The Jesus You May Not Know

Introduction

Well, good morning. Let me say first of all how much I appreciate the opportunity to come and spend some time with you. I really appreciate it. And I want to thank you for that. And it’s so neat that we can come together on this day. If you’re not familiar with this family in Christ, or those who have much of the same beliefs as a church like this, we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection every time we come together, especially when we take of this meal. But how neat is it to know that today’s a day. Today was the day that the disciples came to the tomb and saw what they did not expect to see. And I’ve often just kind of tried to put myself in their position, what that had to be like when your mind was just totally blown and everything that you had preconceived in your mind was totally wrong, and your Lord that you were with for those three years learning and studying from and watching and following, had actually been raised from the dead and was alive.

And that became their hope. And that became their message. And that’s what changed the world was the resurrection Sunday. And today’s that day. And how neat is it for us to gather as a family in Christ, like we always do to celebrate our Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection. I hope you have the Heavenly Library with you. Because I want you to take down the book of John. Because maybe in some way today can be an awakening for you because I believe what we’re going to talk about today may indeed be a little bit part of the life of Jesus that maybe you didn’t know or you knew was there, but just really hadn’t taken the time to comprehend what the text was saying. In John chapter 19, we find a small passage of Scripture.

In fact, I’m going to read it here in just a moment. And it’s only, we’re only going to read about five verses. But here’s what I want you to do while we read these five verses. I want you to do all that you can to put yourself at that scene. Alright? Put yourself in that grand courtyard near the temple of the compound of Herod, where Pilate is going to stand in front of the people with Jesus. You ready? John chapter 19, verse 1. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on his head. And they arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him saying, Hail, king of the Jews. And they struck him with their hands.

Pilate went out again and he said to them, See, I’m bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilty. So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, Behold the man. Behold the man. Now, what I just read, and I kind of slowed down as I read it. Was a scene that actually probably took place anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. I read it in probably 30 seconds. But what you find in just this short snippet of scripture is something extremely dramatic, and we sometimes do ourselves a great injustice when we fail to slow down and comprehend exactly what had just happened. Go back to verse one. Notice what Pilate does.

Pilate is in a desperate situation. He does not want to crucify Jesus. He doesn’t want to give in to the religious leaders. He doesn’t want to give in to their demands because he knows, he knows it’s wrong. He knows it. So Pilate in his mind is trying to think of a way that he can keep everybody happy. He’s a politician, right? He’s a politician. He’s got to keep the Romans happy. He’s got to keep the Jews happy. He always got to keep his wife happy. If you know the story, his wife’s already been having dreams, and she’s coming to him and saying, Leave this guy alone. I’ve been having dreams. Leave this guy alone. And so Pilate goes, here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to flog him.

Yeah. I’ll flog you. We’ll make him go through a scourging. And so what they do is they bring Jesus out into the middle of a courtyard and they strap him to a post. In a big, burly, mean, and nasty Roman guard. We’ll take some leather strips, possibly some shroud tied in there, and maybe some things that are sharp, so that when he slaps that across our Lord’s back and yanks it, the skin will come right over. And they beat our Lord. They beat him with those whips. History tells us that it wasn’t even that uncommon for some men who were scourged to actually die during the scourging. Because it was so painful and excruciating. But that’s not enough. Although his back is ripped to shreds and he is just tattered and torn.

And mock him, and so that blood’s going to stick to that fabric. And then notice what it says. What the soldiers did. Did you see that? They mock him. Hell, King, this is the king. And they punch him in the face. You might ever been hit in the face. They had a little brother that maybe you fought with all the time, or an older brother, God bless you. I had the younger brother, who was always bigger than me since the second grade. In fact, I got hand me up, so I’m probably the only kid in the history of the world to get any up. And we were about 12 years old, we set a rule, no more hitting in the face. That just hurts. And it would swell.

Our Lord is being repeatedly punched in the face. What does he look like? With his nose all busted and his cheeks swollen. And then they take a crown of thorns and they thrust it on his head. You see, when Pilate brought Jesus out, he knew exactly what he was doing. Because there were some who said, He’s a God. He claims to be God. Pilate goes, there’s no way he’s a God. I’m going to show you he’s not a God. And so he brings Jesus out to that mob. With one goal in mind. One purpose to prove to them.

