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My Two Cents
by Rev Chuck Behrens
March, 2012
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When you're a kid, you're
wet cement. Impressions, well, they get written on you so easily and so
deeply. And then they harden into beliefs, I guess or un-beliefs and that
kid becomes an adult. Apparently, Steve Jobs was no exception.
Apple's communications genius and revolutionary, was being described as
"intriguing, yet inscrutable." But as he battled with cancer, he opened
some windows into his mind and soul to the author who was writing his life
story. According to the new biography that bears his name, Steve Jobs
studied Zen Buddhism for years. A recent article in USA Today said, "He
never went back to church after he saw a photo of starving children on the
cover of Life and asked his Sunday school pastor if God knew what would
happen to them. He was 13 at the time."
Now, in a separate article, USA Today included this near-the-end spiritual
observation from Steve Jobs' biography: "The juice goes out of
Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like
Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it."
None of us knows exactly where Steve Jobs finally landed in his spiritual
journey. But in his words about Jesus there's a glimmer of the bedrock
truth that answers so many spiritual questions: it's all about Jesus. Near
the time of his death, with family around him, his sister, the novelist,
Mona Simpson says that his eyes widened and he exclaimed, "OH WOW, OH WOW,
OH W O W! Makes one wonder where his spirituality led him, huh?
Christianity, the religion, has never been the issue, although many have
been unable or unwilling to separate Jesus from the religion that's about
Him. But Jesus made it all about Him, and Him alone, in that simple
two-word invitation He extended over and over again, "Follow Me." Jesus
never said "follow My religion" or "follow My followers." He didn't say
"follow My rules." He didn't say, "follow My leaders." No, the only reason
to turn away from Jesus is if you've got a problem with Jesus.
And as for "seeing the world as Jesus saw it," He saw it broken because
people walk past the wounded, all absorbed with themselves, as in the
story of the Good Samaritan. He saw the world as cold, and lonely, and
twisted, because every man has chosen to ignore the Manufacturer's
instructions and to become our own god for our own life. And that has
brought us a world of bleeding families, greedy hoarding that produces
global hungering, and an endless drama of people being used, abused, and
walked on.
And what about those starving children? Jesus said when we reach for them
to help them, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of
Mine, you did for Me." And our word for today from the Word of God,
Matthew 25:40, tells us that, "whatever you did not do for one of the
least of these, you did not do for Me." Jesus is so personally identified
with the hurting people of our world that He takes our treatment of them
as our treatment of Him, with eternal consequences.
This Jesus that it's all about came here, in the Bible's words, as "a man
of sorrows, familiar with suffering...pierced for our
transgressions...crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:3, 5). This is the
God who leaves the throne to die on the cross. He's a God you can believe
in. He's a God who stands alone above all the wannabe gods of earth's
spiritual pantheon. And ultimately, we find in Jesus the only man of the
billions who've lived, who has come back from the grave and who promised
eternal life to all those who would "follow Me."
And the question is “On this side of eternity, while you still can decide,
have you ever made this Jesus your Jesus?” Can you imagine Him calling
your name today as He says, "follow Me"? He died for you. He's risen from
the dead to prove that He can give you eternal life. Now He waits for you
to reach out and say, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
These are just a few of the questions that this Lenten season and more,
our journey through it emphasizes. Just be REminded: Behind all the fog of
all those "sophisticated" spirituality’s and the dueling religions of our
world stands one real God, one real Savior. He's the God who hung on a
cross.
See you in Church,
Rev. Chuck
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