After the Message

Well, as many of you experienced, we shuffled the decks at Ashley Ridge yesterday morning and defied all expectations - I led worship and Jamin preached. I think we made our point. And yes, we've shuffled back for Easter for all of those worried about your ears going through another week of my singing.

Back to the point...yesterday was all about Jesus defying our expectations. Jesus tells Pilate in John 18 that he is a king...just not the kind of king everyone was looking for. The Jews living in Jerusalem thought they knew what the Messiah would look like and sound like and do, unfortunately, their message looked a lot more like Caesar than Jesus. So when Jesus came into the city on a donkey instead of a chariot, dressed in common clothes and talking about a kingdom not of this world, the people lost it - not in a good way.

We do the same thing everyday. We put God in our box and we look for the picture of Jesus we've come up with from our head, from our culture, from some book we read or some movie we watched; instead, Jesus says "listen, and I'll tell you who I AM and who you are in me."

We've talked for several weeks now about who Jesus is and what that means for who we are and how we act. We could talk about it for several more weeks and still not have a full picture of Jesus.

What if we give up defining Jesus and start trusting Him? What if we stop trying to understand and instead delight in the Jesus that died and came back to life and gives us the opportunity to do the same?

I'll be posting everyday this week as we walk with Jesus together through Holy Week. Keep reading John, especially chs. 13 and beyond.