Filed under: Networking
Jesus Demonstrates Engagement
God created us in his image and gave us status as stewards of the rest of creation. Humanity is the keeper of God’s work. We engage the ground, the plants, the animals, the minerals, the water, for good or bad. Not only does our status as made in God’s image create our need to engage, God models engagement in a tangible way that leaves little confusion. He came to us as the person Jesus (Lk 2).
God made Adam aware of his presence and Eve painfully aware. He engaged Noah with boat plans when no one knew what a boat was. He burned a flameproof tree to engage Moses (try that one sometime). He engaged prophets with revelation, lepers with healing, and delivered those tormented by unclean spirits. Without God engaging us specifically, we stand wondering if he exists beyond the stars or within the intricacies of plants (Ps 19, Ro 1:19-20). The zenith of God’s engagement of humanity is Jesus Christ: God becoming human.
God engages us generally in nature, which, by the way, gives us an engagement point with naturalists, and specifically in Christ. God engages us in our experiences—an engagement point with people in other or no religious groups; everyone talks of unexplainable experiences with the spiritual realm. God engages us in the words, pronouncements, commands, propositions, narratives, songs, and poetry of the Bible—an engagement point with our spiritual parents the Jews, with other Christians, and with anyone interested in fine literature. God engages us in art, music, poetry, architecture, literature, nature, children, old folks, wisdom, foolishness, politics, government, community, kindness, evil, and even in the air with radio, television, and the Internet.
God loves to engage people, and he loves us to engage each other. He sent us his Son as a perfect model of engagement.
In Jesus, God is with us. His incarnation objectifies God’s engagement with humanity (Jn 3:31-36). When his disciples saw Jesus, they engaged the Father. He and the Father are one (Jn 10:30). When Jesus breathed on the apostles, he engaged them with his Holy Spirit, the same Spirit with whom he fills us (Jn 20:22, Ac 13:52, Eph 5:18). Jesus sets the standard for engagement with love that never manipulates, lies, keeps a record of wrongs, or tries to control others (1Co 13). Jesus’ love engaged—why else would so many people have followed him around?
I wonder, and perhaps you wonder, if Jesus’ command to love others is not just another way of telling us to be engaging? Why else would he have told us to love people (engage them) as he loved them? He set himself as the standard. His old command to “love others as you love yourself” allows one to set oneself as the standard for love (Mt 22:39). The new command to “love one another as I have loved you” sets the bar higher—so high that I confess I cannot reach it without a boost (Jn 13:34). I need the Holy Spirit to give me a lift over the love bar.
