The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Would It Have Been Fun to Be Jesus?

Episode Date: February 21, 2020

Jesus could heal people, walk on water, control the weather, multiply food, make wine, walk through walls, and wake the dead. Having such incredible abilities sounds amazing, but would it have been fun to be Jesus? Though there were moments of happiness and fun, the purpose of Jesus’ ministry was to tell people to repent and return to the Father, and many, including his own disciples, rejected and denied him. He knew that this would happen, but did not use his power to stop it. The things most worth pursuing in life (marriage, raising kids, having a deep spiritual life, etc.) are never going to be fun all the time, because love isn’t just fun and warm fuzzy feelings. The goal of life isn’t to have as much fun as possible before we die, it’s to live a life like Jesus, one that is centered on the love of God. Snippet from the Show “Our goal in relationships is not fun. It’s love.” Email me at [e-mail] Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get added to the shownotes email list!

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show, episode 154. Would it have been fun to be Jesus? Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show. Welcome to the show, my friend. Again, We get a chance to come together to talk about things related to our relationship with the Lord. And specifically, I'm very interested in Bible study, very interested in discipleship and taking the faith and putting it into practice in everyday life. And isn't that to struggle at times, if you're married, if you have children, grandchildren, you have a job, you have friends, you have bills, you've got a lot to work with in life to make things. happen and to be successful in the kingdom of God. But it takes some knowledge, it takes some

rolling up of the sleeves, and it takes some hard work. And that's what we're prepared to talk about every single week. Coming to you deep, deep in the woods of Minnesota, it is so white out right now, fresh coating of snow, wind blowing the snow across the surface. I love it. A lot of people say I want to get away in the winter, but I don't know. There's something about the quiet of winter. and the, it's like a rest, and then spring will come, summer will be busy, fall will be a preparation, we'll be back here again. But I enjoy the four seasons of Minnesota, especially in the woods and the beautiful lakes, and it's just a joy to sit here looking out and to talk to you at the same time. Got a great topic this week, a topic that I've been thinking about, you know,

I got back from the Holy Land a couple weeks ago, because it was there all January, and when you're there, you're really confronted with the life of Christ. You're walking the Via Dolorosa, you know, the stations of the cross, you're at the Holy Sepulcher, you're on the Mount of Olives where Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and you go to Caiaphas's house where Jesus was arrested and Peter denied the Lord, and you're at the Sea of Galilee, where there's reconciliation and teaching, and there's just so much about his life. And I got to thinking earlier this week about the life of Jesus. And there's so much in our culture, and frankly, in our education systems in the church as well, that are really centered, you know, we're really centered on having fun,

and we're centered on me being happy and my needs being met and so forth. And all of a sudden, I thought of the question, would it have been fun to be Jesus? I mean, that's a good question to think about, would it have been fun to be Jesus? That's what we're going to talk about today, and I think you're going to find it very interesting, and we're going to drive it home to our own lives as members of the body of Christ as well, maybe even touch on marriage a little bit. A couple of emails that I received, and by the way, you can write me at the Jeffcaven Show at ascensionpress.com, and we get email from literally all over the world, and I do appreciate your feedback, your suggestions for shows, your praise reports as to what God is doing in your

life. I love hearing all about that, and we read it and take it seriously. We have, and I hope I have your name right, Julia, from Scotland. And if I have that right, yay, if I don't, pray for me. But writing from Scotland, you wrote, thank you for sharing your prayer for your daughters. And, yeah, we had a show, didn't we? It was show 145, prayed for our daughters. She said, thank you for that prayer for your daughters, which is absolutely beautiful, and which I want to start praying for my daughters, too. Could you pray for my daughter, Rebecca, who is 15 months old, and for the twin girls I'm expecting? Wow, that's great. You're going to have three daughters. She writes, could you also send me a copy of the prayer you shared in your podcast? And thank

you for all you do for your listeners from Scotland. You know what I'm going to do for you? Not only am I going to pray for Rebecca and pray for your twins on the way, but I am also going to put in the show notes of this show, the information where you can just click and you can get that prayer for your daughters. And if you want to pray for your daughters, that's episode 145. If you want to learn how to pray for your sons, that's episode 146. Let's all lift up Rebecca. Lord, we lift up Rebecca to you right now. now and ask you to bless this child who's 15 months old. God protect this child, protect her innocence, guard her as she's growing up, protect her vocation, and pray that she would grow up

