You Can Meet Jesus

Their stories are as interesting as they are diverse. Some of them are well-known stories, and the characters are very familiar. Others are vaguely familiar, but we do not remember the details of their lives nearly as well. All of them are the true stories of people who had encounters with Jesus in the Gospels.

The people who met Jesus during the course of his three-year ministry were themselves as diverse as can be. Some were religious leaders — some of whom were righteous leaders trying their best to serve God, while others were religious in name only. Jesus, rightly so, was often very critical of this latter group. Most of the people who met Jesus were ordinary people who desperately needed God in their lives. Some of these were searching for God; others were not. Some of those who met Jesus wanted nothing to do with him; others became his most committed followers.

I hope you will take the time to meet some of these people in the next three months through the series of sermons I will begin preaching on January 2. After all, those people of first century Israel were very much like we are. We need to meet Jesus in the way they did and learn to walk with him, and their experiences can show us how to do so.

Here are the people we will meet:

· Four of the first six disciples of Jesus: Andrew, Simon (who would be renamed Peter), Philip, and Nathanael.

· Nicodemus, who met Jesus at night early in his ministry, and helps us see how Jesus can change us.

· A woman we just know as the Woman at the Well, but whose story helps us know how Jesus can refresh our lives.

· Matthew, the tax collector, who became one of the apostles and who shows us how Jesus can call us even though we are sinners.

· Another man whose name we do not know; we just know him as the Man Born Blind. He helps us learn how Jesus can open our eyes.

· We will learn about forgiveness from a sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume.

· The story of Mary and Martha will show us how the Lord can capture our hearts when distractions get in the way.

· In the home of a prominent Pharisee, Jesus met a diseased man and teaches us how to accept everyone.

There are others that we will meet. They teach us some of the great lessons of life because they had encounters with Jesus. They will help us deepen our walk with Jesus. Come and meet them; you will be glad you did.