Jesus Christ Blog

By John Fischer

If you should see someone alone and crying on a bus — or anywhere else, for that matter — you might want to consider asking that person what’s wrong. That simple act of concern may be enough to save a life. It would have been enough to keep John Kevin Hines from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge four years ago. As it turned out, he lived to tell about it anyway.

Halfway through his four-second, 220-foot plunge into 50° water, with his nineteen-year-old life flashing before him, Hines found himself thinking, “What did I just do? I don’t want to die.” His youth and excellent physical condition were what helped him be one of the few to survive the popular suicide leap — that, and his newfound determination to live.

A struggling bi-polar mental patient, he had been in the severe grip of depression a number of times, as he has since his jump, but his survival has given him a newfound sense of purpose in his life: to help prevent others from trying what he calls “a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

“I was supposed to die,” he said. “I wanted to die. Every day that jump prompts me to ask, ‘Who am I? Why am I?’” For John Kevin, having a purpose in life is what keeps him alive now.

A most revealing part of his story is what we would do well to reflect upon today. He relates that on the morning of his attempt, he kissed his father good-by and boarded a bus to the bridge, crying most of the way. On the bus, he told himself that if anyone asked him what was wrong, he wouldn’t jump. No one did.

He had only one human encounter on that fateful trip, and it was on the bridge itself just prior to jumping. After 40 minutes at the railing, crying and wrestling with his demons, a tourist stopped and asked if he would take her picture. He did, and as she walked off he thought, “That’s it. I’m going. Nobody cares.”

It’s so easy to say someone else’s problems are “none of my business,” but nothing could be more wrong. We are all each other’s business. Just a simple acknowledgment of someone else’s pain was all Mr. Hines bargained for with his life. He wouldn’t have even asked someone to solve anything. Just care enough to ask.

Fear is about what could happen.

                                                                            Faith is about what will happen.

By John Fischer

Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call sinners, not those who think they are already good enough. (Mark 2:17)?

If Jesus has come to call sinners and those who need a doctor, what does that say about those of us who have heard the call and are currently following Him? It means we’re the sick ones—the sinners—the ones who got the call. (Or do you cross some line after you are called to where you are presumably good enough and don’t need a doctor anymore?) Why do we miss something this obvious?

This is good news for the lowly. But it’s more than that. It’s good news for only the lowly. Those who don’t see themselves as lowly don’t get the call. You really don’t get it about Jesus until you realize that He turned everything religious on its head. Holy, righteous people don’t get to follow Jesus, and it stands to reason because they don’t need to. They’re already okay. They called themselves.

Of course this doesn’t mean that lowly people don’t get to be righteous. In fact they are the most righteous because they don’t see themselves that way. Their righteousness is not in their own eyes, it is in the eyes of Christ. Truly righteous people keep seeing themselves as lowly, and they stand continually amazed in the presence of a very holy God who sees them as healthy and whole.

This is also why these people are quick to serve. Because they already see everyone as better than themselves, serving is a genuine thing. It’s the appropriate thing to do: give credit where credit is due—to someone other than me. Thus serving is not some magnanimous move of a proud man stooping to play the role of a servant because that’s what you’re supposed to do if you follow Christ. No, serving is doing what comes naturally from the humble place one occupies all the time.

Conversely, people who see themselves as above others are going to have a very hard time serving anybody. So I suppose I could turn this around and say that if I have a hard time serving, why is that? Is it because I see myself as better than most other people? (Why do you think I know so much about this? Because I’m so good at thinking this way. Believe me, I speak of what I know.)

“But wait a minute,” someone is sure to say, “someone has to be good enough. Someone has to be healthy. Someone has to be the example others can look up to.” Yes, this is true, but just make sure you don’t think it’s you, because the minute you think you’re the one, you put yourself in a group of people Jesus didn’t come for. And who wants to be there?

 By John Fischer

A recent New Yorker cartoon has a couple standing arm in arm and
staring up at the night sky. The caption reads: “I’m not religious—I’m just scared.”

It’s a good beginning, actually. Being scared is the first step toward real religion. That must have been what Solomon had in mind when he wrote that: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).

By the way: here’s what I think: People who aren’t scared, are just bluffing.