A Light Unto My Path:

Texts That Shaped Jesus’ Journey

 

How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word…

Which is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.. (Psalm 119)

 

During these days of Lent, we want to ask you to imagine Jesus as he was before he was proclaimed “Lord and Christ,” and to learn from him. For those of us who live on this side of Easter, this will be a difficult task. For our Jesus is the neatly packaged “Christ of Faith,” who has been shaped by nearly twenty centuries of theological thinking and persuasive preaching. It is easy to read back into his entire life the story as we have inherited it, all neat and tidy.

But we believe there is more to the story than we normally receive. The stories we were taught in elementary school surely only barely glimpse this man who so dramatically changed human history. And we believe if we can know more about the influences that shaped him, we can will be able to understand better the influences that surround us; that if we can know more about how he formed his convictions, then our own convictions might follow.

And that is our goal.

So, what was Jesus really like as a boy? An adolescent? A young man? We take of utmost seriousness Luke’s claim that “Jesus grew…” If this is so, then his growth had to take place like ours does: at the hands of parents, friends, teachers, religious authorities… It is clear that Jesus was an eager student. His words are filled with admonitions and exhortations taken directly from the scriptures which he learned as a faithful Jewish male. His encounters with those regarded as learned in his world indicate that he was willing to spar with the heavyweights, and if only from that one scene in the temple as a child, we gather that he could hold his own.

During this season, we will look at some of the text of the Hebrew Scriptures, which Jesus studied as a child and young man, with a goal of learning from them by learning from him. Jesus grew. And so should we, as Paul says, “to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4.13).

Let us, then, journey together with Christ, that as we study the words he studied, and as we consider their impact on his life, that a word from God, a Living Word might indeed light our path.

 

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Sunday, February 29  – Jesus as Alien

How did Jesus’ religious and cultural background shape his self-understanding as he traveled to Jerusalem?

Deuteronomy 26 — A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien…

 

Sunday, March 7  – Jesus as Singer

How did the music of worship (the Psalms), which Jesus must have known well, influence his life? What songs did he sing as he approached Jerusalem?

Psalm 96 — O sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD all the earth…

 

Sunday, March 14 – Jesus as Disciple

How and when did Jesus discern his own calling? How did the language of his faith (scripture) influence his self-understanding?

Psalm 63 — O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water…

 

Sunday, March 21 – Jesus as Receiver of Grace

Was the human Jesus ever a recipient of an experience of grace, and, if so, how did this experience shape his understanding of God’s love, and of his own unique role as “reconciler to God” (2 Corinthians 5)?

Psalm 32 — Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered…

 

Sunday, March 28 – Jesus as Dreamer

How did the Jewish theology of hope shape Jesus’ own vision of the future, especially as tensions mounted against him in Jerusalem?

Isaiah 43 — Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

 

Sunday, April 4 (PALM SUNDAY) – Jesus as Messenger

How did the proclamation of a “coming one” influence Jesus’ own convictions? When did the messenger become the message?

Psalm 118 — Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.

 

Sunday, April 11 (EASTER SUNDAY) – Jesus as Celebrator

How does the promise of newness still affect our understanding of death and resurrection?

Isaiah 65 — For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating…