The world is upside-down. It doesn't seem to matter where you live, something is going sideways for every person I have talked to recently. What can we count on, any more? What can we hold on to that won't let us down? The answer to that lies not in what, but in Who. There is a powerfully-constructed ancient saying that extends tremendous hope in these uncertain times (particularly, I might suggest, for those of us who are English nerds):
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
A lot of people know who Jesus is, or rather, they think of Him as someone who was. The carefully-chosen verb tense in this ancient manuscript announces that He IS. His character, and consequently the reliability of all He said, did not begin and end with the 33 years of recorded earthly life we have preserved for us. He IS. When the ancient writer penned this, the man Jesus had already left the earth. To say “Jesus IS” was a deliberate grammar choice (by an extremely well-educated scholar who knew his verb tenses), highlighting for us that Jesus was not “gone”, and all He gave us has not evaporated, either. Jesus IS.
Jesus IS the same Person He was long ago before you and I and this messy, scary world of germs and lockdowns and job losses and sickness and injustice and even death itself took a place on this stage we call Earth. Jesus IS the same Person today as the man Jesus we have recorded as standing up in a small fishing boat in the middle of a wild storm, commanding, “Peace! Be still!” and it was so. Jesus IS the same forever – for eternity – for a never-beginning-never-ending continuum that breaks the barriers of our finite minds that beat against the bars of Time.
Jesus IS because He is God, who breathed life into all we see, who upholds all things by His strength, and who never runs out of wisdom (He is never outsmarted), never gets weary (He will never drop the ball), never uses up His store of mercy in His pursuit of a loving relationship with His beloved children, no matter how far they run away. Jesus IS.
Greater than the number of the stars which we cannot count but which He has named, every single one. Jesus IS. Who notices every sparrow that falls to the ground and numbers every hair on your head. Jesus IS when the world slides under your feet and people lie and cheat and let you down and there is no one left you can trust, nothing left to hold on to...Jesus IS. He IS the One who has not, will not, cannot change. He IS the rock to cling to, the fortress to run to, the level ground to stand on, the lighted path to walk.
Jesus IS, and He IS for you.
Do you know this Jesus who IS?
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father [God] but through Me.” - Jesus
