Love of Jesus

The Heart of Christianity

Creel

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781498272278
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

If you would like to read many reasons for admiring and loving Jesus, then this is the book for you! If you admire and love Jesus but have difficulty identifying yourself as a Christian or have difficulty joining a church because of problems with this or that aspect of Christianity, then this is a book for you, too! Among other things, Love of Jesus points out that Jesus accepted and even encouraged doubters. Important as scholarship is, Love of Jesus is not a scholarly book. Rather, it reaches out to lay people, believers, and non-believers. It takes at face value a wide range of New Testament stories about Jesus and asks of them why we should admire and love the man who inspired them. Then, hoping it has inspired the reader to admire and love Jesus-or to admire and love him even more-Love of Jesus offers answers to the questions, How should we follow him? and How should we relate to one another as Christians when we have different understandings of Christianity?

Part I

Why Admire and Love Jesus?

1

Reasons to Admire Jesus

In this chapter I will present reasons to admire Jesus. Among such reasons are these: Jesus was (1) physically tough, (2) mentally tough, (3) highly intelligent, (4) mentally quick, (5) independent, (6) and courageous, plus he (7) hated hypocrisy, (8) emphasized justice, mercy, and humility, (9) forgave but condemned sin; (10) was not a charlatan; (11) warned against doomsday prophets, (12) did not abuse his power; (13) emphasized well-being over rules; (14) was wise, and (15) encouraged us to use our minds in religious matters. These fifteen traits are not exhaustive and are not listed in order of importance, but they should be sufficient to establish that Jesus is worthy of profound admiration by anyone and everyone.

In order to illustrate and elaborate the traits above, I will make many references to the New Testament, and especially the Gospels, which are our main sources of information about Jesus’ life and teachings. There are four Gospels, each written by a different disciple of Jesus. If you are not familiar with the authors of the Gospels, please keep in mind that when I refer to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, I am referring either to the Gospel which has that name or to the author of that Gospel. Also, when I refer to a specific location in a Gospel, I will usually do so by citing the abbreviated name of the author, the chapter, and the verses, in that order. For example, (Mt 1:1) means “The Gospel According to Matthew, chapter 1, verse 1”. (Mk 2:2–4) means “The Gospel According to Mark, chapter 2, verses 2 through 4.” Likewise for the Gospel According to Luke (Lk) and the Gospel According to John (Jn).

I also want to alert you that in this chapter I will not be focusing on stories about miracles performed by Jesus. There are many reports in the New Testament of miracles that Jesus performed. I will touch on some of them, but because I am writing for skeptics and searchers as well as believers, I am not going to emphasize miracles in this chapter. What I want to emphasize is that there are many reasons to admire Jesus apart from the miracles that were attributed to him. Indeed, there are many reasons to admire Jesus even if you have difficulty believing in miracles or don’t believe in them at all.

One final qualification is this: I realize we can admire someone without loving her or him. Indeed, sometimes we should not love someone whom we admire. In that case the person usually has one characteristic we admire and another characteristic we abhor. For example, we might admire Hitler’s brilliance as an orator while being repulsed by his willfully ignorant, hate-filled personality. Of course we can also love someone without admiring her or him. Sometimes we love a friend or relative who has succumbed to drugs but do not admire him or her. With Jesus, however, there are many reasons to both admire and love him, so now let’s look into fifteen reasons for admiring him.

[A]1. Jesus was physically tough

Jesus was a physically tough person. His father was a carpenter, so given the fact that in Jesus’ time, sons usually took up the same kind of work as their fathers, it should be no surprise that Jesus was a carpenter for 20 years or more. (In Matthew someone says of Jesus, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Mt 13:54–55) And in Mark someone says, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mk 6:3)

As a carpenter until he was about 30 years old, Jesus must have been strong of body (Lk 3:23). I’ve split, cut, and carried plenty of firewood, so I know that wood is heavy stuff! And Jesus would have carried a lot more wood than I have. He would have acquired further strength from using the tools of a carpenter, such as axes and hatchets, planes and saws, hammers and drills.

