Gaylord Diaz's Blog

How well do you know Jesus? We all like to think we know Jesus pretty well. I’ve had close to fifty years of wonderful, sweet communion with Jesus. I’ve devoted over forty years of my life to studying and teaching His Word. I’m talking about going back to the original languages and learning as much as I can about Jewish culture, institutions, and beliefs. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Know-It-All. And you can ask my kids: I’m not inerrant or infallible. But still, knowing what I know, I’d like to think I know Jesus pretty good. To my pleasant surprise, however, I don’t know Jesus as good as I think I do. To this day, He still shows me more about Himself. Here, let me give you some snippets of the Jesus I never knew.

THE WALL WRECKER AT THE WELL

Placing myself in the apostle Andrew’s sandals, Hi guys. My name is Andrew and I’m a follower of Jesus. I met Jesus a few short days ago and, from the time I met Him, I’ve been hooked on Him. He’s the Messiah, there’s no doubt about that. There’s something about Him that reaches out to me—to all people really—and beckons me to Himself. It’s His heart. The Guy really loves people. He has a heart for people. Not just for certain kinds of likeable folks like myself. But all people. Even those I really don’t care to hang around with.

I remember the first time I learned how really big Jesus’ heart was. Me and my brother Peter had been traipsing all over Judea and Galilee with Jesus. Our two buddies, James and John, was also with us. We was in Jerusalem to attend Passover, but now that the holiday was over, we headed back to Galilee where we’re from. As always, we let Jesus call all the shots. He decided to take the direct route thru Samaria, so we got up bright and early the next morning and we hit the dirt towards Sychar. It was a good five hour walk and, by the time we got there, we was plump wore out. We didn’t have anything to eat, so we left Jesus at Jacob’s well where we caught our breath, then we decided to head into town to buy some grub (John 4).

When we come back we was all blown away by what we seen. There was Jesus at the well, sitting, and talking to a Samaritan chick. Seemed to us like they were carrying on pretty good and we just couldn’t understand why Jesus would give the Sammy time of day. We’re Jews. We don’t talk to Sammies—not like that. We don’t carry no conversations with them. They’re half-breeds and we don’t like them. We don’t want nothing to do with them. Call me prejudiced if you will, but we’s God’s people. We’s the chosen race. And we don’t take a liking to these half-breed Jews.

Later, we found out that the woman was a no-good wench. Jesus told us so. She’d been married five times and, at the moment, she was shacking up with a stud she wasn’t even married to. What a loser! We got even madder at the Master for talking with the whore. Why would He even want to be caught alone with her? It definitely didn’t look good. And, meaning no disrespect, it had all the makings of an appearance of evil. Made no sense to us at all! They’s some folks we don’t hang out with, or talk to, just cuz they’s bad folks. They ain’t no good.

When the wench seen us, she got right up and ran back into the city. We were kinda riled up with the Lord, but we wasn’t about to say anything to Him about it. We just got out the vittles and offered Him some, but the Guy wouldn’t have any of it. Had He eaten already? Hey, did the Sammy give Him some of her grub?

Jesus must have known what we was thinking. He said, My grub is to do My Father’s will. Look at the fields, guys. It’s harvest time (John 4:34-38). None of us knew what He meant. Everything He said just went over our heads. We just sat there and ate, acting like we knew what He was saying.

When we was done, we looked yonder and, I mean to tell you, a whole mess of Sammies was coming towards us. I thought we was done for. They must have been madder dan a skunk that Jesus was friendly with one of their own. Now they was coming to get us. Well, we ain’t no fools. We beat it out of there. Jesus wasn’t coming along. He wanted to stay there. So we left Him and wondered if we’d ever see Him again.

Wouldn’t you know it, we seen the Guy about four days after that and He told us what happened. Turned out, the Sammies wasn’t coming to get us after all. They was coming to hear more about Jesus. Long story short, that whole town became believers! These Sammies actually believed what we believed—that Jesus really was the Messiah!

For a moment there at the well, I really thought that Jesus had lost it. He’d gone out of His mind. He was carrying on like none of us ever would. When it was all said and done, Jesus got results that none of us ever got. He got the whole town saved—all because He was man enough to talk to someone we would never be caught dead talking to. He hung out with folks that we thought was no good and beyond redemption. That day at the well, He tore down the wall that kept us Jews and the Sammies separated and alienated. He taught us to get past our fears, our hatred, our prejudices, and love the unlovely. Touch the untouchable. Speak to the unspeakable. Save what we always thought was the unsavable. That day at the well I seen the heart of God loving all those I thought was unlovable. The whores. The druggies. The drunkards. The homos. The convicts. The Black men. The haoles. The Muslim. And every other lost soul. These are who Jesus loves. These are who He died for. These are our mission field. And the walls that kept us from them have now crumbled because of what Jesus done at the well and the cross. This was the Jesus I’d never seen. But, thank God Almighty, now I see.

