What Is Jesus Like
Mark 1:35-2:17
What was Jesus like? A very fair question. But how impossibly difficult to answer!
One thing, though, is certain. The Jesus who meets us in the pages of the four Gospels is very different from the picture many have of Him. He is nothing like the “gentle Jesus meek and mild” of the children’s stories. He is not the miserable holy man who never laughs. He is not the fearsome judge who watches to see if we are enjoying ourselves and then tells us to stop. Nor is He the lifeless figure in the stained-glass window. Jesus, as the Gospels reveal Him to us, is radiantly alive and supremely attractive.
There is a great deal we would love to know that we simply are not told. We do not even know what He looked like. He was a Palestinian Jew, and as such the color of His skin would be olive, His eyes brown, and His nose hooked. Palestinian Jews had black hair and usually wore it long and carefully groomed. They valued a full beard, and it appears on many of the coins of the day. His mother tongue was Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew, which He would have spoken with a northern accent common to Galilee where He was brought up. But He could speak Greek and probably some Latin and was thoroughly at home in the Hebrew scriptures. He wore a sleeveless undergarment with a girdle, the customary cloak and sandals, and carried a staff on journeys. That is all we know about His appearance or can guess with confidence.
But the Gospels have no interest in these things. They are profoundly disinterested in His size, the color of His eyes and hair, and even His age and strength. These external things are unimportant. What a man is like stems from his character. And here the Gospels are eloquent.
What would I have noticed had I spent time with Christ? What impression would He have made on me? What would I have said that He was like?
We read about a number of impressions that people had of Christ from the accounts in the Gospels. His brothers thought that he was emotionally unstable at the least, or insane at the worst. The Pharisees and religious leaders accused Jesus of being possessed by Satan, and a threat to the security of the nation. Religious people thought that He attended to many parties with the wrong kind of people. And the disciples, at times, stepped back from Him for fear of Him.
Why do we need to know what He was like? Why even worry about it? The answer to that question is really rather simple. If we don’t understand what Jesus is like, we will have an inadequate ability to know Him and appreciate Him. We will have an inadequate understanding of how much He loves us and how much He has done for us. We will not be in a position to be changed by Him to the degree that we would if we understood more fully what He is like.
If you have your Bibles turn with me to Mark 1:35-2:17, and let’s spend several days with Jesus. As we walk through these verses in Mark 1 and 2, we will get close enough to get to know Him. We will share some observations about Jesus’ character as we see how He lives and relates to others.
Jesus was spiritually disciplined (1:35). Did you notice the opening verses? “Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray.” You see He valued and made a priority of spending quality time alone with God.
Jesus realized that time spent with God was His source of strength. He needed that time. And if the Son of God needed time alone with God, how much more do we.
Jesus was not ruled by other’s expectations (1:36). Simon Peter and the other disciples went off looking for Jesus, and when they found Him they wanted to hurry Him back to the waiting crowds. “Come on Jesus. People are waiting.” But He isn’t swayed by others people’s desires. He didn’t bend to the demands of followers or opponents.
An old fable has been carried down for generations. It tells about an elderly man who was traveling with a boy and a donkey. As they walked through a village, the man was leading the donkey and the boy was walking behind. The townspeople said the old man was a fool for not riding, so to please them he climbed up on the animal’s back. When they came to the next village, the people said the old man was cruel to let the child walk while he enjoyed the ride. So, to please them, he got off and set the boy on the animal’s back and continued on his way. In the third village, people accused the child of being lazy for making the old man walk, and the suggestion was made that they both ride. So the man climbed on and they set off again. In the fourth village, the townspeople were indignant at the cruelty to the donkey because he was made to carry two people. The frustrated man was last see carrying the donkey down the road.
We smile, but this story makes a good point: We often try to please everybody, inflicting a heavy load on ourselves, because we can’t.
Jesus was compassionate (1:41). The man with leprosy approaches Jesus, and you can almost see Jesus’ heart break for the man. But that is not the true show of compassion. The real demonstration of Jesus’ love for the man comes in a simple touch. This man who had not been touched by another human hand for perhaps years or even decades, feels Jesus compassion in a touch.
