The Jesus Way

Guess what... When you are thirty- six years old, and you fall in the street while trying to 'Heely' with your seven year old... it hurts! And you bleed. Yes, drawing on all my athletic prowess, I managed to bust my knee yesterday (not to mention rip my favorite pair of jeans) trying to keep up with my seven year old in a pair of sneakers that, of all things, have wheels built into them. When exactly does wisdom begin? :-)

Of course, it wasn't a complete loss. While I didn't win any 'cool' points with Simon (or the neighbors for that matter) I did learn something. As usual, what I learned came from my rather quick witted son, who upon seeing my knee bleeding laughed a bit then helped me up. In an off- handed way I said to him, "Now I don't want to hear you say I never do anything for you... check out my knee." To which he replied, "Hey, you are like Jesus... you are bleeding for me." Giggling he ran back to his room to set up a video game, since obviously dad could not handle the real thing.

Now let's don't get crazy and make too many comparisons between me and Jesus. But isn't it interesting that somehow Simon made that connection. In some sense, he realized that what Jesus had done for all of us, sacrificing himself for others, I had done (or at least my knee had done) for Simon. A lot of questions popped into my mind...

What if, instead of trying to tell non- christians what to do and how to live, we chose Jesus' way and simply loved and bled for them? What if we gave ourselves to others more fully? What if we followed the Calvary example, and gave all we had to lift others up, to help them realize their incredible worth? What if we followed Jesus' example and skipped the question of, "Do they deserve my love, my help?" Jesus didn't ask that... or at least did not base his life on that. Instead he loved prostitutes, and the worst of sinners. He gave his all, and literally bled out of love.

I think, when people live this way, when people immerse themselves into the lives of 'the other,' and give all they have to help lift the other up, to show them how much they are worth to God, then we find the kingdom. Anytime we follow the way of Christ, the path of self- sacrificial love for others, we participate in God's plan of redemption for the world. If even a seven year old naturally sees this (at least in some sense), then what impact could this sort of life have on our communties? Would people see Chrstians differently if they could say "Hey, you are like Jesus..." And why do we choose the safe and easy route of just talking about love and trying to be the 'guardians of morality?' (maybe I answered that one in the question itself) Tough questions...