Blog Layout

 The Trouble with Jesus

by Constance Hastings

Soul Lover
May 31, 2022

The Trouble with Jesus is he wants to be a Lover in the fullest sense a soul could know.

So your man, Philip, pointed out what they needed and what the rest of us have to have. They were so messed in their minds with all this talk that last night. You just kept talking and talking and talking, and it was impossible to figure out where you were going with it. Talk of leaving and not really leaving, sending a Helper of sorts. Just get over it and show us what would really close this deal. Show us your Father, as you say. Give us God, for heaven’s sake!


There they were on that last night, and his best friends still had nearly no clue. To be fair, they were under pressure watching all they thought they were going to do fall apart. Their leader kept saying he was going away and had been acting weird like when he washed their feet. When life takes one of these abrupt turns you don’t see coming, how can you expect any sane person to think clearly? This wasn’t supposed to be!


Yet, step back and Phillip’s demand is no different from what people think, from what they want today. Jesus feels it now as much as then. In short, Philip leads the crowd that would keep God way off in some unreachable heaven and put Jesus in the role of nice guy who called on his “Father” and pointed the way.


God Revealed

“Don’t you even know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you?” His frustration wasn’t to the point of despair, but close. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!” Get it? Jesus is God. God is Jesus. He said it as plain as you can make it. And he repeated it. “Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”


Sit with that. Sit with these twelve followers. Sit with yourself, not what you think makes sense or what you’ve been told. Sit. Jesus is God. God is Jesus. God/Jesus in human flesh was right there with them. What does that tell you about God?


Let it break through the cracks in your soul. God is not some stand offish superpower that just lets the universe wind up or down as it will. God became a part of life, the kind of life we know in the moment. That’s what Jesus had been trying to show them, that’s what all the miracles were about. God came to get down in the good and bad of life, to know the joys, the grief and all the stuff in between, and most of all to let those of us who still are clueless know we are not alone in it.


What’s more, Jesus invites those who would live as his representatives to carry on what he did, to feed, to heal, to advocate for justice with the same mercy we all lean on, to love your neighbor as yourself. Just ask for what Jesus would want, for “thy will be done” as his ancient prayer requests, and he promises to be behind it.


If You Love Me, Obey My Commandments.

Dear Jesus, if I may. IF? That’s another one of those loaded words on both our parts. IF can mean something that’s conditional, or whenever, or even though, or whether (or not). “If I may,” is a way of asking, “Allow me”. Somehow, I don’t think you’re asking permission in saying this. You’re putting out there two things, love and rules.


Commandments sound like they are orders. Do this or else. Prefacing it with Love shows it doesn’t have to come off that way. Jesus always offer choice, not insisting on it, not forcing someone into it. Think of it like this though: when there is Love, the relationship becomes that where there is a meeting of purpose, value, direction. This isn’t mere admiration or affection. This is a union. Jesus offers that choice.


New Truth

You don’t give promises here that life will be grand if we do. But you do promise a Counselor/Advocate whom you call Holy Spirit. And you say that Spirit will lead into truth. Oh good, just what we need. Another proclamation of supposed facts coming from a holy spin doctor with slick marketing, fear-based fake news, and interference from a foreign state. You say the world doesn’t recognize this Spirit. Oh, but we do. We’ve seen this thing before. Happens all the time.


Again. Step back. Don’t even think this is “truth” out there as seen on the internet, cable tv, social media platforms, podcasts, and blogs (please allow one exception with that last one.) This truth comes from Jesus’ own Spirit. When Love is mutual, this Spirit is internal, something beyond conscience, really the essence of the soul. That’s the kind of truth of which Jesus speaks. Not an esoterical, philosophical, universe-beyond-me kind of thing, but instead a truth of one’s core self revealed in oneness with God/Jesus/Spirit.


Love Powered

Those gathered around him that last night heard Jesus say this, but they were feeling abandoned. Without his presence daily before them, how could they carry on? Grief was beginning to settle in even now, and loss would consume them despite what the last three years had been in following him.


Grief needs to be met with an understanding that purpose in living continues and expands beyond what can be seen in the moment. As much as he ever did, Jesus understood. He met their lostness with an assurance that they would not be alone. Because of their Love for him, God would provide this Counselor, Advocate, a continuation in Spirit of who they knew Jesus to be as God. Not an absence of Jesus among them, but an extended understanding of his presence among them and for any who would follow.


Their Counselor would teach them, clarify for them what they had learned from Jesus. Beyond the teaching though, they would be reminded of even more, their understanding deepened by the extent of Jesus’ Love in life, in dying, and in living again. All is made possible by the power of that Love desired for and given by the fullness of God as Creator, Lover, and Spirit.


John 14:8-17, 25-27

The Trouble with Jesus is he would not be intimidated into answering a trap.
By Constance Hastings November 18, 2024
Truth is the spotlight on humanity. Find it, wrestle with it, run from it but know truth tells much, sometimes too much. Just-the-facts, video footage, eyewitness testimony, subpoenaed emails and documents only color the canvas. Anything can be made to say anything; it’s all in the spin. But truth reveals the greater story, and the direction life gives.
The Trouble with Jesus is he never made the future look totally rosy. He told it real.
By Constance Hastings November 11, 2024
Jesus, what makes you think this Doomsday portrait you give here is helping? Why even talk about it? We’ve been through a hell of a lot, and this end-of-the-world talk isn’t doing us any good. Besides, who’d ever get behind you if this is where you’re going. We’re just not going to listen to this kind of thing. Yeah, well what galaxy do you come from? If talk of apocalyptic endings bother you, why do you watch so much of it from streaming movies to video games to best sellers? Listen guy, there’s money to be made from this genre, and the makers of these stories play right into the basic fears of futurists to preppers to predictive prophets with megaphones shouting, “The End is Near.” Why is this ok for everyone else, but Jesus can’t say anything beyond Love Your Neighbor and Bless the Children? Get over that, and listen up.
The Trouble with Jesus is his teaching was sometimes meant for what he had to do more so than others
By Constance Hastings November 4, 2024
Brief musing here: November 5:2024 Today, tonight, this week we will wait. Apply whatever importance you prefer to this date. Take your side expressed by your vote. Hope for the best. Yet in the marking of your ballot, also bow your head. Pray the hardest prayer ever spoken. “Your will be done.” Accept what will be. Then move into your space, your world, and see what God will do. Shalom.
The Trouble with Jesus is he doesn’t want to fight as much as he wants to lead in Love.
By Constance Hastings October 28, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus is he doesn’t want to fight as much as he wants to lead in Love.
The trouble with Jesus is healing happens in reversal to one’s willingness to see.
By Constance Hastings October 21, 2024
What do you want me to do for you? One’s answer reveals the beggar in one’s soul.
The Trouble with Jesus finds you have to convert more than the world to change it.
By Constance Hastings October 14, 2024
Jesus, if you don’t mind, we’d like to talk with you about what you just said and ask a favor. Sure guys, what’s on your minds.? About your plans, when it all comes about, if the two of us could be seated next to you, one of your right and the other on your left? (long pause…) You have no idea what you’re asking....
The Trouble with Jesus was he didn’t tolerate anything getting in the way of full devotion to God.
By Constance Hastings October 7, 2024
True Story: A husband told his wife he was going the next day to possibly buy a Corvette. (Disclaimer: this did not happen in my house…) She read to him these words of Jesus: “Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” “Now, how do you think you’ll get to heaven if you buy a Corvette?” she challenged him. After a short pause, he smiled, and said, “Fast!”
The Trouble with Jesus: He doesn’t speak from a legalistic mindset. He speaks with the mind of God
By Constance Hastings September 30, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus: He doesn’t speak from a legalistic mindset. He speaks with the loving mind of God.
The Trouble with Jesus is he used graphic and exaggerated devices to teach his slowest students.
By Constance Hastings September 23, 2024
In some ways, Jesus, your radical messages are just what we need. You just said that welcoming children is just like welcoming you. Nice image there. But this time, it’s like you’re pushing radicalization, sending your followers off the deep end. Cutting off one’s hands or feet, gouging out the eye so you’re good enough to get access to your Dad’s Kingdom? Calling people to self-mutilation isn’t going to garner many likes on your page with this kind of talk.
The Trouble with Jesus is a radical reversal of ambition and status in God's love.
By Constance Hastings September 16, 2024
Jesus, oh Son of Man, you gotta lay off this. If you want to get your message out there and have everybody behind you, you have to play to what they want. All this talk about dying and staying in last place is going to destroy you. But no, you just keep repeating it over and over again. Take some good advice even those sorry followers of yours seem to realize. The only thing that needs to raise from the dead is your rhetoric.
More Posts
Share by: