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Baby Jesus Clipart Biography
Last Wednesday evening Charleen and I were on a plane flying to Minneapolis. Her Bible was open on her lap when the flight attendant came and asked, "Are you reading my favorite book?" Charleen said, "It�s a Bible." The flight attendant said, "I know the Author!" She was warm and outgoing and full of life and faith.
The conversation continued and we learned that she lives in Colorado, is based in Detroit and once lived in Minnesota. Charleen asked her where she went to church while in Minnesota and she said, "Wooddale Church." Then she started to explain about a sermon she heard. Charleen didn�t want her to embarrass herself so she pointed to me and said, "He is the pastor at Wooddale." The flight attendant said, "No, this was 20 years ago when Leith Anderson was the pastor." (I gave her a business card to prove I�m Leith Anderson.).
She told about a layover when she came to church one Sunday. She said, "I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ that day and I�ve never stopped following him since."
In other words, Jesus passed by her one day and her life was forever transformed. She was like a man named Bartimaeus whose story is told in the biography of Jesus, Luke 18:35-43 (page 1630).
Actually, Luke does not mention his name. We know from another biography of Jesus (Mark 10:46-52) that he was the son of Timaeus. In the Jewish culture and language they added "Bar", meaning "son of", at the beginning of a name just the way Scandinavians add "son" at the end of names like John, Lars and Andrew.
What was most memorable about this man was not his name but his medical condition. He was blind. He could not see in a time and place of history when disabilities were especially harsh. Bartimaeus was forced to become a beggar with his regular place along the highway outside of Jericho.
Jericho was and is an oasis city along a major trade route through the desert. Thousands of tourists and merchants in caravans regularly came that way. In a sense, it was a good place to be a beggar.
Lacking sight, I suspect that he was especially tuned to the sounds along the highway. He probably could tell the size of the caravan, the language of the merchants, the types of businesses they were in and the probable generosity of their donations to his cup. He also must have known all of the news�listening to stories coming from Egypt, Persia, Rome and Jerusalem.
Certainly he had heard the gossip about Jesus of Nazareth. There were stories about his brilliant teaching, about his conflicts with the rich and religious, about his miracles of feeding thousands, healing those who could not walk and even raising the dead back to life again. But the stories that perked his listening more than any were those about Jesus making the blind to see.
Could it be? Could there be a Rabbi so good and so strong that he could actually restore sight? It was news almost too good to be true.
But just when his hopes started to rise they were forced back down to reality. What difference did this make to him? He was poor and blind and lived down south in Jericho. Jesus was from Nazareth up north in Galilee. The chances of Bartimaeus making it to Galilee and finding Jesus were less than zero.
One day the impossible happened. He heard a crowd�just as he heard thousands of crowds before. He asked what was happening�just as he had asked thousands of times before. Someone answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." And his heart leaped with joy and possibility
Baby Jesus Clipart Biography
Last Wednesday evening Charleen and I were on a plane flying to Minneapolis. Her Bible was open on her lap when the flight attendant came and asked, "Are you reading my favorite book?" Charleen said, "It�s a Bible." The flight attendant said, "I know the Author!" She was warm and outgoing and full of life and faith.
The conversation continued and we learned that she lives in Colorado, is based in Detroit and once lived in Minnesota. Charleen asked her where she went to church while in Minnesota and she said, "Wooddale Church." Then she started to explain about a sermon she heard. Charleen didn�t want her to embarrass herself so she pointed to me and said, "He is the pastor at Wooddale." The flight attendant said, "No, this was 20 years ago when Leith Anderson was the pastor." (I gave her a business card to prove I�m Leith Anderson.).
She told about a layover when she came to church one Sunday. She said, "I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ that day and I�ve never stopped following him since."
In other words, Jesus passed by her one day and her life was forever transformed. She was like a man named Bartimaeus whose story is told in the biography of Jesus, Luke 18:35-43 (page 1630).
Actually, Luke does not mention his name. We know from another biography of Jesus (Mark 10:46-52) that he was the son of Timaeus. In the Jewish culture and language they added "Bar", meaning "son of", at the beginning of a name just the way Scandinavians add "son" at the end of names like John, Lars and Andrew.
