Jesus: The Brilliant Lesson Plan Of God

Joshua Crawford

A quantum mechanics professor has the daunting task of teaching young minds how nature operates at the atomic and subatomic level.  How does anyone make such a complex subject understandable?  As difficult as it is to make quantum mechanics understandable for college students, how much harder is it to make the subject of God understandable to men and women? God knew this would challenge us, so He brilliantly chose to teach us about Himself in a way we’d understand – by becoming a man, Jesus Christ.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…” (Hebrews 1:1-3) Instead of continuing to speak and demonstrate His power and glory in bits and pieces through men as He did in the Old Testament, God poured all His glory and perfect nature into Jesus, as Colossians 2:9 says, “For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…” In fact, in John 14, when Philip the disciple told Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us,” (v. 8) Jesus replied, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (v. 9)In coming to live among us as Jesus, God was like the passionate professor who leaves his comfortable teaching podium, pulls up a chair alongside a student after class, and begins to personally teach the lesson.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14). The lesson God wanted us to grasp was Himself, His Word. Professors are commended when they make a lesson come to life; God actually made His Word come to life in the person of Jesus Christ. During his time on earth, Jesus portrayed God as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…” just as God described Himself in Exodus 34:6. Jesus also told us things about the kingdom of God that we never knew before, such as the kingdom of God being “like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” (Luke 13:19)

In tough times, we may feel distant from our heavenly Father, just as we feel distant from a subject like quantum mechanics.  After all, He says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9). Thinking about the majesty of God, David even questioned, “…what is man that you are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4)  Yet, God is mindful of us and cares enough to reach across the gap to connect with us, as the life and death of Jesus proves.  Do we see God as the unapproachable professor, unwilling to teach us in terms we understand?  Or do we see God as the humble teacher, who stops at nothing to teach us?