When you have
lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am; And that I do
nothing of myself; what the Father has taught me is what I preach;
he who sent me is with me and has not left me to myself, for I always
do what pleases him.
John 8:25-26
John 8:25-26
Jesus said this
after he was confronted with a woman caught in adultery. The Jews
wanted to stone her but Jesus spoke and her life was spared. The Jews
were not happy with this because the incident made them look bad to
the people. So they came to Jesus and challenged him. And this was
one of the strongest testimony of Jesus about himself.
Jesus tells his
accusers that the only way to know him completely is to lift him up.
We normally associate this with lifting him up on the cross. However,
the original word used in John's gospel means to exalt. With this in
mind, we see that we can only understand who Jesus is if we exalt
him.
To exalt Jesus
means to make him our Lord. Some claim that you are saved if you just
say that Jesus is Lord. But for me, I think there is more to this.
Calling Jesus as Lord means that we surrender our lives to him and
that it is now he who controls our lives. It goes deeper than just
doing good works, and certainly goes deeper than just telling others
that Jesus is Lord.
Exalting Jesus
means to give up our desire to live our lives according to what we
think is right. It is to live the life that the Father wants us to
live as revealed to us through Jesus. Making him Lord is not easy
because we all have a tendency to do things according to what WE
perceive. Making him Lord means that we do things according to what
HE tells us. It is a struggle and requires a lot of prayer and
discernment. But it is possible because of the Spirit that Jesus
gives us.
To further
appreciate this, we must remember that in his earthly life, Jesus was
in every way a human being, this despite of his divinity. (How this
is possible, I do not know nor does any human being). Being fully
human, he too experienced all the difficulties we are experiencing
now. And yet, despite all these “baggages” that he had to carry,
Jesus does nothing of himself. He preaches what he learned from the
Father. And his life is centered towards pleasing the Father. And
thisis also the goal of our lives: to please the Father.
For one, we have
to see things through the eyes of God. Situations can come to us and
when we see them through our eyes, we tend to act based on our
intellect. But if we see them through the eyes of God, then we will
have the right perspective and respond according to Gods will.
Reality is seen through the eyes of God. What we see is virtual
reality.
So comes the
question: how then can we see through Gods eyes? The answer here is
discernment. Without discernment, we cannot know the will of God. In
his book on prayer, "Weeds Among the Wheat", Fr.
Thomas Greene said that discernment is the dividing line between
prayer and action. Prayer leads to discernment and discernment leads
to action based on the discernment.
During prayer, we
come to God in humility and surrender ourselves and our situation to
him. We let him take charge and commit ourselves to doing what he
wants. Without humility there is no surrender. Without surrender,
discernment is not possible. And without discernment AND action based
on discernment Jesus cannot be Lord of our lives. And if Jesus is not
Lord of our lives, then holiness is not possible.
As a summary, I
want to quote this from Matthew 19:17-21. When a rich young man came
to Jesus, he asked Jesus what he has to do to possess eternal life.
Jesus said, “If
you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments... If you wish to
be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor
and ... come, follow me.” Note
that to just enter life, all we have to do is keep the commandments.
But to be perfect, to live the life to the fullest, to please God, we
have to detach ourselves from everything we have and follow Jesus.
May God give us
the grace to see things through his eyes so that we may have to
courage to do his will through Jesus our Lord.
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