Virtual Christ

A few days ago I was taking a web-based training course at work “Ethernet VLANs”, course number 60527394 with VLAN being the acronym for Virtual Local Area Network. The course material defined virtual as being “a logical representation of a real device”. I began wondering if being Virtual Christ would be good or bad; can you blame me, wouldn’t you rather think about Jesus than Ethernet VLANs?

Can we be Actual Christ on earth? Not so much, since He is a real being having a real and resurrected body; just ask the Apostle Thomas (John 20: 26-28). How then are people to get to know Him unless He appears to them as he did to those waiting in Jerusalem (Luke 24: 36-49), on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-32), or fishing on the Sea of Tiberias (John 20: 1-14)? They will get to know Jesus just as those first-to-be-called Christians got to know Jesus (Acts 2, read it all, it’s good for you); they did it through those who already knew Him and who spoke God’s word by the power of the Holy Spirit. If we cannot be Actual Christ then we must be Virtual Christ, a logical representation of him that functions and behaves the same as the real deal.

Jesus himself encourages us to do this saying “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me.” (Matt 10: 40) Virtual Jesus.

I will be commissioned tomorrow as a Kids’ Hope mentor and have been reviewing the materials in preparation for this new adventure. Since we are in an official capacity on the school campus we cannot pray with the children we mentor and nor can we witness to them in any overt way. We are there to love them, relate to them, minister to them, and to help educate them. The official manual encourages us to “Be Jesus with skin on” to the kids.

Paul helped me out with this as well with his instructions for us to be imitators of the apostles. Read through 1 Cor: 11:1, Phil 3:17, 1 Thess 1:6, and 2 Thess 3:7 and be encouraged to imitate the apostles or those godly men and women who set the standards for service within our own churches and homes.

LANs started out as computer networks in the same room that soon spread to a network within the same building and then through a campus environment only to be one upped by “WAN”s, Wide Area Networks as transmission techniques and media improved. That’s all the internet is, a very wide area network of networks. Common users in the VLAN, those who are not related to Timothy McGee (NCIS), have no idea where the other network users are or where the equipment resides that comprise the VLAN. It acts just as a network would that resides in the home or office and is indistinguishable in its performance.

I have been blessed to know a lot of young people over the years, many who served with me during Mission Arizona (MAZ) trips where we served the Pima Indians at the Vah Ki Presbyterian church and the surrounding neighborhood. Several of those kids have friended me on Facebook and I note that those who go to MAZ and later go on to serve in the Dominican most often post profile photos of themselves with the children they meet. That is a wonderful representation of Christ and how he is with the children and a great example of Jesus with skin on. It is those times that make the deepest impressions on us as well as those we serve.

Be imitators of the apostles and of Christ; be Jesus with skin on to the people He puts in our path. Go ahead, be Virtual Christ and a powerful representation of the real device.