He’s a man. I don’t know about you, but when I go back and I really try to get into this scene, there’s a part of me that just hates Pilate. Hates him. He’s a coward. He’s so small. He knows this is wrong. But then I see, I see the predicament that he’s in. And I see what he saw. And I see what all the disciples saw. They had a horrible, a horrible time trying to comprehend that Jesus was indeed deity. Why? Because they saw a man. They saw a man. He laughed like a man. He cried like a man. He would glean like a man. And so when Pilate brought Jesus out, I know what he was trying to do. I know what his purpose was.

But he was also right. Jesus was a man. I think that’s a challenge for us. I think that’s a huge challenge. If you’re like me and you’ve been going to Bible class ever since you were a little kid and you’ve been in church and somebody’s been teaching you have never, ever doubted that Jesus was the Son of God. The idea of him being beauty to you went, yeah. Yeah. In fact, you were so confident, and money, many of us are so confident in his deity, we’ve never really even questioned it. It’s hard for us, though, to see him as a man. That he lived the life as a man. When John begins his gospel, he begins the gospel with this thought in mind. He says, and the word became flesh.

There’s a dramatic theological point that’s being made there by John. Because John’s going to spend his entire gospel showing he’s God. He’s deity. That was his goal. And he begins it with this. He became flesh. For us, it’s kind of the opposite. We have to really think about him being flesh. So here’s what we’re going to do this morning for just a few minutes. I want us to spend just a few minutes seeking to comprehend his humanity. And I want us to really try to see him as flesh and blood and what that was like for him. So that we can see what Scripture plainly teaches us about his relationship with us. He can sympathize with us. He can understand what the human experience is like, and when we see him as he is and he was, we I think our love for him will be even greater.

So what I want to do this morning is I want us to spend just a few moments putting ourselves back into that first century, putting ourselves back in association with the man, Jesus, so that we can truly comprehend what the scriptures would say when the scripture spoke to the angel. Behold, here is Emmanuel.

1. Our Lord Became a Very Compassionate Person

So let’s paint the picture. First of all, let’s begin with understanding just a little bit about Jesus’ heritage and how he grew up. He grew up, he grew up in a very poor village. Many historians will say Nazareth was so small and insignificant, it wasn’t even on some maps. It was probably a village of no more than 200, not that many at all. And our Lord grew up in poverty. In fact, his family was so poor. They were so poor when they went to the temple for the first sacrifices for a child being born and going through all the ceremonial rites, they couldn’t offer, they couldn’t offer the goat, the lamb, or anything of significant value. They had to offer birds, which the law allowed for those that were in poverty.

Kind of look at history.

So he knows what it’s like to lose a parent at a young age. And he knows what it’s like to become responsible for a family at a young age. And so what you see in Jesus because of his upbringing is that our Lord became a very compassionate person, especially for those that were poor, hungry, or hurting. Notice, Mark chapter 1, verse 41. He will look upon a leper, and here’s what it says. Our Lord had compassion on him in Matthew 14 and in verse 14. He will have compassion on the crowds. Why? There were so many who were hurting and he heals them. Matthew 9, 36 or Mark 6, 34, he has compassion on those who are like sheep without a shepherd. In Mark 8, 2, he has compassion for the crowd.

Why? Well, they’ve had nothing to eat. They’re hungry, and they’re so famished that he feels compelled to feed them. In Luke 7, in Luke 7, oh, what a dramatic scene. He walks into this village known as name, and there’s a widow who is following the coffin of her child, her only son, and so she’s lost a husband. Now she’s lost a son. And what the text says, is that Jesus had compassion on her. Our Lord was always moved by people’s tears. Anyone like that? Anyone else like that? I’m probably the worst. If you start crying, I’ll just start crying. Why are we crying? Oh no. Oh no, but you’re hopes. You know, people, I don’t know why it is. I have people asking me to preach their funerals.

They’ll hear me speak at a funeral. Oh, would you come preach mine? I said, I hope this isn’t soon. What’s going on? Well, I just, and I thought, don’t do that to me.

Because now I’m thinking about losing you. I’m going to cry.

Our Lord was a compassionate man. He saw this widow. Because he lived with a widow. He lived with a mom who would cry herself to sleep at night. You see, one of the things that we sometimes fail to do when we’re going through scripture is slowing down and reading between the lines. I’m not adding to scripture. It’s simply one of those things that’s understood when you say somebody’s a widow. Isn’t it interesting? Isn’t it interesting that when you go back to the scourging, none of the gospels say, here’s exactly how it’s church implied? You didn’t have to.

Scourged? Got it. Somebody crying? Got it. And so did Jesus. In Matthew chapter 20 and in verse 34, he’s going to see those that are blind, and he’s going to have compassion on them, and he’ll reach out and heal them. I want you to look at another text. Turn in your Bibles. Turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 14. This is a powerful emphasis that our Lord makes on his compassion. Alright? In Luke chapter 14, he’s sharing a story, and you probably have heard it many times. It’s about, it’s about a reception. It’s the reception for the invitation to a great feast. And the invitation is sent out to all the dignitaries and all the nobles, all the high-ranking officials. They don’t want to come.

They’re not interested. And so then the reception is made available to all the poor, the weak, the crippled, the lame. In Luke chapter 14 and in verse 13 and 14, when the servants go out to this crowd, I want you to notice, I want you to notice how Jesus tells the story. And he’s revealing his own heart, and he’s revealing the heart of his father. Listen to how he tells the story. You go out. You go out to them, and you speak to them. And notice how he says it. He says that you’re going to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Alright? It’s like, just so you understand what I’m saying. You get the people who are hurting. You get the people who’ve been scarred by a lie.

And then a little later in verses 21 to 23. Notice verse 23. You compel them to come in. Why would he have to compel them to come in? Because they didn’t feel like they belonged there. Can you imagine how that invitation would go? No, really. No, I’m telling you. No, I’m telling you, it’s for you. No. He wants you. He says you. No, but you understand. No, you. Click it. Come. Come. You’re the person I want. Come. Why? Because our Lord is a Lord of compassion. One of the most powerful stories, and you all know it. In fact, it’s one of the most remarkable stories that the whole world knows. It’s is the story of what? The good Samaritan. What made the Samaritan different from the priest and the Levi?

Is that he had what? Compassion on the man who was wrong. Listen to what Jesus is doing over and over in Scripture. He’s revealing his own heart. He hurts for those who were hurting. One commentator put it like this. It would be impossible to overestimate the impact of these lessons upon those who were listening. When our Lord would gather and eat, who would he eat with? The tax collectors and the sinners. Why? Because he was drawn to the people who were hurting by lie. Like his commentator will go on to say, by accepting them as friends and equals, Jesus had taken away their shame, their humiliation and their guilt by showing them that they mattered to him as people.

And released them from their captivity. Our Lord was compassionate. Because he felt the human experience.

2. He Knew What It Was Like to Work Hard

He knew what it was like to hurt. He knew what it was like to have to work hard. Did you ever consider what it was like for him taking care of his family? You ever thought about what it was like for him? Those first 30 years. Isn’t it interesting? The scripture doesn’t tell us much about his first 30 years. I mean, if we were writing that story, we’d have had that all detailed, right?

Did it ever cross your mind that Scripture didn’t spend a lot of time and the gospel writers didn’t spend a lot of time on it? Because it wasn’t out of the ordinary. In other words, he lived his life like any other man would. He got up early and worked hard. Working as a carpenter. Your thought is like probably to be a carpenter in a small village. You’re the fix it guy. Jesus! Help me with this screaming! Jesus, fix these cabinets! Jesus, this table’s out of whack again! Jesus, can you come over here? Jesus! Fix this yoke! Jesus! Jesus! That’s all we did all day. And if you go and look at what Mark tells us, anybody know how many siblings he had? Anybody know? He had at least three brothers and two sisters.

3. His Physical Challenges

Five besides him, that’s six. And who’s the head of the household now? Jesus. Jesus. And if he’s a good Jewish man with a great reputation, which he was. He worked every day to provide for his family. Every day he got up, went to work, sweated, dealt with the people, went home, got to bed, got up, went to work self from the wind. That was his life. What else does Scriptures tell us about Jesus? Well, here’s what’s interesting is that Scripture goes to great lengths to show us his physical challenges. And what I mean by that is he had any and every physical challenge that comes with humanity that you and I have. And because of our physical limitations, we are people of great emotion. Alright? For example, Scripture tells us he was hungry.

