Note: This post is a bit of a departure from the sort of devotional fare I usually serve up on this site. It’s part of a series called Simple Reminders, in which my goal is to remind us all that the Bible speaks very clearly into the cultural debates of our day.
This world is a strange place, and if we aren’t aligned with the One who is always true north, we can quickly find ourselves upside-down.
The older I get, the more I discover how complicated people really are. All my earthly heroes have their shortcomings, and I’ve seen myself in the faces of my enemies a time or two. But it’s more than just morality. Every one of us is a dusty rock with more sides than a person can count without losing track and having to start all over.
Given the right conditions, the most straightlaced among us can prove to be super-creative, those thought to be muscle-headed jocks can have moments of academic brilliance, and lifelong cowards will stand up to the biggest of bullies. When it comes to human beings, there are surprises at every turn. To really understand someone, you have to spend years with them, getting to know them and seeing them in a variety of situations. If a person appears flat and without complexity, two dimensional even, you’re seeing but one narrow side. There’s always more.
Many people wonder why there are four New Testament accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. In part, it’s because the Holy Spirit knew we would need to see Jesus from many different angles. Every scene and every saying are important; every interaction and every exclamation are vital. To know the real Jesus, we must spend time with Him. It seems many of us have settled for a flannel-graph version of the Son of God. In our minds, he has no moods, no passions. He’s always even-keeled, always predictable. But an honest and deep dive into the Gospels will reveal that this Jesus is the stuff of myth, not history. The real Jesus surprises people at every turn. He is more complicated than a Polaroid version could ever reveal.
Today, it’s common for Jesus to be reimagined as Fred Rogers in Jewish robes, the nicest guy who ever was or will be, who asks, “Won’t you be My neighbor?” Of course, Jesus is loving and kind and gracious and a joy to be with. He famously described Himself as “gentle and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29). But He is no pushover. He is a valiant warrior who fights for the weak and the poor, the outsider and the downtrodden.
During His earthly ministry, Jesus went toe to toe with powerful religious leaders, and He never backed down from a challenge to His authority. He wasn’t afraid to hang out with people who could damage His reputation, and He could hold His own with rough and rowdy fishermen. And then, of course, there was that time he saw Gentiles being squeezed out of the temple complex by salesmen and currency traders, so he left for a little while, fashioned a homemade whip, and then returned to flip over tables and drive the merchants and moneychangers out of the place.
Then, there’s the exalted Jesus, the Jesus most people seldom think about. Today, Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, and one day He will return as the Judge of this world. According to the vision the apostle John recorded for us in Revelation 19, His eyes will appear as fire, His robe will be dipped in blood, and He will have a sharp sword in His mouth “with which to strike down the nations” (v. 15). When He returns, no one will mistake the Son of God for Mr. Rogers.
Somehow, we got the idea that Jesus doesn’t fight, but that is simply not true. To be sure, sometimes His tactics don’t look much like fighting, but He has never backed down. When the Jews gathered at Golgotha to see a naked and bloodied man suspended from a Roman cross, no one could have imagined that at that moment Jesus was actually beating the tar out of the devil, but that’s precisely what He was doing. No one could see that He had death in a headlock and the power of sin begging for mercy. But He did.
If we are going to follow Jesus well in this age, we need to know what He’s really like. We need to fight, because Jesus was—and is—a fighter. As the apostle Paul wrote, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). But make no mistake about it: we are in a battle. Jesus commissioned us to disciple the nations (Matthew 28:18–20), and He gave us power to complete the job (Acts 1:8). We do not have the option of waiting out the clock until our Lord returns.
As far as it depends on us, we are to live at peace with all people (Romans 12:18). But we cannot let our desire for peace keep us from the fight God has called us to. Like Jesus, we must stand firm in the truth, protect the weak and the vulnerable, and obey the Father in a hostile environment, no matter what the world throws at us.
Pages of Joy // John Greco 
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