A Response to "Dirty Laundry"

I muddle a lot.  Sometimes I scratch, and hunt and dig for words to try to get a thought out.  Then someone else writes something and I think - wow!  That's exactly what I wanted to say!  This is one of those occasions.  In reply to my previous post, Harold Burrell (Uncle Harold to me) wrote the following.  I originally posted it in the "comments" of this blog, but thought it so much clearer than what I was trying to say, that I thought its own post was more appropriate.  Thanks so much Harold!

 I'm sure you are familiar with this passage:

2Co 11:3-4 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

"Another Jesus..."  I wonder about the exact details of the circumstances to which Paul was addressing this warning.  I wonder what was being preached specifically...and who was preaching it.  I wonder what fruits it produced...specifically...in the church itself.  And I wonder how this warning effected the hearers, when it was first read in the church.

In other words...I wonder if they "got it" right away.

But I really wonder how the other apostles took it when first they read it.

"Another Jesus..."

Judas was all about that.  It was about the time of the "alabastor box" incident that the Jesus that Judas had created and the Jesus that stood before him were revealed in contrast to such an extreme that Judas was forced to make a choice.

He did.  And we all know what happened.

Yeah...Judas was all about that.

But, wait...what about Peter?  All the times he tried to rebuke Jesus in regards to His plans.  "No, Lord.  You've got it all wrong.  Let me tell You what You're supposed to do.  How YOU are supposed to act."

You see, even Peter's ideal Jesus...and the Jesus of the Scriptures...occassionally stood in contrast.  To the place where...on the eve of the crucifixion...standing before an otherwise harmless maiden...he chose which one he wished to follow.

And really...in that sense...is that not what all of the disciples did?  One by one.  In their own way.  As they forsook Him and fled.

They all were faced with a choice between their ideal Jesus and the Jesus that they did not...and could not...understand.

But did that negate their initial call?  Oh, no.  Not at all.  Was it another Jesus that spoke to the 12 one by one and challenged them to "follow Me"?  Of course not.  And who was that Jesus whom they sat under for over 3 years?  Some imposter?  Don't be silly.

Then what was the problem?

Namely this (IMHO)...though they followed Him for all that time...and watched Him walk, talk, eat, sleep, pray, teach, preach, perform miracles, help people, sigh, cry and die...they never really knew Him.

Oh, they knew plenty about Him.  But they did not really know Him.  Personally.  Intimately.  Practically.  Nor could they...

Until they first knew themselves.

"Lord, I will die for you."

"Will you Peter?  I tell you that this night will not pass before you have denied me..."

"Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven?"

"James...John...you know not what spirit you are of..."

Kind of adds another perspective as to the how and why the Peter of Passover was so vastly different from the Peter of Pentecost, doesn't it?

And it also adds a certain sense of urgency and desperation to those 10 days in the upper room.  Because they had caught a glimpse of who they were.

And only then could Jesus reveal Who HE was.