Would they recognize you?

It has intrigued me for some time, and a question at a meeting I attended last night brought it back.

In Luke's Gospel, we read of Peter's denial: "⁵⁴ Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. ⁵⁵ And when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. ⁵⁶ A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, “This man was with him." But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said. "A little later someone saw him and said, 'You are also one of them.' Man, I am not! Peter replied. About an hour later another asserted, 'Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean."

My question has always been, how did they know? The girl saw Peter and said he was with Jesus. Well, a lot of people had been with Jesus earlier that week. A little later, someone SAW him and said he was one of "them." Later still, a man noticed this Galilean.

How did they know? Did Peter wear a name tag:
PETER
Jesus follower
ex-John B follower
----------------------------
Non-denominational

Or
PETER
Galilean
Disciple
----------------------------
Jews for Jesus

or even (it's a big name tag, okay)
PETER
CEPHAS
SIMON
ROCKY
----------------------------
Pre-Roman Catholic
Pre-Lutheran
Pre-Orthodox
Pre-Methodist, United or otherwise
 

At the meeting last night, the question was posed (and I paraphrase badly I suspect): Does all this make a difference? What difference does the saving witness of Jesus Christ make in your life, your vocation?

If you're a doctor, does knowing Jesus change the way you operate (so to speak)? If you're a beautician, does knowing Jesus change the way you view your job? On and on. Does knowing Jesus change your viewpoint on, well, everything?

At the meeting, I thought it was a pretty good question. Later still, I thought it was a terrific question. This morning, I thought it is THE question, worthy of discussion and thought beyond one night. It branches like little inlets and such of the Jordan River, from the top of Palestine to the Dead Sea, meandering and wandering like Bedoins in search of some worthy water in a parched land.

One question ... does knowing this man Jesus, someone who lived 2000 years ago in (as George Lucas would say) a land far, far away mean anything at all to how you live today in Louisiana, or England, or Russia or wherever you're reading this? leads to another, a cousin, a brother or sister.

I'm not talking about what believing in this man means to your eternal destination. Separate issue, I suspect. I'm talking about whether someone who doesn't know you or doesn't know you well can tell you know this man Jesus, and if so, what is it about him that comes shining through in your life, even as much as knowing Jesus came through the life, the demeanor, the mannerisms, the work, the play, the spiritual life, the physical life of this man we know only as Peter/Cephas/Simon Peter>

A branch of the Jordan opens to ...What does your knowing Jesus look like in your life on a Wednesday morning?

Or to ....Is there something, anything in your life that is different because you have met, have become to know, or even know well this man the world has come to recognize as Jesus of Nazareth?

Or to ... Does knowing Jesus change you?

I'm not necessarily talking about your ethics or your morals, although you might give some of that as your answer. But I am talking about how knowing Jesus affects how you vote, for example; or how you accept change that is more or less what it should be. Or how knowing Jesus affects how you look at those who are mentally challenged, or those who live below the poverty level. Or how knowing Jesus changes how you look at abortion or homosexuality. And if it does change how you look at these issues, do you see them through the eyes of Jesus of the Bible or do you view these issues (as well as these people) through your own eyes that are affected by what you think Jesus would have done or said or felt?

See, it's complicated. We try desperately to make these things become black and white, but the grays, oh, the grays.

A sliver of water beacons ...Does knowing Jesus affect the way you parent, or change the way you view school, or dissolve the way you view those less fortunate than yourself?

A large inlet leads to .... If you were at the fire on the night they took Jesus away, is there something about the way you live, the way your talk, the way you view things, the way you talk that would lead a young woman or two men to associate you with Him?

Into the main body of the River ... Do you walk like, talk like, think like, love like Jesus?

That , to my way of thinking, is essentially is what being a disciple of Jesus Christ who is trying to change the world looks like.

Of course, they recognized Peter, and still he denied Jesus. Looking the part, sounding like the part, even trying to be the part doesn't mean we have made it. It just means that for one small moment in our lives, something noticed what we've tried so hard to produce...a life the looks like Jesus.