Paul E. Miller - Love Walked Among Us: Learning to Love Like Jesus

I n 1991 my wife, Jill, asked me, Do you love me? We had been going through a hard time, but hard times werent unknown to us. We have six children whose ages at the time were 2, 5, 8, 12, 14, and 16. Our eight-year-old, Kim, is disabled unable to speak, unable to do many things other children do. Sometimes Jill got so tired that shed fall asleep during dinner.

It had been a long day, and I thought she just wanted me to reassure her that I loved her. Of course I love you, I said. But then she asked me again, Paul, do you love me? The third time she asked, I got irritated with her. Of course I loved her. Didnt I help out with the kids? In the morning I dressed the little guys and got them breakfast. In the evening I read to them and put them all to bed. I helped constantly. Case closed. That night I went to sleep fuming at Jill, still making a list of all the ways I loved her.

I didnt tell Jill, but her question gnawed at me. What does it mean to love someone? What does love look like?

As I thought about love, I began to think about Jesus. After all, Jesus is supposed to be the most merciful and self-giving person who ever lived. I decided to study his life to see how he related to others. What was he like? How did he treat people?

And slowly by slowly, as they say in Africa, I began to understand what it really means to love.

Regardless of your background, Jesus is hard to ignore. Almost two billion Christians claim to follow him; more than one billion Muslims honor him as a prophet. Leading Jewish theologians esteem him as a great rabbi. His image can be found in Hindu temples. Many cult leaders claim to be a reincarnation of the spirit of Jesus.

Jaroslav Pelikan, professor emeritus of history at Yale University writes:

Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries.... It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars; it is by his name that millions curse and in his name that millions pray.

Despite all the attention Jesus gets, most people have little idea of who he is as a person, even those who worship him. I have often asked Christians, When you get to heaven, what person in the Bible would you like to meet? Only one out of several hundred has mentioned Jesus. I think the word person throws them off because they arent used to thinking of Jesus as a person.

When we see Jesus portrayed, he often comes across strangely. Hollywood frequently pictures Jesus in slow motion. In most films Jesus talks slowly, walks slowly, and moves slowly. He also stares. My ten-year-old daughter, Emily, and I were watching one of the better Jesus films, and we noticed that he never blinked! The other actors did, but Jesus never did. Our eyes began to hurt every time the camera focused on Jesus face.

I decided to study Jesus with fresh eyes, forgetting what I already knew or thought I knew about him. I wanted to experience what Albert Einstein did when he read the Gospels. He reflected:

I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.... Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful.... No man can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word.

Einstein was not a follower of Christ but he felt the wonder of the real man in a way many miss. As I read and studied the Gospels, I began to experience Einsteins sense of wonder. I hope you do too.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Bibles four accounts of Jesus life, are called gospels, a word that means good news. They each carry the name of the author, and were written over 1,900 years ago in Greek, the language of the Roman Empire. Like modern biographers, each author provides his own unique perspective and includes scenes or details that other authors dont. When we put their accounts together, we get a rich, three-dimensional picture of Jesus. Like documentary videos, scenes are often described in such vivid detail that we can visualize exactly whats happening: the setting, the circumstances, the people, and how Jesus treated them.

Matthew, a former tax collector and one of the original twelve followers of Jesus, wrote an eyewitness account. Tax collectors in the Roman Empire were usually well educated and fluent in both their native language and Greek. The government auctioned off the job of tax collector to the highest bidder. The winner of the auction recouped his expenses by charging more than was required, thereby alienating the general population. Think of Matthew as a very smart, former used-car salesman. Though hes been changed by Jesus, he could still read people like a book. There are hints of this in the details Matthew provides about Judas (the disciple who betrayed Jesus).