4 missional lessons to learn from Christ

If we want to be effective in mission, it will cost us something, says Iain Hesketh. We must listen more than we speak, and serve more than we are served

- Iain Hesketh

What a year it has been! So much has changed! So many challenges faced and still it seems there are more to come. But the incarnation of Jesus the Son of God has much to say to a life on mission in current circumstances.

Jesus wasn’t born into a world of political democracy, social equity and economic stability; the Romans ruled by fear and the Jews lived with the hope of a promised deliverer to free them.

The Zealots fought to undermine and overthrow Rome, and the Essenes formed a kind of monastic community and are believed to have kept themselves separate from the rest of society, seemingly choosing to ignore what was going on in the world. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were at odds over finer points of theology, but both were dismissive of the Gentiles unless they served their own ends.

Slavery, exploitation, greed, immorality and gender inequality were the norm for a pagan world. Of course, we don’t recognise any of that in our day, do we?! This is the world Jesus entered, not as a hero-warrior riding on a magnificent horse, with an army the size of the population of a small country, but as a baby.

Let that sink in! The creator of all that is visible and invisible (Col 1:15-20), the one who was in the beginning (John 1:1); the one who has all authority, laid down his right (Phil 2:5-8) in order to enter the world as a vulnerable infant. That’s where Jesus’ cross-cultural mission began.

So as Christmas 2020 looks to be a little different, here are four missional lessons we can learn from the incarnation as we seek to reach a world much like the one Jesus himself entered.

He absorbed his surroundings