As a boy I had a friend whose father was a carpenter. One day the father invited me to saw some wood. I think he probably invited me with an inner smile, knowing what I was in for (I had never sawn wood before). Sawing looks so easy: the saw isn’t very heavy, and you just draw the blade back and forth over the top of the wood. And it was easy for the first 30 seconds. But I was amazed at how quickly my muscles tired and started to ache from a little sawing until soon my muscles seized up and I couldn’t even move my arm! So I’m sure that Jesus’ muscles were well-developed. Carpentry also leads to inevitable cuts, bruises, splinters, and busted fingernails. I don’t think there can be any doubt that Jesus’ hands were strong, calloused, and probably scarred.

Finally, consider that Palestine, where Jesus lived, was a very hot country. There were no air-conditioners or even electric fans back then, so for most of the year carpentry was hot, sweaty, exhausting work. We can admire the fact that as a carpenter Jesus was a strong, skilled person in a valuable, physically demanding occupation.

Consider also that Jesus was no “couch potato.” In addition to the skills, strength, and toughness that he developed as a carpenter, he walked miles and miles on the hot, dusty, rocky roads of Palestine. Moreover, he climbed hills and mountains in order to get away, think and pray.

At the end of his life Jesus was arrested, imprisoned, beaten, spat on, and had a crown of thorns mashed onto his head. After being deprived of a night of sleep, and surely also of food and water, and after being beaten brutally and losing blood, he carried a considerable distance the cross on which he was to be crucified, until he finally collapsed from fatigue. Those were afflictions that Jesus could have chosen to avoid, but he did not. He was tough enough to take them on and endure them. In street talk, he was “tough as nails.”

But what about his closest followers? Were they, or at least most of them, physically tough? The answer is definitely “yes.” Some of Jesus’ followers were what today might be called “real men.” Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen. Fishing for a living was hard, dangerous work then as it is now. Those men were strong, rugged, and courageous. In one story Peter says that he and Andrew had been fishing all night—not with a rod and reel or machine-operated equipment but with a large, heavy net that they had to put out and pull in by hand. The story says they had no luck that night. They were tired and discouraged, yet when Jesus showed up at dawn and asked them to cast out their net one more time, they did. These strong, tough men admired Jesus enough to accept him as their leader when he called them—even when they were very tired (Mk 1:16–20; Jn 21:1–8).

Consider also the physical condition of two unnamed disciples who, after the death of Jesus, were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a distance of about seven miles. According to Luke, the resurrected Jesus joined them along the way. The disciples did not recognize him at first, so the three of them went along, walking and talking. The disciples were completely captivated by the personality of this stranger and what he had to say, so they invited him to share their evening meal in Emmaus and stay overnight. During the meal Jesus, as he had done at “the last supper” with his disciples, took bread and blessed it; then the disciples realized who their guest was. Jesus soon vanished, we are told, and those disciples were so excited that they immediately walked back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples! On the dusty, rocky, hilly roads of Israel, that was an impressive physical accomplishment. At a fast pace, that round trip of 14 miles would have taken 3 hours of walking or more (about 1.5 hours each way).

Perhaps some of Jesus’ followers were couch potatoes, but, as we have seen, some of his closest followers were not (see Lk 24:13–35). Moreover, as nearly everyone knows, Peter—the aforementioned fisherman, the foremost of Jesus’ apostles, and the leader of the early church—was a blustery, aggressive guy. When Caiaphas, the high priest of the Jews, sent a large crowd with swords and clubs to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter had a sword, drew it, and cut off the ear of one of the men whom Caiphas had sent to arrest Jesus. Peter was ready to do battle—but Jesus told him to cool it (Mt 26:47–54; Jn 18:1–11).

James and John were similarly inclined to aggressive action. They were nicknamed “The Sons of Thunder,” and we can see why from the following story. When a Samaritan village refused to extend hospitality to Jesus, James and John said to him, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Jesus said “no” and rebuked them, but their feisty personalities are evident from that story (Lk 9:51–56).

I think it is interesting and important to realize that most of the apostles (the men who worked most closely with Jesus) were not wealthy hedonists or angry insurrectionists or members of an isolated monastic group. They were typical members of the Jewish working class in their time. They knew and accepted the responsibilities of family and community life; they knew the dangers, fatigue, and tedium of a life of physical labor.

Lest I leave the impression that Jesus’ apostles came only from the laboring class, it should be noted that the apostle Matthew was not a fisherman or a carpenter but a tax collector. Indeed, another reason for admiring Jesus is that he was admired and followed by people from so many different categories: men and women, elderly and children, laborers and professionals. Outside the circle of Jesus’ twelve apostles, but among his followers, were respected, wealthy men of the community. For example, Zaccheus was a chief tax collector (Lk 19:1–10). Joseph of Arimathea was “a respected member of the council” and “a rich man.” Indeed, Joseph of Arimathea had enough wealth and influence that after Jesus was crucified, Joseph went to the Roman administrator Pilate, and convinced Pilate to give Jesus’ body to him (Mt 27:57–58); then Joseph buried Jesus in a new tomb that Joseph owned and in which he had planned to be buried himself. Only the wealthy could afford a tomb of their own; obviously, Joseph had wealth, respect, and influence. Another well-to-do admirer of Jesus was Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee and “a leader of the Jews.” Nicodemus helped Joseph of Arimathea prepare Jesus’ body to be placed in Joseph’s tomb (Jn 3:1–2; 19:38–42).

[A]2. Jesus was mentally tough

In addition to being physically tough, Jesus was mentally tough. By that I mean he was strong of will and highly self-disciplined. As we might say today, it was impossible to knock him off target or distract him from his mission. Because of his conception of his mission in life, and his belief in God’s support for it, he was tempted to do things to prove that he had the power that he believed he had, and he was tempted to take personal advantage of that power. For example, when he retreated into the desert after he was baptized by his cousin John the Baptist, Jesus fasted for many days—which in itself takes great strength of will. When he gradually became very hungry, we are told that Satan challenged him by saying (I paraphrase), “If you are the Son of God, prove it! You are hungry, you are the Son of God, so turn these stones to bread and feed yourself!” Jesus was famished, so understandably he was tempted to use his power to turn a stone into a loaf of bread that would end his terrible hunger.

When he refused to yield to that temptation (which must have taken tremendous strength of will), Satan took a different tack and said, “If you are the Son of God, you can leap off the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and not be harmed. God will protect you. So jump! Prove that you are the Son of God!” But Jesus refused to challenge God in that way. (Notice how clever Satan was: first he tried to get Jesus to challenge God to turn stones into bread and thereby drive a wedge between himself and God; when that didn’t work, Satan tried to get Jesus to kill himself by jumping off the Temple!)

Next Satan said (again I paraphrase), “Okay. You aren’t going to prove you are the Son of God, so you don’t know whether you are or not. But I know that all the kingdoms and glory of the world have been given by God to me, so if you fall down and worship me, if you become my son, the Son of Satan, I will give all the wealth and glory of the world to you!” So if Jesus fell down and worshipped Satan, he would have not only bread but anything his heart desired! But Jesus knew that Satan was a creature who existed by the will of God and who ruled, if at all, over a very small portion of reality. Satan was not the Creator who ruled over all of reality. So Jesus stayed focused mentally and resisted these enormous physical, emotional, and spiritual temptations.

Nor was he later deflected from his mission when his family members thought he was deranged and tried to talk him out of his mission; nor was he deflected by the fact that his disciples tried to dissuade him from going to Jerusalem and facing arrest, or by the fact that some people laughed at him, scorned him, and said he was working for Satan (which was an ironic claim after the heroic way in which Jesus had stood up to Satan’s temptations in the desert!). Moreover, Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and chief priests tried repeatedly to trip up Jesus or get him to prove, on their terms, that he was indeed from God. But he stayed on course in spite of all.

In summary, it took enormous mental toughness for Jesus to stick to his mission in the face of so many hostile, derisive people—and even people who loved him but doubted his judgment. He withstood enormous physical suffering, family resistance, and social hostility in order to do what he believed in. He fasted in a harsh desert environment. While suffering on the cro...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Why Admire and Love Jesus?
• Chapter 1: Reasons to Admire Jesus
• Chapter 2: Reasons to Love Jesus
• Part Two: Lovers of Jesus
• Chapter 3: What Makes a Christian?
• Chapter 4: Denominations and Love of Jesus
• Chapter 5: Reasons to Doubt Jesus
• Chapter 6: Jesus Accepted Doubters
• Conclusion