Jesus Traded Places, Part II

What Did Jesus Do?

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows.
Isaiah 53.4

I think most of you who are reading this email have been on the receiving end of quite a few of these WDJDs (though I don't discount the possibility that some might see who the sender is and click “Delete” without reading). It occurred to me this morning, as I sit bleary eyed in front of the computer, that it has been some time since I spelled out the purpose of all these little “tasty morsels” (as my good friend Steve calls them).

Some 18-19 months ago when the Holy Spirit hit me over the head with a spiritual 2x4, and I first expressed my discomfort with the whole WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) thing, I explained that speculating about what Jesus might do if he were in our shoes was to get the whole discipleship thing turned around. As his disciples we are supposed to walk in his sandals, if you will. His life, is kind of a parable, and when we get it/him, we are to “go and do likewise.” So, the first order of business for a disciple is to know what he did. Hence all these WDJDs. But there is a second part of discipleship that is just as essential as knowing what Jesus did—DOING what Jesus did!

Just yesterday (1/25/11) I wrote about Jesus “trading places.” I used my pal David Currie's example of a basketball game. Yahweh's prophet Isaiah spoke of a suffering servant, a “man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53.3), who offered his flesh to be wounded for our transgressions, and his body to be crushed for our iniquities (53.5). Humanity had earned a world-full of blame, and the Son said to the Father, “Lay it all on me. BLAME me.” If he hadn't, well not you nor me, nor anyone else would know anything but the unspeakable suffering of hell, because that's where we would all be if not for Jesus trading places with us and saying, “Blame me.”

So, here's the thing. My pal RRK up in Belvidere, IL has reported the launching of a new conspiracy among those who get the whole “take up your cross and follow me” thing. It seems there are a growing number of people who are doing what Jesus did, and who are stepping into the midst of situations that might well entail wounding and crushing of the sort that people are so good at doing to one another, and, for love of Jesus they're loving like Jesus, and saying, “Blame me.” (http://www.koppdisclosure.com/2011/01/january-17-2011.html)

Nobody likes wearing blame (see Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve chose wearing fig leaves and pointing fingers rather than wear blame); the point is not about blame when we get right down to it. It's about agape, selfless love that was willing to trade places and say, “Don't blame these whom I love, blame me.” That's what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4