How well do you know Jesus? We all like to think we know Jesus pretty well. I’ve had close to fifty years of wonderful, sweet communion with Jesus. I’ve devoted over forty years of my life to studying and teaching His Word. I’m talking about going back to the original languages and learning as much as I can about Jewish culture, institutions, and beliefs. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Know-It-All. And you can ask my kids: I’m not inerrant or infallible. But still, knowing what I know, I’d like to think I know Jesus pretty good. To my pleasant surprise, however, I don’t know Jesus as good as I think I do. To this day, He still shows me more about Himself. Here, let me give you some snippets of the Jesus I never knew.

THE MAD MAN IN THE TEMPLE

Placing myself in the apostle John’s sandals, I’d recently met the Lord. For a long time now, my master, John the Baptizer, had been telling all of us disciples that the Messiah was coming very soon. In fact, on good authority—actually, from the Baptizer’s mom—the Messiah was already born! He’s alive and living somewhere in Israel right this very moment! Imagine how excited we were to hear that the long-prophesied Messiah was about ready to step onto the stage of world history. Life is never going to be same again!

Well, Andrew and I were standing by the river bank one day when our master directed our attention to a Man walking along. Behold the Lamb of God!, he said (John 1:35-36). Well, you bet our curiosity had been aroused. So Andrew and I started tagging along behind this Stranger and, wouldn’t you know it, the Guy turned around, looked at us, and asked, What are you looking for? Caught off guard and dumbfounded, we asked, rather sheepishly, where He was staying. “Come and see,” He said. And with that summary invitation, He took us to His hangout and, for the next several hours, we pumped Him full of questions. We wanted to know all about Him. Well, to make a long story short, by the time the Guy was done talking, we were absolutely convinced that this Jesus really was the Messiah. Just like master John had said.

We were so excited about Jesus that, for a moment, we acted like it was Black Friday. We dashed off in search of our brothers to let them know that we’d found the Messiah. Next day, Jesus invited us to go with Him to Galilee. You didn’t have to ask us twice. Along the way, we picked up Peter, James, Philip, and Nathanael.  I’ll never forget that trip. We were like silly women gossiping at the well: we gabbed and gabbed all the way to Galilee.

We went to a little town called Cana. There was a wedding there and, being invited, we jumped at the chance for free food. There was so much people there that, wouldn’t you know it, they ran out of wine. Jesus’ mama came and got Him and, of course, us disciples tagged along. Jesus told the servants to fill up the water jars with water. I mean to tell you, I kid you not, when the servants poured out the water that they’d put into the water jars, it was pure wine! It was the best tasting stuff ever! It was a miracle! The Guy we were following was, on top of being the Messiah, a Miracle Worker too! We were so excited, we couldn’t hardly sleep that night.

Well, Passover was coming up. So all of us made our way back down to Jerusalem. It was wall-to-wall people, just like usual. But we managed to all stay together. Jesus made a bee line to the Temple. Then He did something inexplicable. He just stood there to Himself and started making Himself a whip. What in the world for?, you ask. Believe me, that’s what we all wanted to know. It took some time. Then when He was all done, we stood there aghast as the Guy started tearing the place up. It’s like He just went berserk. He upended the vendors’ tables. Coins went everywhere and people started lunging to get ahold of some free money. Bird cages were knocked over. Birds went flying everywhere. Jesus used the whip and drove the oxen and sheep out of the Temple. We’re not talking about a dozen animals here. During Passover there were over 250,000 animals slaughtered and sacrificed. So we’re talking about an insane number of livestock penned up and tied right here in the Temple. Jesus let them go. Then He told all the animal merchants to scram. Of course, they beat it out of there. They ran off to get their animals. I mean to tell you it was sheer pandemonium! Absolutely insane! Everyone was shocked! And speechless! We’d never seen anything like it!

Between all the people shouting and scurrying, and all the animals stampeding out of there, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. We’d been following the Messiah and Miracle Worker for the last few days. We were all pumped up because we were following the Messiah. We were the first ones to follow Him! Our names were going down in the record books. For the rest of time and history, we’d be known as Jesus’ first followers. Do you know how incredibly good that makes me feel? Now, here He was, in the House of God, violent and angry, making a huge scene. I thought He’d gone mad! He definitely wasn’t the Man I thought He was. He seemed like a perfectly good Fellow at first. Easy to talk to and get along. Definitely nice. Peace loving. And gentle. You’ve never met a kinder, gentler Soul. I expected Him to be reverent in the House of God. You’re supposed to be reverent in God’s House! Man, when I saw Him tearing up the place, my eyes and mouth popped wide open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!

After it was all done and Jesus settled back down, we realized what had just happened. The zeal of God’s House had eaten Him up. Jesus loved God’s House and wanted to keep it holy: He couldn’t just stand there and watch His Father’s House be turned into a marketplace. So He cleaned House.

In hindsight, I understand now why He did it. But for a few moments there, I was really scared. I thought I was following a mad man. A psycho. Definitely bipolar, if not schizo. Turned out I was wrong. I just seen a side of Jesus that I never seen before. This was the Jesus I didn’t know. But now I know.