Jesus (Matthew 10 - 11)

 

The real Jesus of the Bible is endlessly fascinating.

 

Have you read one of the Gospels (the short accounts of his life) from the New Testament for yourself as an adult?

 

What do you make of this Jesus? What’s your response to him?

 

In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus calls people to come and follow him and die. That seems pretty hard.

 

In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus calls people to come to him for rest, but not the rest of death, a kind of rest which goes with work, which he calls easy and light.

 

Also in Matthew 11, Jesus criticises a childish fickle fault-finding with him. Either Jesus is too austere for us or too indulgent. We’re not really sure who he is or what we want from him. And yet Jesus says that God the Father loves to hide things from the learned and reveal them to the little children. Jesus is not for the childish but for the child-like who will humbly receive him.

 

We can’t really suss Jesus out or fully grasp him. You don’t master Jesus. You trust him as your good Lord and your loving Saviour. You receive the real Jesus by faith. And you find that he confounds your expectations. But that he meets all your ultimate deepest needs perhaps in ways you hadn’t imagined.