In an article in Campus Life a young nurse writes of her pilgrimage in learning to see in a patient the image of God beneath a very “distressing disguise.”
Eileen was one of her first patients, a person who was totally helpless. “A cerebral aneurysm (broken blood vessels in the brain) had left her with no conscious control over her body,” the nurse writes. As near as the doctors could tell Eileen was totally unconscious, unable to feel pain and unaware of anything going on around her. It was the job of the hospital staff to turn her every hour to prevent bedsores and to feer her twice a day, “what looked like a thin mush through a stomach tube.” Caring for her was a thankless task. “When it’s this bad,” and older student nurse told her, “you have to detach yourself emotionally from the whole situation…” As a result, more and more Eileen came to be treated as a thing, a vegetable …
But the young student nurse decided that she could not treat Eileen like the others had treated her. She talked to her, sang to her, encouraged her and even brought her little gifts.
One day when things were especially difficult and it would have been easy for the young nurse to take out her frustrations on the patient, she was especially kind. It was Thanksgiving Day and the nurse said to the patient, “I was in a cruddy mood this morning, Eileen, because it was supposed to be my day off. But now that I’m here, I’m glad. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss seeing you on Thanksgiving. Do you know this is Thanksgiving?”
Just then the telephone rang, and as the nurse turned to answer it, she looked quickly back at the patient. Suddenly, she writes, Eileen was “looking at me … crying. Big damp circles stained her pillow, and she was shaking all over.”
That was the only human emotion that Eileen ever showed any of them, but it was enough to change the whole attitude of the hospital staff toward her. Not long afterward, Eileen died. The young nurse closes her story, saying, “I keep thinking about her … It occurred to me that I owe her an awful lot. Except for Eileen, I might never have known what it’s like to give myself to someone who can’t give back.”
Jesus’ life was compelling (1:45). People noticed Jesus’ words and actions and it made them want to hang out with Him. Did you notice the response of the people to the testimony of the man with leprosy? “Such crowds soon surrounded Jesus that He couldn’t enter a town anywhere publicly.”
He attracted huge crowds. People endangered themselves to get near Him. People pressed upon Him so forcefully that He sometimes had to escape.
His words stirred the simple and the sophisticated, the unschooled and the educated. He held tens of thousands of people spellbound at a time, yet could talk warmly one-on-one.
Jesus encouraged moves of faith (2:1-12). Four men brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus. They can’t get in through the door, so they tear the roof off the house. Jesus sees their actions as a move of faith and rewards them by returning their friend to the whole again.
Jesus cheered people on in their journey toward God. He stood for them when others turned away or ridiculed them.
“See How She Runs,” is the story about a 40-year old divorced teacher from Boston who decided to become a jogger, and eventually entered the 26-mile Boston Marathon. To finish the race became her goal, and in spite of being harassed, jeered at, and assaulted, she did not lost sight of it. The day of the race came and she faced her ultimate test. As she ran, huge blisters developed on her feet. She was also hit and injured by a bicycle. And several miles short of the finish line found her utterly exhausted. Yet she kept going. Then, within a few hundred yards of the finish line, late at night when most other runners had either finished or dropped out, she fell and lay flat on her face, too tired to raise her head. But her friends had put up a crude tape across the finish line and began to cheer her on. She lifted her head with great effort, saw the tape, and realized her goal was within sight. With a supreme effort she got up on her bruised and bleeding feet, and in a burst of energy dredged up from deep inside her courageous heart, she ran the last few yards.
But, let me ask, what would have happened if her friends hadn’t been there? Where did she get that burst of energy? Wasn’t it from the encouragement of people around her who were cheering her move of faith?
Jesus was very direct (2:8-11). He didn’t soft-peddle the truth. He cut to the chase. He was even known to get in people’s faces if the occasion demanded it.
While Jesus was very patient, understanding, and compassionate with those with weaknesses, He was very direct with those who were stubbornly unbelieving. Many times the Bible says that the religious leaders did not believe Jesus because they were jealous of Him. He challenged their pride of position and prestige over the people. Jesus was not patient with these leaders and was very forthright in His responses to them.
