Kneeling Before Him
Let’s spend been some time with our eyes on Jesus this week. Let's go to Matthew 9:18-26, which is the story of Jesus healing Jairus's daughter. It starts with these words: "While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him." And in Mark's Gospel we learn that his name was Jairus.
The Posture of True Worship
Now if you worship with me online on a Sunday night, you would have heard that we unpacked this whole bowing before God thing in quite a lot of detail last night. We sang a bunch of songs as well, about bowing in God's presence because when we bow, we show our respect and our reverence for God.
Now this man Jairus was a leader of the synagogue. That was quite a high position - he had quite a lot of responsibility and quite a lot of authority in the community because of this position. And yet when he comes to Jesus, he bows. It doesn't matter who you are, when you come to Jesus, you got to fall on your knees because oh man, He is greater!
Finding Balance in Our Approach to Jesus
And it's an interesting thing because Jesus was humble. He didn't strut around like He was the leader. He was a servant, He was kind, and yet when somehow people came into His presence they sensed His authority, which came from God.
And like I said last night, I think we've lost this to some extent. We focus a lot on how Jesus is a friend to us, which is a good thing, of course He is. But I think sometimes we forget to bow before Him. We forget to fall on our knees. We forget to kneel. If somebody high up like a synagogue leader can do it, we should all be bowing before this Man.
And so my thought for us today is this: When we come to Jesus, let's come bowing. Yes, we come confidently because of His grace. Yes, we don't come cowering in fear, but we come with great reverence and humility, bowing in His presence.
I believe that when Jesus takes that sort of place in our lives, when we treat Him with that sort of respect, it means our faith is in the right place.
And so may your knees get scuffed because you spend so much time in reverence before Jesus.
