A Front Porch view

I began thinking about Jesus’ life. I thought about it like I think about things, not in a super scriptural theological way, but what it would look like if He was the guy across the street, and I was sitting on my front porch.

When He was conceived and still in His mothers womb, God had to send an angel to make His stepdad marry His mother, cause he was leaving her and thought she had been sleeping around.

When Jesus was born it was in a stable because no one was willing to give up their room at the inn, and apparently none of the innkeepers would even offer them the sofa.

It says in the bible that even His brothers didn’t believe in Him. His hometown didn’t think much of Him, ( He spoke about how a prophet is not without honour except in his hometown and didn’t do many miracles there.)

When the anointing finally came, Jesus fasted and He was driven into the wilderness and tempted by the devil himself. If I had been sitting on my front porch and watching, I might have thought that He had been gone a long time and when He came back He looked like He hadn’t eaten in weeks.

When He returned He went to the temple and shared how God had anointed Him to preach to the poor and set the captives free, they heard that and tried to throw Him off a cliff.

And so He went out into the countrysides and preached to the poor people. The poor ragamuffin people received Him gladly. This really made the people at the temple mad. People were healed left and right, people knew that He really did love them, to their core, Oh what pure love in His eyes!

Some of the people that were of good social stature did come to Him, but often secretly, lest their friends would think less of them. I might have wondered what was up with those sneaky guys coming over after hours.

Jesus wasn’t raised in a palace like Moses was, He wasn’t raised in the temple like Samuel was, He wasn’t the son of a renowned wealthy businessman. His ministry didn’t span the globe, it wasn’t broadcast on Fox news or CNN. God could have done that by having Jesus be born in this century, but He didn’t.

He chose to reach out to people face to face, eye to eye. He came with skin on. He picked up children and let the disciple lean on Him at the table. He even dared to touch lepers, and He wasn’t shocked by scandalous women.

From my front porch I might think, gee He is hanging out with the wrong crowd!

He was never the keynote speaker for the assembly. He said He received not honour from men, but from His Heavenly Father. He said He must work the work that His Father worked, and went back to the dusty roads.

He often told people not to tell others that He had healed them, they did anyway. That made the crowds too large for Him to be able to reach the ones He wanted to reach. He often went out to find those where they were. That meant often traveling long distances away, by wells of water or among tombs on the shores of the sea.

From my porch I might have heard his friends talking about how last week Jesus had cast demons out of a naked crazy man in a cemetery, I might go check my door locks.

When the crowds got too large, He went away to other places. Once when a town besought Him to stay with them, He said He had to go to other cities. He wasn’t interested in making a large church building on every corner.

From the front porch, or if I saw Him in town, I might have noticed that while before He looked skinny, now He had a good appetite and seemed like a winebiber and glutenous man who hung out with sinners(Mat11:19)

When He got pretty famous, the crowd wanted to make Him a King, but He said that wasn’t why He had come. He spoke of bread and wine, and how the bread must be broken to feed the world.

He experienced real emotions, He laughs out loud, He cries, He has exceeding joy and sorrow. He was not always acting a certain way for what the audience might think. Once He was so consumed by zeal that He cleared the temple with a whip, He said: make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. John 2:16

He told the story of how His Heavenly Father runs to meet the prodigal returning, not like us who wait till they have time to fully prove their repentance and have apologized properly. Jesus knew that some people knew they couldn’t come to God because they knew they deserved hell. He decided to go to hell for them, so that they could live in heaven forever, He promised to come back for them.

I probably would have gotten up off my porch chair and gone to Jerusalem for Passover as everyone in my town did. While I was there I surely would have gone to see the ruckus I heard about my neighbor, wondering what it was all about. I would have been shocked to see Him bruised and bleeding carrying a cross on His back. When I realized they were going to crucify Him I would have followed, but not too closely in case people knew I lived by Him.

He knows what it is like to really, really need a friend and not be able to find a single one. He knows what it is like to have God let Him suffer, when He could very well have stopped it all.

Before He was offered up and about to be crucified, He prayed and prayed for another way. Jesus knows what it is like to be held down against your will and hurt badly. people don’t just lay there and let soldiers drive nails into their hands and feet, so the soldiers hold them down, one soldier on each arm and leg. They didn’t know Jesus would go willingly and not struggle.

One the cross He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He knows what it is like to feel forsaken. I think God must have said, You know if there was any other way I would do it. I cannot fathom what it was like for His Father to have to watch Jesus go through all that.

There was a place in the temple called the Holiest of Holies where only the priest could go, it had a thick curtain called a veil to keep people out. The Holy Spirit filled that room, common people weren’t holy enough to go there or be in Gods presence. The priest could only enter with a blood sacrifice as God said.

Watching Jesus up on that cross, I might have run for cover when the sky turned dark and the earth started to shake.

“Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;” Matt 27:50-51

Jesus went through all of that so that the veil could be opened, so we could meet God face to face. So that He could be our God and we could be His people, even us. He paid for our sins so that our guilt and condemnation wouldn’t prevent us from entering in, even though the door was now wide open. He said to ask forgiveness and lay our sins right at the foot of the cross.

He didn’t do all those things by proclamation from above, expecting us to just take Him at His word. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so we could see the pure love in His eyes. He laughed to let us know we did not have to be afraid, He was full of delight and exceeding rejoicing. He broke down barriers and called people friends, even the least of them.

After the crucifixion of Jesus I might have gone back to my front porch chair and wept, thinking, I had so hoped that finally God was going to do something to change things down here where I live. I might have wept and been downcast for days.

Imagine my surprise if the next week Jesus’ mother and friends came running back to their house to get a few things beaming with great joy, saying, “He is Risen! He is Risen from the dead just like He said! He’s Alive!”

I might not have gotten out of my chair and followed them and seen Him alive on the earth for 40 days, I might not have seen Jesus ascend up into heaven. I might not have gone to the upper room and been there for the day of Pentecost. But what if one of the disciples came back to the house and saw me sitting there still in my chair on the porch, and told me the amazing story? What if their eyes were filled with that same intense love that I had seen in Jesus eyes? What if I asked them to pray for me to be able to see Him to? If I did, I might forsake my front porch chair for ever and follow Jesus in the Holy Spirit anywhere He led me, with great joy.

Jesus is alive evermore, He is not retired somewhere. He sits at the right hand of God, but He sends the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts of men so that they can know Him. He sends us brothers and sisters to show us Himself. To show us that we too can fellowship with Him, even today! The creator of the universe knows our names, He sent Jesus to gather us unto Himself. He calls us to follow Jesus even now. He sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we can have fellowship with Him even today, so that we can abide in Him who is Love.

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Romans 5:5

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John 1:29

And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
John 1:32-34

Jesus said:
…and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. John 6:37