Focus: I Am The Jesus You Say You Love!

Text: Jh.21:15

"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee…"

Tony Campolo shared a very touching story that came out of World War Il. It is the story about a little Jewish boy who was living in a small Polish village when Nazi troops rounded up all the Jews in the area including the little boy, and sentenced them to death. It was reported that the boy joined his neighbours in digging a shallow ditch for their own graves. 

"Then," as the story goes, "the soldiers lined them up against a wall and machine gunned them down. But none of the bullets hit the little boy. The blood of his parents splattered his naked body, and as he fell into the ditch he pretended to be dead."

"The grave was so shallow that the thin covering of dirt did not prevent him from breathing. Several hours later, when darkness fell, he clawed his way out of the grave." One could see blood and dirt glued to his body, but the amazing thing was that he survived death miraculously.

Here is the point of the story: the little boy made his way to the nearest house and begged for help. But the moment he was recognized as one of the Jewish boys marked for death, he was turned away at house after house as people feared getting into trouble with the SS troops. The boy didn't know what else to do or where else to go. According to the story, it was then that "something inside seemed to guide him to say something that was very strange for a Jewish boy to say. When the next family responded to his timid knocking in the still of the night, they heard him cry, "Don't you recognize me? I am the Jesus you say you love."" 

It was reported that after he cried, describing himself as Jesus, then there was a poignant pause, the woman who stood in the doorway swept him into her arms and kissed him. From that day on, the members of that family cared for that boy as though he was one of their own.

That person pleading with you for help could just be Jesus in another body. That person you are rejecting or despising could just be Jesus in another body. No one is less of a human being than anyone else just because he or she is in need of help or support. Every Christian has Jesus Christ living in him. Looking down on a fellow Christian is tantamount to looking down on Christ Himself.

Fear is a terrible thing. Fear hinders the flow of love. We want to do good to others, but fear ties our hands, disabling us.

The little boy would not be helped and taken in, because those who were in the position of helping him were afraid to do so. They feared for their own lives, and so they bowed to the law of self-preservation.

We always meet Jesus Christ in places and in people of need. When people cry out for your help and you are in a position to help, may you hear the voice of Jesus Christ saying to you: "I am the Jesus you say you love!"

by Bishop Moses E. Peter