Anybody know what that’s like? I shouldn’t be saying that to you right now because my stomach grumbles more than anybody else’s in church. And there’s just something about sitting down in a pew, I go, I’m hungry. I’m hungry. You know? And when your preacher stands up and goes, this is going to be a long run, I’m like, I’m going to have to kill him. Because my hungry just became hangry. You know. But he was hungry. Don’t just run over that. Our Lord was hungry. He had the pain and the feelings that come with hunger. He had the emotion that comes with hunger. It says he was thirsty in John 4 and John 19. And he was tired. Our Lord knows what it’s like to feel extremely tired.

In fact, he was sleepy. Have you ever thought about, have you ever really taken the time to think about what happened on the boat? Remember the boat scene, you know, where the disciples are freaking out and they’re belling water, we’re going to drown, we’re going to drown, we’re going to drown. And Jesus is up at the front asleep. There’s part of us that we go, well, he’s the son of God, so he just made himself fall asleep. He took deity nyquel and he slipped right out. And so he just slept through it because he’s God. He knows how it’s going to end. No. No. That’s us looking from the wrong side of things. No. He was so tired. He slept through a storm. He was so emotionally drained from his work and his ministry in his labors that day.

He was sleeping through a storm. There’s never, ever one example in Scripture where Jesus ever uses his deity or his Godhead as a means to provide for himself. Not once. Not once and I’m going to wake up and go, oh, I’ve got this migraine. Okay, I can go on now. No, he had the migraine all day. He was sleepy. He slept through it, folks. Why? Because he was that tired. When you consider what Scripture says, it’s also important for us to reflect on what it doesn’t say. Scripture didn’t have to tell us that the scourging hurt. Scripture didn’t have to tell us to get punched in the face.

4. All the Feelings and Emotions of Being Human

What do you do when you’re hurting? What do you do? Get a massive back pain, or you pull the big muscle. You don’t go, yeah, it feels great. No, generally, if you’re like me, you go down in the fetal position. And your wife goes, What are you doing? It hurts so bad. Get up, will you? You just stumped your toe, but you don’t understand it’s a big toe. Because you’re limited. You’re physical. Now here’s what I want you to see. Let’s take this a step further. Because our Lord was experiencing the human experience. Then what came with that was all the feelings and the emotions of being human. In Luke 22, when he talks about eating the Passover with his disciples, he said, I’ve had a strong desire to eat this with you.

He knows what it’s like to long for a reunion, to long for a meal, to long for a gathering. And Jesus puts it like this: He had a strong desire. Here’s something that’s really amazing. Remember the centurion’s faith? Do you know what scripture tells us when that centurion came up and he had more faith than anybody else? It says Jesus was surprised. Wait. He’s God! He’s God! He should have been going. Watch this, watch this, watch guys watch. I said, boom, third ear. I told you there would have been somebody. Yeah. Yeah, I called it. I called it. No. No.

No. Half of the human experience is not knowing what’s exactly going to happen the next moment. And he said, Jesus was surprised. Not only is he surprised, he’s going to wonder. In fact, this is really powerful. There’s going to be this situation where he’s going to take care of a lot of people. He’s going to hear a lot of people. But there’s going to be some who don’t believe. And Jesus is going to go, really?

Are you kidding me? How many more?

You mean you don’t get it? You ever had that frustration where you really proved a great point and made it as clear as a bell, and somebody goes, no, and you’re like, what?

He got angry.

Angry. Our Lord got angry, and at the same time, he grieved. Because people didn’t get it. Here’s one, Mark 10. Mark 10. Mark 10, verse 14. You want to turn over there real quick? I’ll give you a moment. This will have to be an extremely powerful scene. There’s all these people gathered around Jesus. But all of a sudden there’s people wanting to bring children to Jesus. Alright? They’re bringing in all the kids, you know. And you can make kids are being kids, snotty nose, you know, dirty, whatever else is going on. Maybe they were crying or this, that, and the other. I don’t know about you, but I love babies as long as they’re my children. You know? And I love your baby too, but don’t.

No. Just don’t die. No.

