Wednesday: Everything Anchored to Jesus
WEEK 25
WEDNESDAY
EVERYTHING ANCHORED TO JESUS
Hebrews 2:7-9
When the early Christians made the confession that “Jesus is Lord,” they fastened upon the very center of the Christian faith: Jesus. The center of that faith is not Christ—the excarnate Christ, the universal Christ, but the incarnate Jesus—the Word become flesh. The center of the Christian faith is the incarnation, God’s redemptive invasion of us. God became like us that we might become like God.
The whole Christian faith is anchored to Jesus. God is anchored to Jesus. For we know little or nothing about God except through Jesus. Apart from Jesus we look up to God through our own conceptions, but these are usually misconceptions. Through them we arrive at something other than God. But through Jesus we see the Lord, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9 KJV). The character of God is none other than the character of Jesus.
Christ was anchored to Jesus. Apart from Jesus, the Christ—the Anointed One, the Messiah—has been misconceived, often as a nationalistic hero or a strange mystic. “I am the Messiah, Christ reincarnated,” said a Hindu in the hearing of a British sea captain. The blunt reply was, “Well, if you are, then I’m changing my religion.”
The Holy Spirit is anchored to Jesus. We know little or nothing about the Spirit’s character unless we see it in the character of Jesus: “[I] will send another Companion” (John 14:16)—“another” like me; “the Holy Spirit . . . will remind you of everything I told you” (v. 26); “he will take what is mine and proclaim it to you” (16:14). The Holy Spirit is a Jesus-like Spirit.
The kingdom of God is anchored to Jesus. He fixes in his own person the character of the kingdom. The kingdom is the spirit of Jesus universalized. Life is anchored to Jesus. In him we see its meaning and its goal. In him we see life as Life. In him the great clarification took place. When they said, “Jesus is Lord,” then everything in heaven and on earth fell into place.
O Jesus, you are the rift in the clouds that hang between me and God and eternity and life. Through you I am the meaning of God, eternity, and life. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I glance at other things, but I gaze at Jesus—the center of my universe.