Audio version

“I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.”

Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! Alleluia! 

On this last Sunday in the Easter Season, we hear again from the extended Last Supper dialog between Jesus and His Apostles. Jesus is pouring out His heart to them as their servant, teacher, and Lord. He is begging them to take these lessons to heart.

In this dialog Jesus draws the distinction between the world and worldly and those who follow Him. He plainly states that those who follow Him are different.

On this Mother’s Day we might recall those dialogs with our moms: ‘Aww, mom, do I have to be so different. I want to be just like everybody else.’ Maybe it was the clothes or shoes we had. Maybe it was our weird lunch. Yet mom always reinforced the value of being unique. You know how that goes, in one ear, out the other. 

Perhaps I was weirdest and differentest kid of all, my dad having died, my diabetes touching everything I wished I could do. I was the textbook case of a child wanting to be just like everybody else.

I am thankful for the time I had in church. I recognized in God’s word the value of giving my all for His kingdom. In my mind it was no longer a question of wanting to be the same as everybody else but of embracing a different way of living; life different in Jesus.

Let us reinforce this – Jesus made us separate from the world. What we pursue matters. What we want matters. How we live matters.

Jesus asks us to consider those things we are chasing after. Our moms asked a similar question didn’t they: ‘What are you chasing after? What’s important to you?’

If we are not pursuing the kingdom we end up just like Judas. As Acts tells us, Judas went his own way. He pursued what was important to him and that was not God. He was after a worldly prize – power and wealth. That is why he is referred to as the ‘son of destruction.’

In a week we will move from the Easter season into Pentecost and living out the mission given us by Jesus with the power given us by the Holy Spirit. Our Easter joy becomes practical. Let’s then embrace our differentness, not pursuing the world and becoming sons and daughters of destruction, but indeed being sons and daughters of our heavenly King.