ニューイングランドの母校から、イースターへ備えて日々のみことばの味わい　その4

Day 4: March 28

What Did Jesus do?
John 13:21-32

“Jesus responded, ‘It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl.’ And when he had dipped it, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot” (John 13:26, NLT).

People used to frequently ask, “What would Jesus do?” It was a way to encourage us all to think about how Jesus might respond to a present day situation we encounter, and then to “do likewise.” The phrase was so popular that it was reduced to just “WWJD.” Though the WWJD movement helped people make better decisions than they otherwise might have, I wonder if it truly had the right focus.

It is one thing to consider what Jesus would do in our situations. It is quite another to put ourselves into his life situations. When we do this, we focus on Jesus and the contexts of his decisions, instead of our own. In John 13:26, Jesus is serving the person he had just identified as his betrayer. If we were in the presence of someone we knew had planned harm to us, could we do the same? Jesus served Judas, literally and figuratively, without resentment or any effort to “get even.” Now that is love.

Our brokenness can cause us to struggle with showing love. We could feel and behave as if an “other” was a personified WMD (weapon of mass destruction) aimed at us, making us feel MAD (mutually assured destruction) in response. But we do not have to wonder WWJD. We know what Jesus did. We have his road map. Yet, his path for us may still cause us some internal struggle. We need not, even as good Christians, ignore that struggle. It is part of the process. Even Jesus was “greatly distressed in spirit, and testified, ‘I tell you the solemn truth, one of you will betray me’” (John 13:21). However, his love was greater.

Our struggle is to walk his path of agape (Godly) loving-kindness. When our human inclinations confront us with MAD-ness, we are not in a WWJD moment. We already know what Jesus would do. He demonstrated loving-kindness. He personified it. When we contemplate the path to the cross and resurrection that Jesus took, we must consider each step, each interactional decision, to be one of authentic love. That is what Jesus did. We must “go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).

Jacqueline T. Dyer, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Counseling; Director of Counseling & Academic Support Initiatives