And then don’t handle your baby and say, here, can you heal my baby? I’m trying to find a diaper. No. Now if it’s my child, I’m good with that. Well, the disciples are like any of us. Adults first, children second. Notice what it says when they were trying to keep the children away from Jesus. He became indignant. What does that look like? Indignant. Is that come on, guys? Children can come too. Would you call that indignant? No, that’s like a grandparent’s fainting. It’s not a spanking. It doesn’t count. That’s slow down. What’d that scene look like? The Lord is sitting there. He’s taking care of people, and he noticed that the disciples are pushing the children away. And he probably gave them a look. And they kept pushing them away.

Gave them a look, can’t push them away. And finally Jesus goes, Stop it!

Let the kids up here! No! Now what’s that? Well, that’s indignant. Now he may not have done it quite that loud and scared all the children. But I guarantee the disciples never did that again. Because they saw how our Lord felt. Why? Because our Lord was filled with the emotion. He was filled with the physical limitations that come with being a man. And don’t misunderstand limitation as the idea of a limiting to his ability or who he was. It simply means he was living as a human and he endured everything that came with it. In Mark 7 and verse 34, he’ll sigh at the healing of a deaf man. He’ll have that overwhelming feeling that yes. Yes. Somebody gets it. Lazarus’ tomb, he’ll groan in his spirit.

We’ll come back to that one a little bit later. And then it tells us in Luke 22, when he’s in the garden, he’s in agony. Agony. You ever thought about what that was like? How does a man pray when he’s in agony? You see, we kind of look at Jesus like this, all right? He went to the garden, he knew it was coming up, he knew things were going to play out bad. He knew within a few hours Judas was going to betray him and this, that, and the other. And so he just kind of needs to just go through the motions right now, because he knows how everything’s going to play it up. He’s been reading Isaiah 53, he knows how this is going to play out.

He’s been reading Psalms 22, he knows what’s coming along. He’s like, all right, let’s just get it on. Let’s just go. No. What did our Lord say in his prayer? What did he say? Visualize it. Our Lord is on his hands and his knees, and the tears are flowing from his eyes, and he’s saying, Father. Please, Father, if there is any other way, please don’t make me go through this. Please find another way. Please. I don’t know if I can do this. Please.

We go. He knew. Come on. That’s why he took his time getting there.

He probably had a smile on his face the whole time. No. No. You saw Lazarus’ family crying, and he starts crying. In fact, the text tells us our Lord wept so hard. That even those on the outside were going. Oh my. He must have really loved it.

You see what Scripture does over and over, it tries to prove one huge point to us.

Our Lord fell. Amen. And everything that came with the human experience, he experienced. In Hebrews 5 and in verse 7, it says, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offers up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. Why? Because he felt the limits of being a human. I mean, don’t you feel that sometimes? Isn’t the worst part of being a human everything that you can’t control and you just got to deal with it? Not knowing what’s going to happen next. Not knowing how you’re going to get through the day. Not knowing how you’re going to handle this tragedy. In fact, life has been said to be in three stages. We’re all in three stages of life. We’re either headed to a tragedy, in a tragedy, or just got out of a tragedy.

5. Look at His Suffering

And Jesus would go, yeah. That’s about what it was like for me. I felt it. I was there. But if nothing else shows us humanity, you can’t help but see it here. Is that he suffered? He’s a man of compassion. He’s a man who dealt with the physical limitations of life. But then, if you really want to see his humanity, look at his suffering. We see that our Lord truly indeed dreaded the cross. In fact, in fact, what you hear when you hear our Lord speak of the cross is that he speaks of it in a way. He speaks of it in a way is as if it is something that he has dreaded for a long time, but he knows it’s coming. In Luke 12, and in verses 49 to 50, he says, I have come to cast fire on the earth.

And oh, I would that it was already kindled, but I have a baptism to be baptized with. And listen to what he says, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. One historian put it this way he says, the baptism of which our Lord now speaks is that one who is to come must now pass into the deep waters. So that the floods pass over them, over whose head has passed, and now they are passing through the waves and the billows of many great sons. John 12. Our Lord will repeat it this way. He says, Now is my soul troubled. Notice how deep he goes with this. It’s into my soul. The soul would be the very breath and the life of his being.

And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but it’s for this purpose I came to this hour. Can you hear our Lord caught? Caught in the vacuum of right and wrong. Caught in that horrible situation of I know what I need to do, but I really want to do this. Can you hear our Lord grappling with life?

