Well Connected

You know those people who know people?  Think about someone who has a connection to a dignitary or celebrity.  Or, as epitomized in classic mafia flicks, someone who can say with serious intent amidst a billow of cigar smoke: “I know people.”

In other words: I’ve got connections.  Don’t mess with me.

Well, I’m not one of those people who knows people.  But I have found on occasion that I am only one level removed.  Once when a group of us were lobbying to install a dog park at our apartment complex, I knew someone who worked with the owner.  When I was first investigating grad schools, I knew someone who kept in touch with a former student, who soon became my major professor.  And throughout my time working on my Master’s, this major professor collaborated closely with my soon-to-be major professor for my PhD.  In other words, I may not know people, but I know people who know people.  And really, that’s almost as good.

The Bible tells us that no one but the Son really knows the Father, and that no one can enter into the Father’s presence except through Jesus:  I [Jesus] am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).  Fortunately for us, God desires a personal relationship with us, and sent His Son as a way for us to reconnect with God even after we have been separated from him through sin.  Through Jesus Christ we not only “know people who know people,” we know the way the truth and the light.  We know the gate that will allow us to enter in and be kept safe (John 10:9).  We have the one connection that really matters.

The thing that is even more amazing is that God reached out to us first. God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).  While well-connected people clamor after the popular, the strong, and the influential in this world in the hopes of being able to say they “know someone,” our Celebrity clamored after us.  Not only do we know the one connection that truly matters, but our connection knows us!

Just as those people who know people boast about who they know, so we can boast about Who we know and what God in his mercy has done for us.  And we can confidently tell the evil in this world, even when it comes at us amidst a billow of smoke: I’ve got connections.  Don’t mess with me.

 All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Matthew 11:27