Jesus Changes Everything

Jesus changes everything.

This was one of the major themes of the speaker, Curtis Zackery, at the youth’s winter retreat at Camp Berea in early March. His talk on Friday night was about Mark 2:1-12, where Jesus healed a paralytic after his friends lowered him through the roof. The paralytic’s friends knew that if they could just get their buddy to him, Jesus would change everything. It worked. Jesus proclaimed the man’s sins forgiven and healed his paralysis. Jesus changed everything.

One of the gospel passages in Lent tells of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman (John chapter 4). The woman was a local pariah, yet after her encounter with Jesus, she felt accepted and embraced by God. More than that, she went from being the shamed outcast to being the person who brought news to her village that the Messiah had arrived! Jesus changed everything.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had that kind of encounter with Jesus; a moment that we could point to definitively when everything changed? Both of these stories involve a transformation from broken to whole after meeting Jesus. For the paralytic, it was physical. For the Samaritan, it was emotional. In both cases, the change was almost instantaneous.

Those kind of miracles do happen. Jesus can change a life in an instant, but for most of us, the transformation is much more like that of Nicodemus, the Pharisee who went by night to meet Jesus in John chapter 3. He talked with Jesus, who told him that to enter the Kingdom of God is to be “born again” of the Spirit. To be born is to see and experience everything for the first time. To be “born again,” then, is to see and experience everything as if it were the first time, this time with the eyes of Christ.

Again, an encounter with Jesus changed everything, but for Nicodemus, it was not instantaneous. We meet Nicodemus two other times in John’s gospel. In chapter 7, Nicodemus very tepidly speaks up in defense of Jesus when other Pharisees push to have him arrested. Pointing out that the law does not judge people without giving them a hearing, Nicodemus gets rebuked by his peers who say to him, “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you?” The implication is that the thing he said was ignorant; Galileans were the contemporary equivalent of so-called “rednecks” in the modern day. Duly shamed, Nicodemus gave no response. After Jesus’ death in chapter 19, however, Nicodemus and a disciple of Jesus went together to retrieve, wrap, and entomb Jesus’ body.

Nicodemus went from being Jesus’ opposition to being his disciple, but it took time, and it took courage. No doubt it also took a great deal of prayer, reflection, and fasting. This is why Lent is forty days, and it’s why Lent happens every year. Seeing the world with new eyes may take time and courage. It may also require a great deal of prayer, reflection, and fasting. Whether it is instantaneous or gradual, though, there is no doubt that an encounter with Jesus changes everything.

It is my prayer for you, for myself, and for the world that our intentional spiritual time in Lent would open our hearts to the Holy Spirit so that we might all have an encounter with Christ that changes how we see the world, how we see each other, and how we live our lives; an encounter that changes everything.

Keep the Faith.

-Zack Moser