What was most memorable about this man was not his name but his medical condition. He was blind. He could not see in a time and place of history when disabilities were especially harsh. Bartimaeus was forced to become a beggar with his regular place along the highway outside of Jericho.
Jericho was and is an oasis city along a major trade route through the desert. Thousands of tourists and merchants in caravans regularly came that way. In a sense, it was a good place to be a beggar.
Lacking sight, I suspect that he was especially tuned to the sounds along the highway. He probably could tell the size of the caravan, the language of the merchants, the types of businesses they were in and the probable generosity of their donations to his cup. He also must have known all of the news�listening to stories coming from Egypt, Persia, Rome and Jerusalem.
Certainly he had heard the gossip about Jesus of Nazareth. There were stories about his brilliant teaching, about his conflicts with the rich and religious, about his miracles of feeding thousands, healing those who could not walk and even raising the dead back to life again. But the stories that perked his listening more than any were those about Jesus making the blind to see.
Could it be? Could there be a Rabbi so good and so strong that he could actually restore sight? It was news almost too good to be true.
But just when his hopes started to rise they were forced back down to reality. What difference did this make to him? He was poor and blind and lived down south in Jericho. Jesus was from Nazareth up north in Galilee. The chances of Bartimaeus making it to Galilee and finding Jesus were less than zero.
One day the impossible happened. He heard a crowd�just as he heard thousands of crowds before. He asked what was happening�just as he had asked thousands of times before. Someone answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." And his heart leaped with joy and possibility
Bartimaeus did not need to think of what to pray about or what to do next. He called out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
It was a bold and dangerous shout. It could have cost him money and maybe even his life. You see, "Son of David" was a synonym for Messiah. It was a title loaded with religious and political meaning. In many ways, Jesus and his followers had kept his identification a secret. There were powerful religious leaders who made a career of dealing with alleged Messiahs. There were Roman authorities who regularly crushed nationalistic patriots who joined underground movements to destroy Roman rule. These were dangerous times to risk wrong political alliances. He was "outing" Jesus as the Messiah and that put Jesus, Bartimaeus and a lot of others in that crowd at immediate risk.
So, the leaders of the crowd around Jesus rebuked him and told him to be quiet. They wanted him to shut up, putting his personal problems aside for the greater good of the cause. They were worried lest a Roman spy might be hiding in the crowd and report them all.
Bartimaeus would not shut up.
This story was written into the New Testament in the Greek language which uses very different words to describe the first time Bartimaeus called to Jesus and the second time he called to Jesus. Both times he said pretty much the same thing, but the first time it was a normal loud shout. The second time it was a passionate emotional scream�"Son of David, have mercy on me!"
This man was desperate. Jesus was his only hope. Strangers were trying to silence him. Jesus was moving. Seconds counted. This was his one and only chance. He shouted with more than his voice, he screamed for mercy from the depths of his soul.
I have seen the difference between satisfied and desperate people in relation to Jesus Christ. Those who are comfortable and self-sufficient are never in a hurry. They put Jesus off, telling him to come back another day. But those who are desperate have no shame or embarrassment when asking Jesus for help.
Early in my pastoral ministry I was called to the Longmont United Hospital in Longmont, Colorado. A crane operator had been seriously injured in a construction accident. Apparently the earth had caved in under one side of the base and the crane began to topple. He swung the crane to balance the load, but it was too late. He was thrown off and the crane toppled on his chest and abdomen, severely crushing his body. A nurse called for me to come and talk to an apparently dying man. The doctor told me that it was much like crushing injuries he had treated in Vietnam and there wasn�t much of a chance that Buck would live very long. He gave me five minutes with his patient. I thought we would be alone but there was a whole team of doctors and nurses working on him while I talked to this man in obvious pain and fear. My style is to get to know people, gently explain about Jesus and give them time to process and decide. It is usually a private conversation. I was kind of embarrassed having all these strangers around and wondered what they thought about me. I was self-conscious and unsure of myself. Then I realized that this man was dying. My feelings didn�t matter. What the medical team thought didn�t matter. He was desperate and I had five minutes to prepare his soul for eternity.
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
Baby Jesus Clipart
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