Friday Night Thoughts

I was listening to a podcast at work when I heard something incredibly thought provoking.

Margaret Feinburg was speaking (she was the person who wrote "The Organic God" and probably some other books) when she started asking "what is your favorite thing about Jesus?" So, pretending I was in attendance hearing her speak, I started asking myself "what is my favorite thing about Jesus?" Roughly two seconds passed before I found myself smiling.

Far and away my favorite thing about Jesus is the fact that His character lets us see who God really is. That is, through Jesus, we see just how wonderful God really is.

Regardless of how someone views the bible, I don't think there's any denying that reading about Jesus' life is incredibly intriguing. The Man was as radical as it gets. He perpetually confronted religious leaders about their hypocrisy and frequently hung out in the most curious of places. Even if you don't believe any of the miracles that He did (allegedly if you will), the parables [stories] that He frequently taught were simply, well, disturbing. I don't mean disturbing in a scary sense either. I mean disturbing as in personally bothered on an epic level. For example, He'd say stuff like...

- "...it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matt 19, Mark 10, Luke 18)
- "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14)
- "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." (Luke 6)

Obviously there are plenty of other examples. However, I highlight all of these to illustrate [again] just how radical Jesus is. I mean after all, who says weird stuff like the ones listed above? C.S. Lewis sums it up pretty well: "Either Jesus was who He said He was, or He was a lunatic."

So, you may be wondering how this "crazy talk" represents God in any way. What you find, assuming you delve deeply into the bible, is that all of these strange parables (and miracles for that matter) pointed, in one way or another, at how deeply God loves us.

It's really cliche. But cliches develop because they're true. I've ready every single word in the four books devoted to the life of Jesus in the bible (you may hear them referred to as the Gospels). Story after story is written about how Jesus seeks only to restore relationship between God and people. For instance, the following stories are good examples of what I'm talking about.

- Jesus defends the adulterous woman (John 8)
- Jesus washes His disciple's feet (John 13)
- Jesus calls us [people] His friends (John 15)

The more you read the more you understand that Jesus, more than anything, loved everyone. The only exception (if that) was toward the religious leaders. But then again, the main reason He was so angry at them was because they, whom everyone expected to know the most about God, misrepresented Him the most (and thus steered people away). God is all about a relationship. He has no interest in how well you can keep rules.

So, I guess that was the long answer to the question. Jesus shows more clearly than anyone, that God is always trying to reveal Himself to us and always trying to repair and restore.


Which is the ridiculous thing about Christianity. God entrusts us (to a degree) with the very same task that Jesus did.