Sunday, August 12, 2007

What I Learned This Summer, by Jake Owens, age 21

I've been on the road for a while, and then I had to move, but the dust is finally settling, and I'm back at last, so here I am, to plague you with more nonsense.

I have good news. Jesus was a human. I know, you've heard it before, but let's do some considering here. I spent the last two weeks teaching the book of Hebrews to high school kids up in Wisconsin, and I'm pretty convinced that I got a lot more out of it than they did. I have weeks worth of blog material, but I want to focus on this first. Let's have a look:

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin." Hebrews 4:15

First of all, I'm not going to directly quote scripture again in this blog, but I will be referencing it, feel free to look it up and check my sources. That being said, re-read that up there. Jesus Christ was God incarnate, and yet he was tempted in the same way we are. That's a verse that never meant a lot to me, because the reality is that Jesus was God, and it never occured to me that he was actually tempted. But consider a few things.

First of all, to quote Nate Cleveland, Jesus was on a different pay scale than the rest of us. To be tempted with money or lust probably wasn't a big deal for him. But when Satan tempted Jesus, he went straight to the top. He promised Jesus the world. Now me, I wouldn't worship someone to rule the world, because we all know that a Jake-ruled world would implode on itself very quickly. Don't believe me? See my new bedroom.

But Jesus was seriously tempted to take this! Think it over, if Jesus came to Earth and there was no risk, if there was no chance that he would fail, then this salvation thing is not what we think it is. For this to work, there had to be a chance that Jesus would give in and would bow down to Satan and take the world. When I think about it, it makes sense. Jesus Christ, praying in the garden was begging God to find a different way to save the world. When Peter offered to make Jesus a king, Jesus rebuked him and yelled at him, he fled from people who tried to give him a crown, Jesus Christ was genuinely tempted to take an Earthly throne and try to save the world his own way!

Now consider that: I don't for one second think that Jesus ever considered going to the Dark Side and doing bad things, I think that he considered different ways of saving humanity, ways that wouldn't suck nearly as much as being nailed to a death stick. But the reality is that in the final moment, in the greatest temptation, in the garden, Jesus Christ answered the question once and for all by saying, "Not my will, but yours be done."

My sins have never been so major as to consider screwing up God's great scheme to save the world, but I think I can sympathize with Jesus. At the end of the day, all of my sins basically boil down to the fact that I am completely convinced that I know better than God, and I'm deciding to do things my own way, not his. My prayer for myself and for anyone who reads this is that we can be possessed by the same spirit of wisdom that Jesus was, and that we can have the foresight to give God his way. He knows better.

(jake)