Don’t you just love Jesus? One of the most exciting things in our childhood was the visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the seventies when she came to Newcastle (yes, Newcastle). Our family perched on one of the best vantage spots in outer Newcastle just to get a glimpse of the Queen. Excitement mounted and the crowd went wild when her black, royal Rolls Royce car was approaching. As she whizzed past, she waved at us and in a few seconds, she was gone like a phantom in the night. Five seconds of a royal encounter, at a distance and it was all over.
The visit of Jesus to the world was the most defining royal visit in human history. Jesus didn’t just whizz past humanity, giving us all a royal wave from a royal chariot on His way to making a speech about the Kingdom of God on earth. There were no protective barriers between Jesus and people and no royal protocols that banned people from touching Jesus and there certainly was no crowd control. Jesus, the highest, royal, majestic King in the universe stepped into a broken world bathed in the stench of sin and full of kingdom outcasts; a place which offended His perfection, put on His cloak of love and grace, and welcomed everyone as the crowds pressed in on Him. Luke 9:11. Don’t you just love Jesus? Jesus crossed every boundary and validated every displaced, sick, disabled, possessed, marginalised, and oppressed person He encountered. He dignified every human. He touched the lepers. How many of us would do that? He protected the vulnerable. He dined with the rogues of society. How many of us would be seen in the house of society’s greatest offenders? And then our Royal King died for His undeserving subjects; us! Don’t you just love Jesus? Luke 19:10.
Jesus sent us a powerful message that rang loudly in the first century and still rings loudly in the 21st century, that He had come to save us at our worst and love us unconditionally, knowing He would pay a price of unprecedented pain, body, mind, and spirit for every human soul. And we end up blameless thanks to Jesus. Only love so immeasurable and extravagant could love us, the unlovable offenders as Jesus did. The more I grow in my understanding of Jesus, the more I find myself exclaiming “don’t you just love Jesus”? Everything about Jesus fires every part of my being. I find my place in Him, my purpose in Him and my passion in Him. I don’t deserve it, but that’s the nature of this royal King. Don’t you just love Jesus?
So, friends, get your “love for Jesus” on today.
Best days to come.
Wen