status and much suffering. If we had lived with Peter, we may have tried to ignore those parts of the prophecies in favor of the more kingly parts. The people of Jerusalem would have happily joined us in that. Like many of us, they wanted to skip over the tough parts and get right to the King of kings part. We often do the same in our lives. God has promised us an abundant life, can't we just get to that part now?
Actually Jesus said that he came that we might have life abundantly, not necessarily an abundant life. We like to think that God said we would all be rich in this life. Some ministries even promise this if we just give each week, as though God is a kind of big cash register where you are allowed to take a handful out of the hundreds slot for every bill you put in the tens slot. We all have the urge to remake Jesus as a king in the image we like. Jesus will return as King and we will be more than satisfied. But until that time, God will remake us in HIS image, an important distinction for our walk with Christ. Be ready for the big rejoicing-fest when the King of kings arrives. Praise God that our King will arrive in his own image, not the one you, me, Peter, and the people of the world have tried to place upon him.
Have a wonderful Wednesday in Christ!
Bucky
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