Thank You Jesus (Sign)
There’s a Thank You Jesus sign in my front yard.
I have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I like it. It reminds me of everything I have to be grateful for.
If it weren’t for my implanted cardiac defibrillator cruising around inside me, I would have died about 8.5 years ago. Thank you, science!
But if it weren’t for Jesus, I’d still be stuck in an endless rotation between extreme ambition and pride, before moving into a cycle of self doubt and anxiety (and back again). Only the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus shows me that my own life is not about me, my goals, or what I might think “success” is. Instead, it’s about picking up a cross and following Him, regardless of how imperfectly I may do that. So thank you, Jesus!
So there are reasons to like this sign.
On the other hand, I don’t like the sign.
It sort of feels like the type of things that *some* Christians have in their yard. I cringe a bit if I envision a Thank You Jesus sign sprouting from the same yard as a Let’s Go Brandon sign. I can’t prove it, I just imagine there’s a decent overlapping middle area in the Venn diagram of people with “Christian” yard signs and people with aggressive political signs. This post is not about politics, but I happen to believe that the real Jesus would not be welcome as a keynote speaker at a convention for either of the big political parties today. He’d be far too offensive to both and would make all the candidates uncomfortable.
And speaking of comfort, I am a person who doesn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I certainly don’t want to offend new neighbors whom I’m still in the process of meeting. After all, I know Jesus certainly wants me to love my neighbors. He has some strong things to say about that.
One of the religious authorities of his day asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. Here’s how he replied in Mathew 22:37–39 (ESV).
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
So Jesus says that loving my neighbor as myself is similar to loving God. And when he says “all the Law and the Prophets”, he’s talking about the entire Torah (the Law) and The Prophets (the second division of the Hebrew Bible). In other words, a pretty comprehensive summary. So I can certainly find some justification in the Bible for not being intentionally offensive.
But if I’m being completely honest, I also find my sign to be kind of embarrassing.
And that’s the real reason I don’t like the sign.
These days, I’m a bit less fearful when it comes to talking about Jesus. I am firmly convinced it’s not intellectual self-destruction to believe he is precisely who he claimed to be, and I know what He has done for me personally. But I want to be rather subtle about it. That feels comfortable. My Thank You Jesus yard sign does not qualify as my definition of subtle. Nope. It feels out of character and uncomfortable.
…And I think that’s perhaps why it’s up now. I certainly know I wasn’t hit by a strong desire for a Thank You Jesus sign to be decorating my yard. I also know that Jesus doesn’t need some yard sign to let him know that I think he is worthy of gratitude. He doesn’t need some kind of gift from me for its own sake. He doesn’t work that way.
Instead, it was an opportunity to obey. It was begrudging obedience (my standard version of obedience), but obedience nonetheless. He wants me to obey and follow, and I can’t do that unless I trust that He is good. And that’s what He cares about. He cares about hearts. He cares about people. He cares about my motivations and the posture of my heart. He’s not really interested in letting me stay the way I am. And that’s because of who He is and what He does. He’s the great physician. He heals hearts.
Early in his ministry, Jesus was eating dinner with the social outcasts of his day. He was eating with sinners and tax collectors. Sinners were the “bad people” of course, but the tax collectors were even worse. They were considered traitors to their own people for their collaboration with the Roman empire. To make matters worse, they had a reputation for lining their own pockets by collecting even more than was required by Rome.
The religious leaders of the day were shocked by this scandalous dinner group. Here was this guy who was making a name for himself as a great teacher and healer, and he was hanging out with the pariahs, the rejects. It didn’t seem to add up and they asked what the heck was going on. And here’s what Jesus said in Mark 2:17 (ESV).
And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
And man, then it hits me again.
This Jesus actually loves broken people like me. Because of what He has done, I am accepted and can live a whole new life.
Thank you, Jesus.