and love you and yield much fruit in your kingdom. And bless Julia's twins that she's carrying right now, she's expecting, may they be blessed and may they sing your praise one day and truly be disciples of you, O Lord. We pray this in your name. Amen. Thank you. Scotland, writing me, Julia. And we also have from Keith in Nashville, good morning, he says, I do not recall how I found you and your show. Well, I don't either. And you know, some people, they'll just do a Google search, and they'll come up with the show, and they might not even be Catholic, but they get a hold of the show because of a topic or something, and Keith writes and says, I don't recall how I found you and your show, but it's absolutely wonderful. I'm currently listening to Episode 51, and you mentioned about

sending out automatically show notes weekly. You may have trashed that idea, as I do not know the airing date of this show. At any rate, if this is an option, I would love to be on the weekly show notes email list. Keith, you got it. All you got to do, my friend, is just text. Jeff K.K. in one word, J-E-F-F-F-C-A-V-I-N-S, Jeff Kavins, at 33-7. This is what you text. 3-3-7-7. That's the number. You text. 3-3-7-7. Boom, it's done. You're in. I'll be with you for all the future shows. And that's true with anyone. That's not just a Keith special this week. That's for all of you this week. To our topic, would it have been fun to be Jesus? let me kind of set the stage here for this show. You and I live in a really interesting time in the world. In ancient days, whenever that was for you or for your grandparents or your great-great-grandparents, life was a little bit more than fun. Life was certainly fun and joyous at times, but life was a lot of, what are we going to eat? Where are we going to live? How are we

going to pay our bills and farmers with the seasons. And people were not so much focused on leisure time and extra money and social media and YouTube and squirrels on skateboards and so forth. But life was pretty serious for a lot of people. And today in the world, particularly in America, even those who are struggling at a poverty level or below that poverty level have relatively more time in their life than people did long ago. And it is filled oftentimes with the pursuit of what? Fun, happiness, joy. And there's certainly nothing wrong with fun. There's nothing wrong with happiness. There's nothing wrong with joy. Our world is really oriented in that way. The problem comes in that when that becomes our goal in life, that I'm simply going to have

fun in my life. Life becomes somewhat shallow at that point. And without the foundation of a meaningful relationship with God and a substantive relationship with one another, there's only so far you can go with that before you start to feel like a shell of a person. You start to feel pretty empty inside. And so life is more than fun. Life is more than just pursuing happiness at a, you know, a physical level, whether it's things or experiences. And you know as well as I do that our culture really is oriented towards marketing to you and to me that life is pretty fun, you know. You're going to have fun with the new car and the outfits that you're going to buy and the experiences you can have and the resorts you can go to and so forth. Now, before you write me off on this,

I just want to say, life can be fun. And there are are a lot of fun things in life, right? There's a lot of joyful things in life. You've got relationships with the kids and the grandkids and birthdays and anniversaries and experiences and vacations, and this is certainly part of life. But it isn't all of life any more than the transfiguration with Jesus on Mount Tabor was all there is. They had to go down in the valley and they live life, right? And that's the nature of living. Unfortunately, we often judge our parishes based on, am I having fun? Was that a fun homily? Is that a fun priest? And the activities oftentimes are based on, is it fun? And for many youth groups, it is the gauge by which we judge success. Is it a fun

youth group? Our kids having fun at the church? And if our kids are having fun at the church, and if our kids are having fun at the church, yay. But that isn't how we really prepare people for life, is it? If they have problems in life when they're 25, 30, 35, 40 years old, we don't come to them and say, I don't understand why you're having so many difficulties in your life. Didn't you have fun in youth group back when you were in church in high school? Well, I did. Yes, but that didn't prepare you, did it, for living. You see, we have to prepare ourselves for living by facing reality in life. and the difficulties that we face, with the answers that the gospel provides, and the relationship with Jesus, that's what really gets us through life. In marriage, when, if you ask people,

is your marriage fun? Is your spouse fun? Are you fun as a spouse? Well, the answer is probably going to be what? Well, yeah. And no, right? Yes, there are times when our marriage is fun, and there are times where it's a lot of work. Am I always fun for Emily? No, you can ask her. No, don't. Don't even email her. But no, I'm not always fun, and we're not always having fun raising our children. Do you always have fun raising your children? No, you don't. You know, it's interesting in marriage, before we get on to Jesus here, it's interesting in marriage. When neither spouse feels like they are receiving what they first felt at the beginning of the relationship, you can have difficulties in the marriage. And each is looking

