Sun 13th March. Phill

Walking In Jesus’ footsteps.

Through Jesus God identified with us by becoming flesh and living amongst us,

This is The incarnation.

At Jesus’ death on the cross God identified with humanity in a greater way, taking on our, sin our wrong doing and our brokenness. In His suffering He stood alongside all broken and damaged people andmade a difference, changed for eternity and still changes it in relationship with us. This is The atonement.

Easter is the fulfilment of both of these activities. It is the climax of God’s interaction with humanity that reaches back beyond the cross and forward to now.Into our lives.

So how do we walk in Jesus’ footsteps how do we walk with Him and like Him? How do we continue to be His body in the world today?

Suffering alongside

Two weeks ago I met a guy who was a volunteer worker with disengaged youth in Newport, Robert. He works through sport and mentors these young people to get jobs, gain confidence, relate to others. He’s been doing it for some seven years now. And has been described as an asset to the City of Newport because of what he does.

Robert has not had an easy life. His description as an asset came from a Judge at an appeal against deportation. The judge said ‘Because he was an asset he should not be deported.’ and gave him indefinite leave to remain. Robert is from Zimbabwe and came to Britain as an asylum seeker, but his story of suffering was not believed by the authorities so he had to appeal. He and his family have to re-apply for right to remain every three years.

The thing which amazed me about Robert was his acceptance by the people he helps both black and white in situations where some of the people could be quite racist but because he has suffered he is somehow accepted and able to get alongside these people. Recognised as one of them but able to help.

Reading Philippians 2. 1-17

Living out what Jesus did

This is part of the incarnation, or our continuing incarnation that we can tend to forget. Another story, again a couple of weeks ago, at a church service the preacher was confessing that he was going through a patch of feeling distant from God. This was because of a number of sad events in his life he was wondering where God was. We had just sung the song ‘Open our eyes we want to see Jesus’ and I felt God was saying ‘The place where we see Him is in our suffering and in our brokenness where He is alongside us and through us alongside others.We should not to rush away or run away from this and want to see Him as that song’s chorus says “high and lifted up”. There will be plenty of time to celebrate and rejoice but at the moment I am more interested in being alongside people than having a big party and receiving your praise.’

We have an eternity for a praise party to happen but only a short time alongside the people we are alongside at the moment.

There are situations where we are the word where we are Jesus in our neighbourhood

Working it out for ourselves Philippians 2: 12-13

How then do we walk with Jesus? Working out our own salvation

It may involve suffering.

It will involve Identification with….The broken and needy ……

And our suffering will help us in this in developing empathy with them and understanding their suffering, It will enable broken people to identify with us just as the disenfranchised young people of Newport identified with Robert because he too had been disenfranchised and suffered. We have a relationship with Jesus who stands with us in our suffering. This relationship can grow in our suffering even as he helps us through it. If we walk with Jesus we will walk alongside broken people and suffering people.

If we are in relationship with Jesus we will find him there among the broken people.

To walk in Jesus’ footsteps means stepping out alongside the broken and suffering, welcoming in the needy and hurting… Just as Jesus did.

Serving those in need as the body of Christ and as individuals. That is how Jesus continues to walk and us in His footsteps.

Phill Vickery