Questions have an ability to penetrate deeply into hearts in ways propositional statements or even commands do not. They beckon us to become thoughtful and introspective.
Great teachers can capture our attention and imagination with skilled storytelling, making the complex clear and palatable. Their words have a significant effect on our lives, lingering in our heads for hours, days, and even years. If this is true of great teachers, what can be said of the greatest teacher—the Master Teacher?
Jesus was the Master Teacher. His words continue to transform people’s lives and have been the subject of countless studies for 2,000 years.
Jesus knew how to use everyday experiences to illustrate and convey eternal truths. For example, he used a gardening metaphor to teach about the different ways people respond to the word of God (Mark 4:10–20). Jesus used a parenting metaphor to explain how our heavenly Father eagerly disseminates good gifts to his children (Luke 11:11– 13). Shepherds and sheep were common sights in Israel, and Jesus compared God’s pursuit of his lost follower to a shepherd searching for a lost sheep (Luke 15:1–7). Jesus even used the illustration of a traveler’s mistreatment to expose racism in the human heart (Luke 10:25–37).
It’s easy to imagine why many people lingered around when Jesus taught. Vast crowds enveloped him in open fields, at seashores, and along hilly terrain. His teaching was simple and creative. It was also authoritative. The Master Teacher understood the human heart in addition to knowing the will of the Father. His teaching carried a weight to it, producing conviction, comfort, challenge, and excitement.
Common life experiences and creative metaphors were not Jesus’s only tools in his toolbox. He was also an expert at asking meaningful questions. His questions silenced his critics (“The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” Matthew 21:25), exposed his opponents (“Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” Luke 20:24), confronted the self-righteous (“Why do you call me good?” Luke 18:19), and lifted up the condemned (“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” John 8:10). The point of Jesus’s questions was not to discover information he lacked. He knew precisely what people were thinking (John 2:24–25). Rather, his questions were a rhetorical device that revealed to the recipients what was within their hearts.
Questions have an ability to penetrate deeply into hearts in ways propositional statements or even commands do not. They beckon us to become thoughtful and introspective.
When my mom asked me as a child, “Did you clean your room?” her question forced me not only to acknowledge I hadn’t but to give a reason why I hadn’t. The moment a question is posed to us we’re not only given an opportunity to answer but simultaneously forced to consider why we are giving that answer.
For example, in Luke 17:11–19 Jesus enters a village and is immediately approached by 10 men with a contagious skin disease. Their leprosy ostracized them from society and labeled them as “unclean.” They begged Jesus to show them mercy and heal them. Jesus instructs the sick men to go to the priests, the only ones who could deem them “clean” again. They did as Jesus told them, and they were healed on the way. All 10 of these men were handed a fresh start to life. It changed the rest of their lives. But the narrative gives us an interesting and unexpected detail. The passage says only one of those 10 men returned to Jesus to thank him and give God praise. Jesus responds to this with a series of three questions: “Were not 10 cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Luke 17:17–18).
At face value, the answer to Jesus’s questions were: “Yes, there were 10. I don’t know where the other nine are. No one else returned to give God praise.” But of course, Jesus didn’t want to know where the other nine were physically at the moment. He wanted everyone who was around to understand what was taking place. At a deeper level, beyond the simple answer to the questions, was a lesson learned. The men failed to value God’s healing and out of their ingratitude withheld praise to God.
Jesus Sees You
Honestly assessing our heart conditions can be a scary exercise. Like with the nine ungrateful lepers, Jesus’s questions for us often reveal the miserable condition of our lives. While much of our experience is unpredictable and sometimes unexplainable, some things are constant. The human heart consistently needs God’s help. Our hearts have been affected by sin and sadness, doubt and disappointment, ruin and regret, and anxiety and anger. We are often left wondering, “Can I experience joy, forgiveness, and peace?”
The fact that our hearts are a mess and our lives are messy is overwhelming. However, the same Master Teacher Jesus who asked questions to penetrate hearts is also the resurrected savior Jesus who meets us in our mess.
This was precisely the experience of Jesus’s followers after his resurrection. Many of them were in dire straits as they were left reeling from the catastrophe they witnessed on Golgotha when Jesus was crucified. There they saw the one they had followed and believed in be crucified as a criminal. Their lives would have been over had the story ended there. But it didn’t.
These same disciples see Jesus alive from the dead. When Jesus sees Mary Magdalene weeping by the empty tomb, he enters into her grief, asking, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” ( John 20:15). Later, he finds Thomas entrenched in doubt and asks him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” (John 20:29). Jesus meets two confused men on the road to Emmaus and inquires, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” (Luke 24:16). Seven of the disciples return to fishing after the passion week events, and Jesus gets their attention with this question: “Children, do you have any fish?” ( John 21:5). Consider his conversation with Peter who was neck-deep in regret: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” ( John 21:15). Even Saul, who in his murderous rage seeks to arrest and harm Christians, is confronted by the resurrected Jesus. While on the road to Damascus, he sees a great light accompanied by these words, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4).
Jesus continues to meet us in these places of grief, doubt, confusion, wandering, regret, and anger. The same kinds of questions he asked 2,000 years ago are the questions he relays to us in our mess today: Why are you weeping? Do you love me? What are you doing? Why don’t you believe in me? Will you trust me? Jesus’s questions expose our underlying struggles and turn our eyes to him.
As a pastor, I get the privilege of leading a church family and learning their stories. It’s an honor to rejoice when they celebrate and cry when they’re broken. The greatest point of comfort for me, and those I minister to, is that God loves us and is near to the broken-hearted. God is present in your pain. Jesus meets you in your mess.
Our struggles look different, and God ignores none of them. He invites his children to rest in him. He invites you to do that as you read this book. Perhaps you battle chronic pain and each day is a fight as you wonder why God hasn’t answered your prayers. Maybe you look at life and are overwhelmingly displeased with where you’re at. Perhaps you have been hurt by someone you love or find yourself in a perpetual battle with a particular sin. Or maybe you’re simply not hungering for God. You’re disappointed by your lack of longing and can faintly remember a time when you were passionate in your faith. Maybe you’re reading this and are about ready to throw in the towel. These scenarios are messy. They’re aggravating. And you may feel like you’re all alone. But Jesus sees you.
I pray you would see how the risen Jesus not only encountered his disciples in their mess but how he encounters us today. I pray God would nourish your soul and fortify your faith as you recognize you’re not alone. The resurrected Jesus meets you in your mess, and because he lives, your sorrows can turn into joyful hope, your confusion into a settled trust, your doubts into secure confidence, your regret into real forgiveness, and your anger into purposeful peace.
The following is adapted from “Unexpected Jesus: How the Resurrected Christ Finds Us, Meets Us, Heals Us” by Eric Rivera.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Doucefleur
Eric Rivera is lead pastor and church planter, with his wife, Erikah, of The Brook, a multi-ethnic church in Chicago, and Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
