Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus in his passion, considering what his sighs teach us about being human. "A sigh says so much. We know from Romans 8 that the Spirit himself 'intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words' (Romans 8:26). A sigh, or a groan, expresses things that words can't quite capture. There are two ways we encounter the impact of fall all the time: one is sin and the other one is death. Sin is the moral face of evil, and death, the physical." "Jesus’ sigh is a hybrid of frustration and sadness – somewhere between a fit of anger and a burst of tears." "The cross deals with sin, and the resurrection deals with death. It's a one-two punch. Jesus' healing ministry is all focused on some impact of the curse on our physical world and our bodies. And his teaching ministry is focused on the impact of sin. And so both of them anticipate the final solution, which is the cross and resurrection. The church continues to live out those two ministries of Christ."

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation on Jesus' passion, looking at how Jesus begins to face his coming death. To celebrate the complete Person of Jesus series, we're offering $5 off of Unit 5: The Passion Leader's Manual (digital version) when you use promo code: POD5 "Paul's line on that from Romans 5 is actually a very stoic-like passage where he says rejoice in your suffering, because suffering produces perseverance, character – all the Greeks would have agreed with that. But then Paul goes Jesus, so to speak. He says, '…and character, hope, and it's a hope that does not disappoint because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that he's given to us.' The Spirit brings resurrection, not in just in Jesus, but in our souls; we have resurrected souls." "A life in communion with Christ continually experiences resurrection power. This doesn’t mean there’s no sadness, but we're not engulfed by sadness." "Older, traditional Christianity, as we've said, has tended to be focused on duty, which has many good sides but tends to suppress feelings. The modern world tends to be aware of, magnify, and even get stuck in feelings. So here we see the beautiful balance of Jesus. He is aware that he is troubled, and he knows where this is leading, but he's not ruled by his feelings, which is just beautiful. He says, 'for this very reason I came to this hour.' "

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation on Jesus' passion, turning their attention to Judas' betrayal. In this episode, Paul mentions a talk he gave on Judas several years ago, as part of an audio study called "The Love Course." You can listen to that talk here (or download it to listen to later, if you click on the triple dots.) "How do you know someone is troubled? He was agitated, and when someone is agitated, they're tense, they're restless, they fidget. And John, sitting right next to him, could sense that. Leaning up against him, he probably felt the tenseness in Jesus' body." "Jesus has kind of given us a template to be ourselves..." "This doesn't mean that ‘yourself’ is always right but is a beautiful picture of normal. I have one older friend who will often get depressed and sometimes the reason for her feeling depressed is that her circumstances are depressing! I encourage her that it’s okay to be depressed, because your life is depressing. While that may not sound like an encouragement, I think it’s helpful to see that Jesus allows space for sadness, because often what Christians are dealing with is guilt on top of depression."

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation about learning from Jesus in his passion. "Contrary to the typical pictures on a Sunday school wall, Jesus comes down the hill on Palm Sunday weeping – the word is actually closer to 'wailing.' In our experience of humanity, people who wail and warrior kings are never the same person, but Jesus is a wailing warrior king. His heart is filled sadness over what his people will suffer, and he will fight to the death for them." "There’s a pattern of action that we see throughout the Bible – seeing is the beginning of action." "We see this pattern in the prayers of the Psalms ('Lord, see what I'm doing, look down from heaven'), and in God’s response in situations, ('I've seen the travail of my people and I've come down…'). Most human action begins with seeing. And so, we see here with Jesus, it is seeing the city that moves him to tears. He doesn't use his divinity to see it over the hill two miles out. Jesus reacts in the situation, just like you and me."

The conversation dives into the deep emotions of Jesus, particularly his sadness over the rejection he faced. His lament for Jerusalem reveals both grief and the profound nature of his love. The speakers explore how love and sadness intertwine, emphasizing that understanding this sadness enriches our view of intimacy and obedience. They discuss the emotional risks involved in deep relationships, using poignant examples to illustrate the significance of vulnerability in love. This exploration highlights the timeless relevance of Jesus' emotional journey today.

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about the humility Jesus calls us to, looking at what taking the lower place might look like in an everyday moment. "Humility is when your heart is humbled, it's a virtue, a character trait. Humiliation is when your circumstances are humble. It's helpful to distinguish between the two, but having experienced some of the dying of humility in my life, I slowly learned that these two things are deeply connected." "The place of humiliation is where you learn humility." "You do not learn humility abstractly. You have to be in a humbled place. The story I'm going to tell here is made up, but it's the kind of thing that happens everyday. I've made the husband the bad guy, but I've also told it where I flip the husband and wife. But everybody gets mad at the husband in this no matter which way I do it!"

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their discussion of Jesus’ humility, looking at the foot washing scene in John 13. "This scene reads like a YouTube video. John gives us every move of Jesus, and the effect of it is riveting… especially since he does it all in silence. John's writing this probably 60, 50 years later, from what Eusebius tells us, and he remembered every single move Jesus made because he wasn't talking. It just sealed it in his mind – like the scene itself was a visualization of the mind of Christ." "Foot washing is Jesus’ glory. It’s where his beauty shines." "Jesus is acting out his atonement. He's showing us that the example of his dying love leads to the atonement. It's a beautiful balance between what we might call 'the example of Jesus' and 'the atonement of Jesus.' And it's just so important how we constantly need to bring them together and not pull them apart. Liberalism tends to sit on the example and our conservative churches, while they really do both, tend to weigh the atonement above the example. And it’s true, you never get at the example unless you have the atonement. But that makes it easy to miss the foot washing. But the sheer physicality of the gospels shows us Jesus' beauty."

The discussion dives into the profound themes of humility and ambition as seen in Jesus' final weeks. Jealousy, often unnoticed, is likened to a hidden cancer affecting relationships. The contrasting paths of Jesus and his disciples illustrate a clash between true servitude and worldly desires. Listeners are encouraged to embrace child-like faith and confront personal struggles with vulnerability. The episode highlights that true greatness in the kingdom of God is found through humility, service, and the transformative power of Christ's example.

Paul, Liz, and Robert continue their conversation about the woman at the well, looking at the second half of their conversation. "Jesus has already said he has water. Now he says the character of the water is not just spring water. It’s not well water that's been sitting there forever. It's not spring water – it’s water that if you drink it, you'll never be thirsty again. This is like a super drink. Then he ramps it up once more: the water I give will become a spring of water. So when you drink this water that I give, it's going to transform your heart so you become a gusher." "In the midst of something as simple as a drink of water, Jesus gets at the thirst of her heart." "Jesus is now beginning to give her living water, and he does it by saying, 'Go call your husband and come back.' You can feel the conversation shifting at this point; she gives a much shorter answer. This is the hardest part of the conversation for me to go to. I can do the compassion part, the intrigue part, but this coming in with this honesty is just hard…"

With the Discipleship series complete, we circle back to our Faith series (based on the Person of Jesus Faith Study) to cover a story we had not yet discussed: Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well. Paul Miller, Liz Voboril, and Robert Row look at how this story showcases Jesus' compassion, honesty, and dependence on the Father -- themes we've discussed in previous episodes. "The conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well is remarkable. It’s the longest conversation that we have recorded between two people that are of the non-elite class, which is the top 1%. It is the longest conversation between everyday people that we have in antiquity." "This conversation is the hope diamond of Jesus' interactions with people – it just sparkles!" "You can pick up the woman’s personality almost immediately. When people do awkward things, like Jesus does here, most of us try to gloss it over. But she states the exact awkwardness: 'How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman for a drink?' It’s kind of like she's just met a Martian."