Walking the path

(2-minute read)

It started out as a matter of curiosity. The reaction of the people to Jesus’s sermon on the mount seems different from what I expected, and I wanted to know why. What I discovered surprised me and has changed my life.

Jesus was on the earth at a unique time in Jewish history. It was towards the end of what is now called “the time of the Second Temple.” There were several Jewish sects with radically different theologies. Most people at that time read scripture as if it were a view of God from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Even today, some religions see scripture that way.

As best I could, I used Jewish sources and scholars to find out what people believed in the different locations where Jesus taught. In comparing that with what Jesus said, he primarily took what people already knew, put it together like a jigsaw puzzle, in a way that was simple enough for them to see. The most obvious example of this teaching style was when Jesus met two men on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection. They couldn’t understand what had happened over those previous few days.

When I was a kid, I loved to climb trees. The view from up there was so different, and you could see how things fit together. Jesus took the scriptures they knew and put them together, and they saw, and it changed their lives. Instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Jesus taught from the viewpoint of the tree of life.

Each day as I began studying about the beliefs of the Jews, the presence of the Lord would come into the room. I wasn’t expecting that. After just a few days, I discovered that I was learning more about my relationship with the Lord than I was about the Jews. The Lord showed me how I had changed over the years in my relationship with my wife. Not that I’m great at it yet, but I’ve changed so that our marriage is guided more by our will rather than my will. Love has changed both of us. My wife and I often do things for each other simply because it makes the other one happy. Our life together is so much better than it could ever be if I were alone.

God didn’t want to be alone when he created mankind. He desired to love and to be loved. I began to see that what I thought of as acts of faith, God saw as acts of love. I’ve heard many sermons on the many qualities of God. Jesus has convinced me that when God looks at himself, he sees himself as love. He wants to help me change to become one with him so that his will becomes our will.