In both my personal Bible reading and what I do with Xoe for her home school, I’ve been immersed in the Gospels lately. And of course, it’s no surprise that, being in the Lenten season, our studies at church have centered around Him too.
But the more I read, the more I reflect, the more I’m struck by certain things . . . the more I realize that I tend to focus on what He went through, what He did, how others reacted to Him. And not so much on the Son of Man himself. Which is why, I think, I’m so struck by it when an insight into His personality hits me.
In fact, that, there. Personality. Do you think of Jesus as having a personality? Strange question, I know, LOL. And maybe I ask because I’m a writer. See, in fiction, the more toward perfect a character tends, the flatter they have the potential to be. It’s the flaws, the mistakes that make them real. That make them lovable. That make them personable.
So reading the Gospels as one would a story . . . well, I’ve had to occasionally remind myself that these aren’t stories, not like what I write. And Jesus is more than just the wise mentor I might toss in as a secondary character into one of my novels. He’s it. The story. The character. The goal. The conflict. The resolution. It’s not outside Him like the events often are in one of my books. It’s embodied by Him.
And that makes me pause and study my Lord in a new light.
A while back, when Xoe was having one of those days where she didn’t want to read, I tried to lure her into her Bible story for the day by saying, “Oo, look at the picture. What do you think this one will be about?”
Rowyn, seeing Jesus in the picture, shouted, “It’s Jesus! It’s about how He takes care of us!”
He nailed that one, didn’t he? No matter the particular story, that’s what it always comes down to. That Jesus loves us. This perfect Man, the one who never made a mistake, still had to deal with the consequences of mistakes–ours. Which He did because His heart, unsoiled by any dark emotions, was always, always squeezed in compassion for us.
It’s so easy to think of Jesus on the cosmic scale–the Savior of mankind. But you know, mankind is pretty darn big. The cosmos is rather, um, large. And me? I’m small. Just a woman in the immense crowd of people watching the Son of God. Back at the edge of the crowd, maybe, unable to see the exact gleam in his eye or the way His mouth turns up in a smile.
But that’s not good enough. Ever pause to think about whose stories made it into the gospels? The ones who pushed forward. The ones who said distant wasn’t good enough, that curiosity wouldn’t cut it. The ones who elbowed their way forward until they could look Jesus in the eye and see His love for them.
Can you see His love for you? That He didn’t just create those cosmos with His hand, He stretched it out toward you and said, “Rise up. Sin no more. Follow me.”?
I always remember what Jesus did–but sometimes I’m just struck dumb by who He is. And yet I can kind of understand why some people could see Him and not believe . . . because who can believe a perfect character? In fiction, the only way to make a nearly-perfect character likable is to fill them with love so huge you just can’t deny it.
Yeah. Jesus kinda has that one down, doesn’t He?
This Lenten season, I’m going to be spending a lot of time meditating on the person of my Lord. The personality. The character. The humanity that filled this Savior. The perfection that lifted this Man above mankind.
And each time I know I’m going to be filled with awe. Because there’s just so much He did, so much He is. And it’s all for us.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
Wow. Thank you.
Oooh – goosebumps. What a wonderful reminder – one I needed. Thanks.