A Radical Jesus

I've just returned from a week on a Scripture Union holiday camp for kids between the ages of 10 and 13. There was the usual evening meeting and small group stuff, but the kids also put on a (very impressive) theatrical version of Roald Dahl's "Revolting Rhymes" in the space of 6 days. It was over this last week that I've had the chance to think over a few thinks regarding my personal faith, and it was fittingly one of the kids that sparked a bit of a brain wave - "what did Jesus look like?". It's a rather simple question, but one with deeper meanings. Yes, he probably wasn't the guy with the film star looks and long flowing robes. But then I thought what did he look like in situ? What was it like to be around him, to experience miracles and the wisest teachings. A group meditation activity got me thinking about this further - "imagine you were there at the Pool of Bethesda...". What did this man that I've given my life to, really ... look like?

So I started at the beginning. Think about Jesus, and what is the first image that pops into your mind? Like most in the West, I went for the tall Caucasian looking guy, with the beard and the long flowing white robe. There are probably a smattering of children around as well. He's teaching, healing and everyone is very supportive and very well kept in appearance. Clean, friendly and loving - a bit like the famous Last Supper portrait by Da Vinci.

It was as I was sitting there in a school chapel just outside Rugby that I realised that its a rather sanitized view of Jesus. Does this view permeate the way that we practice our faith and relationship with God? Would we be prepared to accept that person who loiters at the back of the church, you know the one ... the one with the leather jacket and tattoos, who maybe smells a bit? Do we want to see the dirty or the clean?

The great thing about Jesus is that he did not accept to our sanitized view of the world, and neither did he marginalise those who did not live up to it. He was neither North American or European. He'd have probably had dark skin and black hair (though not mentioned in the Bible either way, I'm assuming that he'd have resembled those people of the day in terms of appearance). We've also sanitized his message. We don't want to see how Jesus' message would have been received at the time. It was as radical then as it is now.

Firstly, Jesus was a Jew. The Jews at the time were waiting for God's chosen saviour, the Messiah, to come and sweep the Jews to salvation in the form of military conquest and success. Not just a spiritual salvation, but a physical release from Roman oppression. There was no revolution with Jesus, but there was salvation. And the best thing of all was that it wasn't just for the Jews but for everyone. In Colossians 3:11 Paul says: “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” To Jesus, there was no difference between male and female, black and white, rich and poor. No longer was there the division between Jew and everyone else. The Samaritans are the perfect example of this segregation ... and of Jesus breaking it down.

Just think about the story of Jesus and the woman at the well (John 4:3-30). Most people when they were travelling through this part of the world avoided Samaria like the plague. So Jesus' journey is quite a radical step in itself. It's on this step of his mission that he meets a woman with no status, who was a mixed-blood Samaritan with a perceived poor moral fibre (5 husbands and now another man at home). She is the perfect incarnation of everything that the Jews reviled, yet here is one of the few examples in which Jesus actually reveals himself directly as Messiah (the other if you're wondering is during the trial with Pilate). Jesus reveals his true identity to a woman that most Jews would never have met, primarily because they went nowhere near her country. This was not a "clean" message that made his contemporaries comfortable. He challenged people and called them on their crap. He did not pull his punches but laid people out when they needed it. At the same time he presented love to all.

Why is it now that we like to hear messages from our preachers that make us feel good and comfortable? Why is it that we often shy away from any type of challenge in our life? The message that Jesus preached was a challenge to the way of thinking at the time. He called people to action, in a way that they had not thought of before.

Rob Bell says in Velvet Elvis:

“The intent then of a rabbi having a yoke wasn’t just to interpret the words correctly; it was to live them out. In the Jewish context, action was always the goal. It still is. (47)”

What action is God calling you to today? Are you ignoring those in your midst that need help because they are outside of your comfort zone? Do you walk by the needy on the street and ignore the need presented right in your face? What radical message do you preach today? If Jesus was on the earth today would he be preaching a message that liberated you or condemned the practices that you are a part of? I think for myself He all to often would be preaching against the life that I live.

Blygt