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THE SINLESS FRIEND OF SINNERS #2

THE MAN WHO LOVED PARTIES

A newsprint kind of journal entitled Hand Speak just came into our Voice of Prophecy office with missionary dust all over it. Here in 1999, Christian kids are actually still going out into the jungles as student missionaries. Sometimes they have Isuzu Troopers now, instead of riding on the back of an elephant, but when they get there, the elephants and tigers are still lurking in the jungle. In fact, there was a column entitled Adventures With Sam!, written by a 21-year-old young man, Sam Covarrubias, who is serving Jesus Christ at Maxwell Christian Academy in Nairobi, Kenya. And while he was out there, there was actually an encounter with a lion . . . along with intramural sports with the kids, vesper talks, Bible studies, and the whole nine yards.

As you browse through this 16-page newspaper, there are all sorts of mission opportunities around the world. And the question comes to mind: WHY? Why do young people give an entire year, maybe two or three, of their life to do this service? They don't get college credit; in fact, many of them put college on hold, graduating several years behind schedule, while their peers are making $60,000 a year in their first jobs.

Well, certainly there are many answers, ranging from A for adventure to Z for zesty Brazilian food. But is it possible that sometimes missionaries go into hardship and even the face of death simply because they love the people they are reaching?

We wondered yesterday why Jesus Christ, the sinless Friend of sinners, would court political criticism by eating with the worst people in town. He knew a million critical eyes were on Him; He knew there were closed-circuit cameras posted at the seedy restaurants where He ate with drug dealers and two-bit hubcap thieves. He knew the Pharisees had tapped His phone and were daily checking His web site. So why did Jesus risk so much to sit down and have dinner with these types of people?

Let me add a second level of concern. Remember, Christ was on a mission as the Redeemer of this world. He was the sinless Lamb of God. And it was necessary to the plan of redemption that He stay the sinless Lamb of God; otherwise, He could never have offered Himself as a sacrifice for sinners like you and me.

He once said, not boasting, but matter-of-factly, to His accusers:

"Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?" In the King James: "Which of you convinceth Me of sin?

Long after Jesus successfully completed His mission and returned to heaven, His closest disciple, John, wrote this ringing testimony about Christ:

"But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin."

Having said that, let's ask: why would Jesus risk everything, then, His own purity, His own mission, by hanging around with people who read Playboy magazine, didn't give offerings, made their living as pimps and prostitutes, and got drunk at dinner? Jesus Himself parroted back to His critics their chief complaint:

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a Man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."

Well, friend, we discussed yesterday the fact that Christ had to reach out to these people, because He was the Great Physician — the only Physician — and they were all sick. Where would they get healing from if not from Him? But I think the biblical record is actually more simple than that, even. The truth is that Jesus Christ hung around with people like this because He just plain and simple liked them.

That's it! He liked these guys! Something about them drew Him in! True, there was a sense of duty to it all; He had to do it because it was His mission. But all that aside, Jesus Christ liked the people He came here to rescue. He didn't have to hold His nose and go in after them as a "good missionary"; He wanted to do it! He liked these lost men and women.

I remember a line from C. S. Lewis' book, The Screwtape Letters, where the devils are commiserating among themselves about how God and Jesus feel about the human race. Here's their sad lament:

"One must face the fact that all the talk about [God's] love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself — creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His own."

Of course, Screwtape's complaint, and Lucifer's, is the best news you and I could ever know. When John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world," it's not referring to some great love God has for the planetary terrain, for this ball hanging in space. It's the people God and Jesus love: the greedy, smelly, selfish, winebibbing, note-cribbing, pride-filled, smoke-filled, hate-filled men and women who live here on planet earth. Those are the people Jesus genuinely enjoys being with.

The great theologian J. B. Phillips, in his book New Testament Christianity, has a couple of God's angels discussing why God would bother to visit and redeem people from this "small and rather insignificant sphere" which looks like a dirty tennis-ball. And the younger of the two is kind of disgusted. "Do you mean to tell me that He [Jesus] stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?" The other one comes right back at him.

"I do, and I don't think He would like you to call them ‘creeping, crawling creatures' in that tone of voice. For, strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him."

And friend, I really believe that we have found here a powerful truth. The love of Jesus for us is unforced, not artificial, not promised because it's the right thing to do. And here's something else. What has God put behind His own statement: "For God so loved the world . . ."? You and I tell people, "Oh, I love you" — and then might do very little for them, if anything at all. God said to the citizens of this world, "I love you," and then sent His own Son on the most incredible, sacrificial trip of redemption the universe has ever seen. Listen, when we talk about the fact that God really, really, really loves sinners, likes to be with them, likes to eat with them, likes to fellowship with them, likes to save them, likes to build them mansions in heaven . . . these are not empty, Hallmark words!

Jesus looked up into that sycamore tree, and saw a weaselly little tax cheat named Zacchaeus. Did He say to Himself with an inward sigh: "Oh no! This guy's a slime — I hate people like him — but . . . I'm Jesus. I'm the Messiah. I'm supposed to love people. I better go with him to dinner, or it won't look very charitable of Me"? Was that the way of it? Or did something inside Jesus rise up within Him because He was instinctively drawn to this lonely little man? Did Jesus instantly see, as He peered up through the leaves and branches, the good Zacchaeus He and His Father had always had in their divine blueprint? A generous, fun, cheerful, honest, faithful man, a tall champion of the Kingdom? Friend, Jesus saw Zacchaeus, and He liked him. He was drawn to him. He could hardly help but blurt out: "Hey! Mr. Z! Come on down! Why don't you invite Me to your house for lunch — hint hint hint? I want to eat with you and be your friend!" And you know, before the meal was over, Zacchaeus had already started to turn into the kind of man Jesus knew he was meant to be.

We've found exciting word portraits about Jesus from several sources in studying this wonderful topic, and Philip Yancey, in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, is one of them. Maybe you've accepted the common view that Jesus — maybe because of all the paintings we've seen — was a rather pale man. A pale face, a pale demeanor, with pale appetites, listless, half-hearted, half-baked emotions. Someone would hit Him in the face and He'd feebly mumble: "That's okay. I don't mind."

Well, Jesus was a forgiving Friend, but as Yancey points out, He was also a Person of incredibly strong emotions. Notice:
"Other people affected Jesus deeply: obstinacy frustrated Him, self-righteousness infuriated Him, simple faith thrilled Him. Indeed, He seemed more emotional and spontaneous than the average person, not less. More passionate, not less."

And it all points to a vibrant, intense, rich picture of a Friend whose smile was wide, His hugs all-encompassing, His charity unforced, His love natural and free-flowing. When Jesus went to a party, it was a hearty party . . . because He was there. He loved everyone at that party: good and bad. Of course, He was there to love the bad people into goodness, and to invite the so-called good people into a relationship with Him — the only source of real goodness.

Friend, whoever you are and wherever you are, and no matter what the call letters are of this radio station you're listening to on a Tuesday, it's time right now for you to have what we call a Sally Field realization: "He likes me! He really likes me!" It's true; Jesus just naturally and freely and spontaneously loves you. He can't help it. He is the sinless Friend of sinners . . . and today that especially means you.