Tourist Faith

I have been reading the book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, by Eugene Peterson. I gotta say, it's a great book. Peterson has a professors mind with a pastors heart. And that really comes through in his writing. He really communicates that he loves people and he wants people to love Jesus and experience Jesus in everyday life. If you have never read the Message paraphrase of the Bible then I highly suggest you check it out. Anyways, I was reading last night at the Gym, I went to the gym twice yesterday as pennance for eating pizza with my wife. As I was reading I came across this section where Peterson was talking about Jesus in the Gospel of John. There is this part a couple of days before the Crucifixion where Philip has an encounter wiht greeks who are in Jerusalem for the Passover and they want to meet Jesus. Jesus denies them access during this time because he was focused on his mission. Peterson said that Philip was acting as a sort of spiritual tour guide trying to take people to Jesus so they can say that they met him, and go home and tell all their friends. This quote really hit me, "Jesus doesn't pose for photographs." Jesus isn't looking to be a tourist attraction, or even a spectacle. He came with one purpose to bring grace and forgiveness to the world. The crowd, the spectators, the tourists were all distractions from that purpose. Yeah Jesus taught to the multitudes and he fed the multitudes out of compassion, and he did miracles that drew a crowd. But the crowd wasn'tthe purpose behind all of those things. The Purpose was to provide signs that Jesus was who he said he was. I think we are all guilty from time to time of trying to be spiritual tourist or tour guides. Pastors often settle with just getting people to see Jesus, but really we need to work to be change agents not just tour guides. And Christians, myself included can find times when really we just want to visit Jesus like we would Mikey Mouse at Disneyland. We are in a season right now when we are going to have a lot of Tourists. Easter is the biggest sunday of the year (and it should be). My hope is that during this season churches will be able to capture the hearts of the tourists and compell them to move into the neighborhood with Jesus.