It’s only the troubled soul that will say, What shall I say? What do I say? How do I handle this? When he gets to the garden in Matthew 26 and in verse 38, notice what he says to his disciples. See this. Don’t just read it in a couple of seconds. See it. Now my soul is, I’m sorry. Matthew 26, verse 38. Then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful. Even to death. Even to death. Remain here and watch me. Did you hear what Jesus is saying? This hurts so bad. I could die. I know some of you have felt that pain.

But you know that pain of losing somebody so dear to you that you say, I don’t know what to do. Or this hurts so bad. I could die. You see, whatever misconception we may have about his deity, these passages kind of throw that out the window. We want to see a Lord who’s calm, cool, and collected, has everything under control, and just kind of goes all the way up to the cross, going, I got this. This is mine. Don’t worry. I’ve got no. Because if that had been the case, then he wouldn’t have been human. In Luke 22, and in verse 44, Luke takes it a step further. He says, and being in agony, he even prays more earnestly, and his sweat became like great sweat, like drops of blood falling to the ground.

This is not the guy who’s just rolling with it. Where it’s easy.

And it’s simple. This is a man who’s hurting. In fact, the Hebrew writer says it like this In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence.

But he still endured. He was heard, but it still hurt. Can I show you just one more example? Turning you in, and I don’t want to lose you here, but I want you just to consider something. This is one of those theological debated passages, alright? Go to Matthew 27, verse 46. Matthew 27, verse 46. It says, in the ninth hour, as our Lord was on the cross, and you’ve heard this many times, probably read it before you’ve partaking of the supper many times. Our Lord will cry out with a loud voice. Now again, picture the scene. Our Lord is on the cross, and he’s been there.

And he cries out with a loud voice, writes back in, Eli, Lama Tamathanai, which is translated, My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? Sometimes we look at that verse and we go, well, Jesus was just quoting the Psalm. I mean, that’s how Psalm 22 begins. And he was saying, everybody go back and look at this Psalm. It’s going to clear everything up for you, and you’ll see exactly how this plays out. And you know what? That may have been exactly what he was hoping to do.

But I believe he was also doing this. He was stating exactly how he felt. He’s not denying God, he’s not denying the aid of God, he’s not denying the plan of God, but what he is affirming beyond a shadow of a doubt is that he knows what humanity feels like. And you never ever feel more human than when you feel forsaken. And so what Jesus does is he just says how he feels.

Conclusion

See, when Pilate brought Jesus out, he knew exactly what he was doing. And nobody could deny it. That’s a man. That’s a man. He bleeds like a man, he cries like a man, he acts like a man. And indeed. He was a man. And what John does with that same passage is he shows us, yeah. That was the time that the word became flesh and actually dwelt among us. And in his humanity, in his humanity, he showed us grace and truth. And here’s what it means. Here’s what it means to all of us. We have a Lord who sympathizes with our weaknesses. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through, what you’re going through, what you’re going to have to endure in life. Our Lord can say, been there.

I know exactly how that deals. I know exactly how much that hurts. Hold my hand. I’ll help you through. He understands our struggles. He understands what it’s like having siblings who don’t get along. Did you realize his brothers didn’t believe in him for the longest time? Can you imagine? Can you imagine? I mean, I have to tell you, I unfortunately my brother was always bigger than me. But if I had the opportunity just to blow him up like one of the Sons of Thunder, I probably would have done it. So our Lord dealt with that struggle. The struggle with family, the struggle with business, the struggle with the community, to struggle with the religious, to struggle with the poor. Because he understands. He understands. Our Lord motivates us with his love.

Look at how he experienced the human experience and did it still with so much love. And even while he was hurting, he was seeking to touch and to aid. He inspires us to lead as he led. Here’s what you do when you don’t know really what to do at times. And what our Lord wants from us is what we see in him. When we say, I want to imitate Christ, follow in his footsteps. My goal is to live the human experience as my Lord did. It’s not an easy walk. But it’s a walk of faith. And praise God. We have a Lord Jesus. Who wasn’t just deity. But he became what God wanted him to be. Emmanuel. God with us. The man. So maybe Pilate was right.

He was right. Behold the man. Thank y’all so much for your kind attention.