at the other person and saying, you aren't as fun as you were when we first got married. And they may say to you right back, you're not as fun as you were when we first got married. And so what do you do when the fun is gone? What do you do when there doesn't seem to be fun in the relationship? That's when you turn to love. And love isn't always fun. If you look at a crucifix of Jesus, you're looking at pure love being poured out for the sins of the world, and it is not fun, but it's love and it's real, and it's transforming. And so I want to encourage you, I want to encourage you this week. And again, don't get me wrong, I'm always speaking to myself on this show. I want to encourage you this week that the goal in our relationship with God, our goal in our relationship

with our parish, our goal in our relationship with our pastor, our goal in our relationship with our spouse, our goal in our relationship with our kids, our goal in our relationship with our job and our boss, the goal and the gauge is not fun. That isn't the goal. The goal is holiness. The goal is Christ's mission. The goal is love. That's the goal in all of these relationships, and that's where the sleeves are rolled up, and we begin to work. When you look at the complete life of Jesus, ask yourself the question, how much of this is fun? how much of this is fun? Again, would it have been fun to be Jesus? I thought about this week actually taking a Bible and taking a marker and yellow was fun and green or blue, I'll say blue was not

fun. And to go through the Gospels and start highlighting, this is fun, this is not fun, you know, in terms of the life of Jesus. And being honest about that and then realizing that's the way my life is too at times. in every area of my life. You know, Jesus is the center of our life, isn't he? He's the center of our life, and he's God, and he could walk through doors, he could multiply loaves, he could raise the dead, he could heal the sick, he could know what you were thinking, and you're thinking to yourself, man, that would be fun. That would be so cool to do that. But look at the other side of the coin in being Jesus. It wasn't fun. It wasn't fun. But it was truth and it was love and it was merciful and it was just. And we're going to talk more about that on the other side of this break. You're

listening to the Jeff Kaven show. My name is Father Mark Toop's author of The Way of the Cross praying the Psalms with Jesus. Jesus, as an observant Jewish man, would have gone through his days with the Psalms constantly on his lips. And in these new reflections on this ancient tradition, what to invite you to come even closer to our Lord, to meditate on his heart and to pray

as he would have prayed in the moments of his passion. It will fundamentally change the way you experience the stations of the cross. I'll just pray about Jesus, pray with him on the journey to Calvary. To order the way of the cross praying the Psalms with Jesus, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome back to the Jeff Kaven show, and we're talking today about would it have been fun to be Jesus? And the answer is, sometimes and sometimes not, just like real life. So let's take a look at it for a moment, shall we? Would it have been fun to be Jesus? Well, when you look at his life, you certainly do see, as some of the things I mentioned before the break, he walked through walls, and he multiplied bread, he raised the dead, he healed, and he knew the thoughts of some people, and he was very clever at getting out of situations. But when you start to read the life of Jesus, you have the public ministry of Jesus starting at age 30.

And at age 30, he began to engage the crowds, and he began to engage people with the gospel. And one of the things that he said was he said that this gospel, this message of mind, is not always a unifying factor. In fact, sometimes there will be splits in families, there will be a father against the daughter, the daughter against the mother, and so forth. And this message is very powerful, not intentionally, but it can. happen, and that sometimes is not fun. When you look at Jesus' life, you'll see things in there that are not fun. For example, he spent time evading people. For example, in Luke chapter 4, he's in his hometown

of Nazareth, and he reads Isaiah, and everybody's like, Homeboy, done good, you know, this is great, this is super. And then he starts to talk to them about their own relationship with God and how the Gentiles in fact, are even more receptive than the local people. And at that point, what do they do? They bring him to the edge of the city, to the precipice, and they want to hurl him over to his death. But he evades the crowd and walks through them. What would it be like to be in your own hometown and to be rejected? To be rejected by those that you love and those that you care about. You might be saying to me right now, Jeff, I experience that. I'm in. that right now. I want my family. I want my mother. I want my father, want my sisters. I want my relatives

to know the joy of the Lord that I'm experiencing and the deep sense of purpose, but they don't. In fact, they reject me. Maybe you're saying that, and that's not fun. That isn't fun, but it is an opportunity to love. It's an opportunity to dig deep and go deeper and to love them with the same love in which Jesus loved the people of Nazareth, this small, for the most part, insignificant city that he came from, they were rejecting him. Now, he could have said, hold on, Nazareth, hold on a little bit here. Don't you know I'm God? Homeboy becomes God. That's a pretty good headline. No, that's not the way he went. He continued to love them. But think about going a little bit deeper here. When you look at the 12 disciples that Jesus had hanging around with them and teaching, I'm sure there were fun times,

