Reflecting on Luke 11:27-28“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:28)
A woman is so inspired by Jesus, she cries out:
“Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” (Luke 12:27)
On the one hand, I can appreciate what this woman means.
She experiences Jesus as wonderful, and feels blessed to see and hear Him.
How much more His mother who was intimately close to Jesus.
There is indeed a special bond between a mother and her child.
We also know that there was a special pain for Mary as Jesus’s mother.
“Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.‘” (Luke 2:34-35)
I doubt blessed was the word Mary used when she held her dead son.
Jesus does not deny this special bond with His mother.
But He expands that special bond to include all who hear His message.
To ‘hear the word of God’ does not mean to hear a sermon, or read the bible.
These can be vehicles for God’s word, but the word of God is more than these.
God’s Word is God’s heart and mind expressed to us through words.
It is the message communicated through words and actions.
The words ‘I love you” are an expression of the heart.
They are also supported by facial expressions as well as actions.
It is the experience of love, not just the words, that matters.
When we hear about God’s love, and see it in Jesus, we are blessed.
Through Jesus, God’s heart and mind towards us is not anger or judgment.
He sees us and knows us, despite our weakness and failures, and loves us.
He is with us, He becomes like us, He lives, suffers, dies and rises for us!
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)
To hear (meaning experience and appreciate) God message of love should change us.
Jesus uses the word ‘obey’, but it does not mean rule following.
It literally means to hold on to, to keep, to preserve, to guard and protect.
It envisions someone clinging to it, and making it their own.
We are urged to receive and embrace the message of God’s love.
To live in the wonder of that love, and to live it out ourselves.
To become one with that love so that we are a reflection of that love.
“Freely you have received; freely give.” (Matthew 10:8)
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34)
“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
God’s message is love: I am love, and you are to be love too.
We were made in the image of love so that we could reflect that love.
This is what it means to hear (receive) and obey (guard, keep) God’s message.
Everyone who experiences this good news is equally blessed by it.
Some people do not get more love because of who they are.
Jesus is not lowering His mother from her experience of love.
But He is raising up everyone else to have that same experience.
God does not show favoritism (Romans 2:11, Galatians 2:6)
I can experience God’s love as intimately and personally as Mary.
Not literally as a nursing mother, but spiritually, from God’s heart to mine.
This is the good news, and the key to restoring our world from the curse of hate.
As those loved by God in Jesus, we are to spread this message of love.
Not just to our own people, or the ones we agree with or like.
“My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism… If you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.” (James 2:1,9)
To not love all people equally, like God does, is to disobey the Law of Love.
It is to fail to understand God, and the message of God.
It is to disobey the word of God.
Of all people in the world, may we as Jesus followers live in and out God’s love.
Those who reflect the good news of God’s love to all people are the blessed ones.
For they show that they know the true meaning of God’s word: God’s love!
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, I want to experience the intimate blessing of know You and God's love through You. And I want to express the blessing of this love to others. Make me a channel of Your wonderful, gracious and amazing love!
The disciples followed THE Rabbi to become like Him and live the way He did. That was the way of teaching then, to become like their rabbi. And today, to know Jesus, is become like Him, Christian by name and in word and deed. Others need to see Christ Jesus in us. I need to be like Christ unto others. Others need to see that we/I am Christian by our love – a channel of His peace.