Jeannie, Do You Love Me?

One day along the seashore a disciple prepared some fish for his Rabbi.  As they were eating, the disciple said:  "I love this fish!"  To which the Rabbi replied:  "If you really loved the fish you would not have caught it, killed it and put it on the grill.  What you love is how the fish makes you feel."

It's a small story but it makes me stop and think - is that how my love is for Jesus?  Is it all about me and how He makes me feel?  During this Season of the Cross I am reminded of our Savior agonizing in the Garden the night before He died.  Through His excruciating physical and emotional pain He was able to say:  "Not My will but Yours".  In that statement Jesus was loving the Father and loving me, loving you.  It was not about feelings, it was an act of the will:  "Not mine, but Yours."

Shortly after there would be another disciple at the seashore with his Rabbi.  Only this time instead of the disciple preparing the fish, it was the Risen Rabbi preparing it for the one He loved; the one who denied Him 3 times on the night of the Crucifixion. On the shore the Rabbi asked Peter twice: Peter, do you love Me?  Twice Peter said, "Lord you know that I love you".  But we miss something in our English translations.  In the original language of the Bible there are different words for 'love'.  Jesus was saying to Peter:  do you love me with the same type of love I had for the world when I struggled in the Garden?  Do you love me with your active will, desiring My best even if it costs you everything? (we call this 'agape' love)   And Peter, humbled because of his recent denials of his Lord, could only answer using the word for deep affection, brotherly love. ('phileo' love)   The third time Jesus asked if he loved Him, Jesus used the same word that Peter did:  deep affection, brotherly love.

Much has been made of what could it mean that 2 different words for 'love' are used in this conversation.  I think the answer to that discussion will be something I find out in heaven.  But I believe Peter  knew that his love fell far short of what the Lord was asking him.  And our Lord, ever gracious, condescended to accept what Peter was able to offer at that time.

 Later in these verses we read about what type of death Peter would die.  Tradition says that when Peter was taken to be crucified, he asked to be crucified upside-down because he was not worthy to die as His Lord had.  Something happened during the meeting with the Rabbi and the disciple on the seashore.  When the God of the Universe accepted the little that Peter could offer, I think Peter realized that in himself he could not 'give his all'; that he would try and fail, but with God all things are possible.  Even a love that would say:  Not my will, but Yours; a love that would take him to a cross too.

And those words echo down through time: 
"Jeannie, do you love Me?"

(I encourage you to read the passage in John 21)

Giving My All

There once was a poor beggar who sat on a street in India, holding out his bowl all day long in hopes that passers-by would drop a few grains of rice in it.  One day as he sat in the blazing sun he realized that he only had 8 grains of rice in his bowl - not nearly enough for even a small meal.  He wondered how he would survive. 

As he looked up he saw a great procession coming down his street, led by the Prince on his elephant.  The poor beggar began to have hope.  "I will cry out to the Prince" he thought.  "Surely he will take pity on me and grant me enough to fill my bowl!"  As the Prince reached the spot where the beggar sat he cried out:  "Oh Prince!  Have pity on me for I am poor and in need."  The Prince got down from his elephant and asked the man how many grains of rice he had.  "I only have 8 grains, your Highness" replied the beggar, thinking the Prince would take pity on him.  Instead the Prince said:  "Give me some of your rice."  With heavy heart the beggar held out his bowl and told the Prince to take half.  The Prince reached into his bowl, took the 4 grains of rice and got back on his elephant to continue the procession.  As the Prince left the beggar was crestfallen.  "If only I had not asked him to take pity on me.  If only I had kept silent.  This has cost me too much. How will I make it through another day,"  he thought in his despair.  As he got up to make his way back home he glanced in his bowl.  There in place of the 4 grains of rice the Prince had taken were 4 bars of gold.  "Oh", thought the beggar, "if only I had given it all!"

I've been thinking a lot during this Season of the Cross about what it means to die to self and live for the Lord, to give it all to my Prince and not hold anything back.  Jesus said:

"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily

and follow Me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for Me will save it."  Luke 9



I imagine Jesus' listeners had a very visual image in their minds when He spoke these words to them.  After all there were hundreds of crucifixions happening each year.  The person condemned to death would walk down the street carrying the crossbeam to the place where he would hang to die.  How shocking then for Jesus to say to them:  take up your cross.  It was a very graphic picture of death they had seen many times.  Yet these words about losing my life for the Lord, also bring this to mind:

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."  (Ps 116)

This verse from Psalms talks of physical death and it comforts me to know our Lord places value on the death of His people as He welcomes them into His kingdom.  But in some sense I believe I could also say: 'precious in the sight of the Lord is the death to self of His saints'.  More often than I care to admit I am like that beggar, holding 1/2 back.  I wonder how much I have given up by not giving all.  Oh Lord, increase my faith!

Trees Walking

Confession time.  The other day I passed - probably for the hundredth time - a homeless man who has staked out his spot on a corner near my house.  And probably for the hundredth time I avoided any eye contact with him as I sat at the red light.  Another homeless person; another one who refuses to sleep and eat at our Visalia Rescue Mission and instead chooses to live off handouts from passing motorists.  I did not have pleasant thoughts about this man, even though I know that most homeless people who choose not to stay at our Mission are most likely addicts, alcoholics or have emotional or mental illnesses.

This last week I have been reading through the Gospel of Mark and came across this passage:

"...some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.

He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.  When He had spit on

the man's eyes and put His hands on him, Jesus asked:  'Do you see anything?'

He looked up and said, 'I see people; they look like trees walking around.'

Once more Jesus put His hands on the man's eyes. 

Then his eyes were opened...and he saw everything clearly."  Mark 8

I am convicted by the Word of God once again.  In some sense the way I have seen this man is as a 'tree walking' - one of many 'trees' I pass by in my life.  People who are just 'there' on this path I call my life.  Some of them annoy me, some of them irritate me, but most are people I ignore as I go about my day, trying to avoid contact or interaction with them.  And yet the 'least of these' are the very ones for whom our Savior died.  And so I prayed; thanking God for giving me spiritual sight when He called me as His child.  But then praying and asking that He would once more put His hands on my eyes so that I too, as the man in Mark's Gospel, would not see people as 'trees walking' but would see everything clearly.  I don't know what I will do when I pass this homeless man again this week.  Will I hand a dollar from the safety of my car window?  Will I tell him that Jesus loves him?  Or will I pray to Jesus asking Him to open this man's eyes as He has mine.

Morning Reflections on the Love of God

John's Gospel is one of my favorite books of the New Testament.  In his gospel he calls himself simply 'the disciple Jesus loved'.  I long to identify myself with that simple yet profound description too.  O Lord, to know Your love in my life as the Apostle John did: to be so overcome by it and identified by it and wrapped in it that I'm no longer 'Jeannie' but simply 'the disciple Jesus loved'.  How would my life change if all that was necessary for me to understand who I am when I stand in the grace of God is that I too am 'the disciple Jesus loved'.  The lack is not that God hasn't shown the fullness of His love for me, but that I have not yet been able "...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge..." (Eph. 3)

I think its significant that John calls himself the disciple Jesus loved, not simply a disciple.  When you belong to Christ you are the disciple too.  John grasped it; he came to know the love that surpasses knowledge.

O Lord, help me to grasp it too.