He was saying that their personal lives were clean on the outside, but not on the inside. Today, it would be considered impolite and going overboard to speak in this way to any religious leader, and perhaps so. But Jesus being God saw the true nature of their hearts and had the moral authority to speak so directly. He was not one to trifle with if you were deliberately cooperating with sin.
Jesus enjoyed the company of irreligious people (2:13-17). Here we find Jesus inviting Levi, who is also called Matthew, to be one of His disciples. I don’t want you to miss what Matthew’s vocation was, a tax collector. Now, we have become accustomed to not usually thinking very highly of the IRS. But that doesn’t compare with the social ostracism that Matthew felt. The treatment of Matthew was akin to the treatment of convicted sex offenders when new neighbors hear they are moving in their neighborhood. But what does Jesus do. He calls Matthew to follow Him, and then attends a party at Matthew’s house with Matthew’s tax collector buddies. No wonder the religious leaders were in such a stir.
The most frequent criticism leveled at Jesus was that He was hanging with despicable people. But Jesus saw these irreligious people with different eyes. The people who make Jesus upset are the people like you and me, the religious sorts because He won’t confine Himself to proper Christian behavior.
Becky Pippert tells this story. I was walking through O’Hare Airport in Chicago recently when my purse slipped and everything tumbled out. As I was stuffing things back inside, a young woman with a baby stopped to ask the time. Then she nervously bit her lip and asked, “You don’t know where I could get a drink, do you?”
I didn’t. But as I searched her face, I saw that she was distraught. So I stood up and initiated a conversation.
She quickly interrupted with, “Do you know how much a drink would cost here?”
I could see that we were getting nowhere, and suddenly I heard myself saying, “Gee, I don’t know, but would you like me to go with you to find the bar?”
“Oh, would you? I would really love the company,” she responded.
Off we went. And all the way I was kicking myself for it – going to a bar at noon with a perfect stranger. How unorthodox! Then I thought, “I wonder what Jesus would do in a situation like this?”
Conclusion: As we package these observations together, perhaps we can say that Jesus is a lot like Maria.
The small house was simple but adequate. It consisted of one large room on a dusty street. Its red-tiled roof was one of many in this poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the Brazilian village. It was a comfortable home. Maria and her daughter, Christina, had done what they could to add color to the gray walls and warmth to the hard dirt floor: an old calendar, a faded photograph of a relative, a wooden crucifix. The furnishings were modest: A pallet on either side of the room, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove.
Maria’s husband had died when Christina was an infant. The young mother, stubbornly refusing opportunities to remarry, got a job and set out to raise her young daughter. And now, fifteen years later, the worst years were over. Though Maria’s salary as a maid afforded few luxuries, it was reliable and it did provide food and clothes. And now Christina was old enough to get a job and help out.
Some said Christina got her independence from her mother. She recoiled at the traditional idea of marrying young and raising a family. Not that she couldn’t have had her pick of husbands. Her olive skin and brown eyes kept a steady stream of prospects at her door. She had an infectious way of throwing her head back and filling the room with laughter. She also had that rare magic some women have that makes every man feel like a king just by being near them. But it was her spirited curiosity that made her keep all men at arm’s length.
She spoke often of going to the city. She dreamed of trading her dusty neighborhood for exciting avenues and city life. Just the thought of this horrified her mother. Maria was always quick to remind Christina of the harshness of the streets. “People don’t know you there. Jobs are scarce and the life is cruel. And besides, if you went there, what would you do for a living?”
Maria knew exactly what Christina would do, or would have to do for a living. That why her heart broke when she awoke one morning to find her daughter’s bed empty. Maria knew immediately where her daughter had gone. She also knew immediately what she must do to find her. She quickly threw some clothes in a bag, gathered up all her money, and ran out of the house.
On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures. With her purse full of small black and white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.
Maria knew that Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, and place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture – taped to a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note.
It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.
It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. He dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”
She did.
Jesus’ invitation to us is that we come home. He, with tender compassion, says to us, “It doesn’t matter what you have done. I love you still. Come on home.”
