ALL THE TIME

“You were always on my mind.” — Willie Nelson, “Always On My Mind”

Matthew 28:16-20
Luke 24:13-32
John 5:36-40

It looks so obvious in retrospect. He sent us pictures all along. The pictures showed us what he looked like. That way we might recognize him when we met him.

He said, “Let there be light.” Jesus said, “I am the light.”

He gave manna, the bread of angels, in the desert trek from Egypt. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” He then said bread alone is insufficient for life; we need every word he utters. John says, “The word became flesh.”

A rock followed the people in the desert, and it gave them water. Jesus said, “I give you the living water.”

His people asked for a king. Jesus said, “I am a king.” And Paul said, “Everyone will kneel before him.” David said, “The Lord is my shepherd.” Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.”

The people had judges before they had kings. Jesus said, “The father gave all judgment to me.” He gave the people priests to pray for them. The writer of Hebrews called Jesus the high priest who prays for us.

His people would place their sins on a goat and send the goat into the wilderness to take the sins away. John called me “The lamb that takes our sin away.” His people had cities of refuge, and they called God, “their place of rest” (Ps. 90). Jesus said, “Come to me, and I’ll give you rest.”

Solomon spoke to his bride. In the upper room, Jesus spoke to his friends, making the promises of a bridegroom to his bride: “I’ll come for you.”

Jacob saw a ladder connecting heaven and earth. Jesus said, “That ladder runs through me.”

Jeremiah said God’s word felt like fire in his heart, in his bones, even. Jesus said he came to start a fire.

He told Moses his name is “I AM.” Jesus said before Abraham was born, “I AM.”

Jesus told the Jews they kept looking for answers to life in the book. But the book points to him. The book sends pictures of him; it does not function as a file of projects to complete before folks go home at the end of life. Did they not see the pictures in the envelope?

We keep looking for the way to real life, to the good life. The path leading there doesn’t run through a method, but instead through a man.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, the life.”

Do you look for the things to do or the person to know?
What happens if we focus on the pictures in the text and in our life?
How will our world begin to look different?

Adam