don't get me wrong, but two of the disciples betrayed him. They betrayed him. Have you ever been betrayed? That's a tough thing to go through, isn't it? To experience betrayal by people who you love and are close to you. It's one thing to be rejected by your local city. And by the way, if you experience that in your own hometown and you don't seem to be taken seriously in your parish or whatever, join with Jesus and do what Jesus did. Jesus, what do you do? He didn't fight them. He became the best son possible. The best son possible. And that's what our role is as well as a son, as a daughter, is that we will, you know, so I'm rejected. So you become the best son. You become the best son. You become the best. the best friend. But Jesus was rejected by two of his closest friends, and the one chapter in the gospel that has them both in it is Luke 22. I'll put it in the show notes for you. That's part of the texting my name to 33777. You'll get all the show notes. In Luke 22, Jesus is betrayed by

both the good and the bad. He's betrayed by the bad, which is Judas, obviously, and Judas agrees to betray Jesus. And it says in Chapter 22, now the Feast of Unleavened Bread called the Passover was approaching, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, or they were afraid of the people. And then Satan entered Judas, called Ascariot, one of the 12, and Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed, to give him money, he consented and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. That's not fun. That wasn't fun. That was not a fun day in Jesus' life

to be betrayed by Judas, the one who had been walking with him for three years, the one that took care of the money, the one who participated in the miracles, the one who saw the dead raised and lives changed. He betrayed Jesus. He betrayed him for a little bit of money. And of course, Jesus was betrayed in the Garden of Gassimity, and Judas went out and hung himself. But there's another one that also betrayed Jesus. Same chapter. And it's the good guy. It's the first pope. It's Peter. St. Peter denied the Lord. The closest, one of the three closest to Jesus, betrayed him. Would it have been fun to be Jesus? Not on that day. Luke 22, starting in verse 54, then they seized him and led him away, bringing him

into the high priest's house. And Peter was following at a distance, and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl seeing him as he sat in the light, and looking closely at him, said, this man also was with him. But he denied it, saying, woman, I do not know him. Not a fun day. Verse 58. and a little later someone else saw him and said, You also are one of them. But Peter said, man, I am not. Verse 59, and after an interval of about an hour,

still another insisted saying, certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean. But Peter said, man, I do not know what you're talking about. That wasn't a fun day. And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. and Peter remembered the saying of the Lord how he had said to him before the rooster crows

today, you will deny me three times, and he went out and wept bitterly. Wow. So you have in Luke 22, two people contributing to a less than fun day for Jesus, Judas and Peter. But what's interesting is that the desire of the Lord for their responses, was the same. Judas, come to me. Humble yourself. Reconciliation. Judas would not. Pride, ruled. But Peter. Peter eventually comes back, doesn't he? He does. He comes back at the end of the gospel. Remember that? At the end of the gospel, in John, Jesus meets up with Peter again at a fire on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee and affirms him once again. but Peter's heart was different than Judas. Judas filled with pride, Peter, with reconciliation. Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. But more to my point in Luke 22, would it have been fun to be Jesus?

Again, fun is not the gauge for us in terms of success or meaning or participation at church or the struggles that we go through in our families. If I'm not having fun, this must be wrong. I wanted my family to be fun. I wanted my kids to have fun with me. But it doesn't turn out that way. You know, there's other, what would it be like if you were Jesus in in John chapter 7 and Luke chapter 4, leadership is trying to kill you. People are trying to kill you.

And there's other instances in the gospel where the leadership is trying to kill him. don't you think that Jesus would have, I'm speaking purely in human terms here, have loved the affirmation of leadership in Jerusalem, that the leadership and the scribes and the Pharisees would like him and affirm him? That would be fun. But he didn't get that. In Matthew 4, he's tempted three times in a radical way by the enemy. Would it have been fun to be Jesus? 40 days in the wilderness. We're going to be coming up to Lent here shortly. Is Lent fun? Can we make it fun for you? I think you get what I'm saying there is that this isn't the gauge for the success of your marriage or your being a father or a mother or Lent. He was lied about to

pilot. That wasn't fun, not affirmed by leadership. But here's the thing. We could go on and on and on, and certainly I'm sure that there were some fun times and there were some hilarious times, you know, with the disciples in joyful times, because I think Jesus had a sense of humor, and he was a joyful person, and I think Jesus knew how to have fun, but it wasn't his gauge. He didn't say, Father, I have come into the world to have fun. No, what do you say? He says, in John 17, he said, I've come into the world to do your will. I've come to do your will. He says, I don't do anything, I don't say anything other than what I see and hear my father doing and saying. That's the gauge. and sometimes it'll take you to places you don't want to go, as Jesus said to Peter, he said, Peter, Peter, you're going to go to places you didn't want to go and people are going to do things to you, you didn't want them to have done to you, you're going to ultimately be crucified upside down in Rome. Would it have been fun to be Peter? Would it have been fun to be Paul? Would it have been fun to be Jesus? Now here's the thing about it that I want to kind of bring this into the airport here,

