Follow Jesus

 

I am not a social media person. I have a Facebook account that I use to occasionally look at posts by immediate family and friends. Twitter finally forced me to create an account so I could see posts by my school’s sports teams. I have never been on TikTok or any other site. I don’t follow anybody and nobody follows me and I am content with that. Some day that will probably change but I’m not looking forward to it. I am amazed that there are people out there who have over one hundred million followers.

 

The earliest Christians were known as “Followers of the Way”, presumably referring to Jesus who described Himself as “…the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6).

 

Jesus said that He is the Good Shepherd. He calls us as His sheep to follow Him. “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be” (Jn 12:26). The question is: Where is Jesus going today? Wherever He goes, that is where we should be going, not necessarily physically but at least in our minds and hearts and spirits.

 

During the three years of His ministry, Jesus associated with the poor and the outcasts of society. Jesus used the parable of the Good Samaritan to expand our definition of who our neighbor is that we are called to care for. The Good Samaritan treated the wounded Jew with compassion as his neighbor, even though the Jews and the Samaritans reviled each other and tried to avoid any interactions between them.

 

I believe that Jesus is with the immigrants and refugees of our world today. As His followers, we need to be with them too. We need to pray that their needs might be met and their humanity respected. We should support those organizations who are trying to aid them. Regardless of our feelings about their legal status, we must see immigrants as our “neighbors” and treat them accordingly, or we will find ourselves opposing Jesus, a situation we never want to be in.