The Muck and the Mire
by Max Lucado
For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. He felt weak. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He was susceptible to wooing women. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feelings got hurt.
To think of Jesus in such a light is—well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s not something we like to do; it’s uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer.
He’s easier to stomach that way. There is something about keeping him divine that keeps him distant, packaged, predictable.
But don’t do it. For heaven’s sake, don’t. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out.
WOW!
Jesus’ humanity is what makes it easier to speak with Him and pray with Him. As you’ve illustrated, Jesus was human and has been there and done that. He knows our pain, our disappointment, illness, emotions, and most of all, the feeling of betrayal. He endured torture and death for us. We can certainly endure the pains of daily life for Him.
Yes, He does undertand our short comings and pains, sorrows and feelings!! He IS REAL! You can walk with Him and talk with Him and He knows just what you are saying, feeling, wonderinig. He knows what its like to lose the friend that stood by your side, He knows how you felt that day when you got the news of your mother dying. Or you wife or husband decided to go a different directon, and it didnt include you. He knows what you feel when you are sitting beside your childs bed as he takes his last breath. Oh yes, Jesus IS REAL! TALK TO HIM!
God bless each one here.
Certainly he was real and he ministered to the tax collectors, prostitutes, the sick and those that were poor and homeless but he still was the son of God. For me it is in that thought that he must have had a special faith given by a living father that gave him more than I have. It is hard sometime to realize that when Jesus was considered by his own people to be a rebel that the Church has changed very much since then. Jesus preached forgiveness and tolerance and in that sense I do not think we have advanced very much. I trust that he knows the heart and he hears our prayers and sighs of the moment.
WOW, but very true. It is too much that people tend to forget that Jesus was at one point in time just like you and I, he made mistakes, he would trip over a branch sticking out of the ground, he would sneeze and say bless you, he would even stum his toe and feel pain. It is too much that we look at his as if he was this perfect being created to be worshipped. He died at the cross and was sacrafieded for his beliefs. Before becoming what he is to us all today he was human. This is why he is so good to us all, because he too can understand how it is to have human troubles, trials and tribulations, he also once went through the muck and the mire.