On Being Like Jesus

I can't take any credit for this post. Just about everything I've got here comes from a video I saw at Treasured Foundation. But it has hit me in a couple of ways. I'll explain...

First of all, think about Peter. Remember him? He's the guy who jumped out of a boat in the middle of a storm because he thought the ghost on the water was Jesus. Yeah, him. Stupid, right? I mean who, in their right mind, would jump out of a boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of a storm? So why does he do it?

Take a look waaaay back.

The Jewish tradition was for all children to go to school at age six. For the next three years, they spent their time memorizing the scriptures. That's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deutoronomy, Numbers... memorized in three years. That's all they did. I'm sure in the process they learned stuff like reading and writing, and maybe Numbers has some arithmetic, but in general they memorized.

Then, after three years, they would get broken into groups (what we call streaming today). Those who were good at school got to move on the the next step. Those who weren't so good at school went into the family business. Thanks for coming out, you know the scriptures now, so go be a really good farmer (nothing against farmers).

Those who were deemed good enough moved into the next step where they spent their next three years memorizing other parts of the modern Old Testament (prophets and stuff, like Isaiah, for example). So by the time they were twelve, these kids had most of our Old Testament memorized.

Now it's streaming time again. Those who were really, really good stood the chance of getting picked by a Rabbi for some personal instruction. The rest went into their family business.

The ones who got picked for the further instruction then spent their time following their Rabbi around learning his ways and trying to become like him. Once the Rabbi decided they had done so satisfactorily, they finally graduated and became a Rabbi themselves.

The first thing they did as a new Rabbi was to go around to the schools and pick out the best twelve-year-olds they could find. The only ones they picked were the ones they thought were good enough to become like them.

Jesus was a Rabbi.

So you can picture him as a kid going to school for three years memorizing scripture (I don't suppose that was much of a challenge for him). Then at twelve we're told of his trip where he confounds the teachers of the law. I'd like to see the competition these guys had to make Jesus one of their followers. And yet, he went back home with his parents and became a carpenter.

Somewhere around 30 years old, some Rabbi who recognised the spiritual geneous that was Jesus must have conferred some kind of honorary Rabbiship on him because later on, Jesus is called a Rabbi.

So now Jesus is a Rabbi. His job now is to go around and find followers.

Now here's what I think. I don't think Jesus would've had to go very far to find potential followers. It's my guess that he would've had these recent graduates of the second phase of schooling trying their hardest to impress him and show off their stuff to him in the hopes that they would be chosen by this new Rabbi.

So they're following Jesus around and showing their stuff and he seemingly randomly walks up to some fishermen and says, "Come, follow me."

That was the line. Someone was being chosen! Who was it? WHAT!!!? A fisherman? But the simple fact that this person was a fisherman meant he was in the family business. He was one of the ones who didn't make it. You can't choose him!

But Jesus did.

Jesus chose Peter because he thought Peter had enough to become like him. Peter had enough to become like Jesus. Peter could do the things that Jesus did.

So Peter drops everything and follows Jesus. Now, this might be seen as a great commitment on Peter's part, but consider this: Jewish children dreamt of being chosen by a Rabbi. It meant that they were the best of the best. It's as if Wayne Gretzky came up to any Canadian boy and said, "Hey, I'd like to name you to Canada's 2006 Olympic Hockey team. Come start training." What do you think the response would be?

Back to the boat, now, and Peter sees this guy, this thing, out walking on the water. It might be a ghost and it might be Jesus. But Peter knows that if it's Jesus, then he could do what Jesus was doing. That's why Jesus called him in the first place. So Peter asks Jesus if he should also be walking on the water and Jesus says you betcha. So Peter takes a further step as an understudy of his Rabbi and jumps out of the boat.

Eventually, even though Peter failed over and over again, it get to the point where Jesus tells him to "feed my sheep." A Rabbi was seen as a shepherd over his flock of followers. Jesus was effectively turning the mission over to Peter, saying that he had effectively become like Jesus. He was naming Peter a Rabbi (although by this point they'd kind of been disowned by the Jewish traditionalists and I'm sure no one officially recognised that).

But here's something to think about:

Jesus has chosen you.