Now this is a sweet little book. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I began reading Missing Jesus. The names Charles and Janet Morris were not ones I recognized immediately, though I had heard of their radio program HAVEN Today and think I may have been a guest once. What I found was a book that came like a cold cup of water on a hot day.
The book begins with the premise that sometimes we all feel like we’re missing something. We have put our faith in Christ and we are following him, attempting to live in obedience to him, and yet something still seems to be missing. We’re left wanting more. There are a thousand answers to this more; in fact, most of the Christian books that pour off the printing presses claim to have the answer. But the authors of this book say the answer is remarkably simple: We’re probably missing Jesus. What we need is to be reminded that we are caught up in a great, cosmic drama and what we need is to be reoriented to see that our small story is simply part of this much greater story.
The solution to our longing is not to look within ourselves or not to pursue the easy navel-gazing solutions we may encounter on the psychiatrist’s couch. The solution is to look outside of ourselves, to the Savior.
We’re like the solar system without the sun. The sun is so massive it can hold all the planets in their orbits, but we’re not the sun. We simply don’t have the gravity to hold our lives together even when we expend a lot of effort trying. What we need is the good news of Jesus Christ, the good news that we can look outside ourselves at last because God has provided everything we need in Jesus. God has sent his glorious Son into the world to be everything for us, to be the center of our lives, to draw us into fellowship with the living God. And it’s all by grace.
Unless we hear this news again and again, and unless we allow it to resound in our hearts, we soon grow cold, we lose sight of Jesus.
This book, then, offers many different views of the gospel and its countless benefits. The authors look at the gospel itself, they look at the importance of knowing the greater story that is unfolding around us, they glory in the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they revel in the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and the communion they can have with the living God, they war against pride and all attempts to steal the glory that is due to God. And on it goes. Through a series of short chapters—11 of them—they offer a sustained look at what Christ has done and how it matters to his people. They draw often from their own lives, both their successes and failures, and they draw deeply from many great Christian writers of days gone by.
If there is something that concerns me in the book it is that it may not stand out among the myriad books around it. But behind the unobtrusive cover and inconspicuous title is a sweet book that offers profound answers to one of life’s most common experiences. If you feel like you’re missing out, or you’re convinced that you’re missing Jesus, get it and read it. You won’t be sorry.
