Close Encounters of the Best Kind

By Phil Wood

"You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

                                    – Words spoken by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5

This is my thesis on why Pastor Bruce's current sermon series, "Encounters with Jesus," is one of the most important series he has ever brought to us, and why there has never been a more important time to hear this teaching.

If we are truly disciples of Jesus, we understand that Jesus is our rabbi and our most important task in life is to follow him, to be with him, to learn from him how to be like him. That's what it has always meant to be a disciple.

In Jesus' day, it was understood that committing to discipleship meant following the rabbi everywhere, learning not just from his spoken teaching, but from his behavior, his every action, his way of being. It meant following him so closely that "you may always be covered by the dust of your rabbi" (that is, the dust kicked up from the master's feet, according to a common, first-century Jewish blessing).

In our day, we look at that old model of discipleship and throw up our hands. It seems like an impossible standard. First of all, Jesus is not physically here. We can't literally walk in his dust. We can't sit at his feet, as Mary did while her sister, Martha, fretted in the kitchen. Second of all, we have too much Martha in us: our attention is on our jobs, our children and all their activities, upkeep of our homes, managing our vast financial empires, etc.

Yet when Martha came storming from the kitchen, blaming Jesus for keeping Mary from her duties, Jesus talked about the choice Mary had made. "...few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better," Jesus said.

In his book, God Is Closer Than You Think, John Ortberg says that the "one thing" Jesus was talking about is the decision to live so continually in the presence of Jesus as to always be covered with the dust of the rabbi."

The decision is key. Once you've decided to live in his presence, you are on the dusty road of true discipleship. You want to hear everything he has to say. You want to watch everything he does. You want to get caked with the dust kicked up by his feet, so you can learn and grow and become, yes, more perfect.

So you listen to sermons about "Encounters with Jesus," with closer attention than ever before. You seek out devotional books like Intimate Moments with the Savior, by Ken Gire. You begin to see things about Jesus that you never saw before. You see how lives were totally changed just by coming into contact with him, and you start to understand why – what there was about him that had such an amazing impact.

And you start to think maybe I should seek out other encounters with Jesus written about in the Gospels, meditate on them like Ken Gire does, and learn from them, and be changed by them.

These are things that, with just small daily investments of our time, can bring us to a place in our lives where the way of Jesus is so ingrained in our hearts that we can "live in his presence" all the time – even when we're at work, running from one kid's activity to another, re-staining the deck, or paying the bills – even when the events of the world around us seem so overwhelming.

Perhaps especially when the events of the world around us seem so overwhelming, when issues are so complex, when our way of thinking and living is being challenged, when hatred stalks our hearts, and racism is exposed, raw and ugly, especially now we need to sit at his feet and learn from him.

Jesus is leading us to become the perfect beings we were created to be. He can use these challenging times to change us at the deepest level, make us well, make us whole.

Jesus is the one thing. Let's encounter him together.

"Nobody ever went away from an encounter with Jesus saying, 'That was a good talk.'

"Jesus gently but relentlessly asked people to make a decision about their relationship with him. The fundamental decision involved this invitation: Follow me. Come be with me, and learn from me how to be like me."

                                                                                    – John Ortberg