that really got me thinking this week. If it is not all about fun with Jesus in his life, what about me? Well, I'm connected to Jesus. I've picked up his mission. I want his mind, and I want his heart. In other words, I want to be the body of Christ. And you and I are the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. That means that we have to ask the question, would it have been total fun to be the body of Christ? Is it just fun to be the body of Christ? I think you know the answer by now. No. It can be fun at times. It can be joyful at times, but at times it's hard work, isn't it? You know that. You know what you're going through right now at work. You know what you're going through in your marriage. You know what you're going through with those kids. You do. Your finances?

tons of fun. You know that life can be difficult at times, but this is where God comes in. We bring this to the Lord, and we learn through the things we suffered, as it says of Jesus in Hebrews. We learn through the things we suffered. And Paul said, in Colossians 124, I'll put in the show notes, I rejoice in my suffering for your sake, and I fill up in my body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. I like what Paul said to the Philippians in chapter 1, verses 21 through 26. He talks about this idea of, boy, it would be fun. It would be great to go on and be with the Lord in heaven. Yay, right? And he struggles. He says, I want to go to be with the Lord. I want to be here on earth for you. But I know what that will mean if I stay here on earth. I know what it will

mean. Listen to what he says. For me, to live is Christ. And to die is gain. If it is to be life in the flesh. That means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I am hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. So Paul is faced with this decision, and I'll just use the word fun for the heck of it here. He says, you know, for me to go on and be with the Lord is going to be fun, but for me to stay here in the flesh means labor. He says, I don't know

which I'm going to do. I don't know. I'm torn. But for me, if I'm going to remain, it's going to be necessary for you, and he remains. Did he have fun when he was remaining? I imagine there was a little bit have fun in there. And then he was in prison, remember that? So I want to encourage you. And maybe you're at a place right now where you've been thinking, life isn't fun. And maybe it isn't right now for you. I would encourage you to get close to Jesus, to get his mind and to get his mission, to adopt his mission, and to see those opportunities where it doesn't seem to be fun as opportunities to grow, to minister to others, to love, and lay down your life. And lay down your life. Don't look for just the feeling of fun. That isn't what the cross was all about. It was about

salvation in eternal life. But if you're going to live on here in the flesh, it means labor. It means that you will take that time in your marriage and your relationships, your children, and at work, and certainly in your own relationship with the Lord, it takes time to grow, and it takes some elbow grease, or shall we say, some spiritual elbow grease to do that. Would it have been fun to be Jesus? Sure and no. Is it fun for you to be a Christian today? Sure and no. But in the no, it's an opportunity to grow, and it's an opportunity to become like Jesus. That's the beautiful thing about life, you know, and I'm not that old, but I look back and I can see in my life a lot of fun, and I can also see a lot of difficulty in times, but it's in those difficult times that I made

the most growth. I made the most. In the deserts you grow and you appreciate the lush, beautiful, green parts of the land of Canaan, but it's in that silent, unpredictable time that oftentimes you hear the voice of the Lord. The question really isn't, would it have been fun to be Jesus? Really the question is, would it have been fulfilling to be Jesus? And the answer is yes. Absolutely. There is great fulfillment in Christ, and there's great joy, and there is a deep sense of love. Not always fun, but always love. Allow me to pray for you, my friend, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you today that you have called us. by name you have chosen us to follow you. And Lord, you have not guaranteed us fun, but you have offered life, eternal life. And you said that if we're going to follow you, we have to pick up

our cross and follow you. And you said that we would find out who we are as we follow you. And I love, Lord, that quote from one of your servants, Pope John Paul II, that we find ourselves by giving ourselves away. Help us, Lord, to be like you, to live a sacrificial life. and help us to see the gauge of our life as holiness and faithfulness rather than fun all the time. Help us to break away from this culture, from the city of darkness to the city of light. I pray this in your mighty name, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Remember, my friend, you can write me an email, The Jeff Kaven's show at ascensionpress.com, and I want you to know something, and I'm going to ask you to do something.

I'm going to ask you to pray for me, and I want you to know, I love you, and I'm praying for you. Have a great week.