Knowing The Real Jesus…:KevinH

Recently I posted this astute quote from Pastor Benjamin Cremer on Facebook and it generated some discussion

Within that discussion and in response to someone speaking about how people like both Jesus and Elvis, but often find their fan clubs to be distasteful, I found myself saying:

“The great misfortune, if not tragedy in all that, is that even as people like Jesus, often their perception and understanding of him is still negatively impacted by the buffoonery of a good number of his followers, helping them to miss the full scope of who Jesus truly is and the great eternal importance of what He did at the cross for us.  Misrepresenting and sullying the legend of the King of Rock and Roll is a shame, yet misrepresenting and sullying the stature of the King of the Universe, of whom all life is created and depends and whom left his throne in Paradise to live among and love his created people and ultimately die for them, is a whole other level of tragic consequence.”

I post this here again because I believe it very well expresses the heart behind many of my writings and postings.

Now, we are all regularly hypocrites, doing things that are opposite to what God calls us to do; we would call this sin.  We all fail, and it’s not even close, at perfectly and unceasingly following the ways of God, and when we do fail, we are not correctly representing who God is.  Yet in another sense we have the opportunity to faithfully represent and display the heart of God and the gospel by owning up to our sin and sharing that because of our sin we have a need for Jesus and His work on the cross and the grace and salvation that He bestows upon us.

However, what we are seeing in many parts of the church today, at least in the American church, is a very different animal.  Followers of Christ are sinning boldly and loudly for everyone to see, and rather than confessing or repenting of this sin, being ashamed of it, or at least trying to hide it from anybody else seeing it, they are ramping it up all the more and even claiming that these are the ways of God.  It is, indeed, tragic, when God is being besmirched by His own followers.

My main focus in all of this has been within my own tribe, that tribe broadly being the theologically conservative evangelical church.  Now, it can be argued, and I believe many times rightly, that much of the theologically liberal side of the church is also committing similar offenses of misrepresenting God in the ways that they have rejected a good number of longstanding orthodox beliefs that deviate from who God reveals Himself to be in the Bible and the instructions He gives to us in it.  Some even do it boldly and loudly.

Yet, I continue to focus on the conservative side of Christianity because, one, once again they are my own tribe or family and I believe God instructs us to be more concerned with our own than with outsiders, and two, because I believe the conservative side of Christianity is having a much greater impact today of falsely representing Christ to American society than is the liberal side.  It cannot be denied that theologically liberal churches and denominations on the whole have been shrinking considerably in our country for decades now, while it has not been nearly the same for theologically conservative churches as whole, with even many instances of growth.  Additionally, in recent times there has been a fervor and aggressiveness put forth by many conservative Christians in the political world that just has not been nearly matched by liberal Christians.  In the end, the liberal Christian voice has progressively lessened in the public square while the conservative Christian voice, especially in recent years, has grown all the more in volume and combativeness.

Thus I am often frustrated, angered, and distraught by the way members of my Christian tribe represent Christ to the world today.  Even for those who like Jesus but are not yet believers, I cannot see how their pictures of Jesus are not often skewed when His followers loudly and boldly reject His ways, even ascribing these un-Christ-like ways to God, Himself.  When His followers are so often making, attacking, and denouncing enemies, condemning others but turning a blind eye to or justifying sin in their own camp, denigrating the poor, lowly, and abused, slandering many who they see as political opponents, standing behind and even glorifying corrupt church and political leaders, chasing after earthly power, espousing dubious, if not even outright disproven conspiracy theories as established truth, cheering on un-Christ-like behavior if it achieves political objectives, and displaying an overall “ends justifies the means attitude”, it must have a negative impact on people’s impression of Christ.

I want people to know the real Jesus… the One who sacrificially came to live among His creation, subjecting Himself to all the physical, emotional, and psychological maladies that we encounter, and ultimately suffered a horrific death on the cross for us… the One who lived a perfect, sinless, genuine life here on earth, never doing anything that contradicted Himself… the One who wholly displayed what it is to serve and what it is to reject earthly, temporal power… the One who displayed respect for ruling authorities and simultaneously did not hold back on chastising the bad attitudes and hypocriticalness of the religious leaders of His own people… the One who placed special emphasis on caring for outsiders and the “least of these”… the one who displayed His ultimate power by overcoming His death on the cross… the One on whom we are all dependent on for life… and the One who condemns sin and is the final Judge, but also loves ferociously and bids all to come to Him.

This is the Jesus I want people to see and it pains me greatly when I see so many of my fellow believers these days showing people a very different, corrupted, and carnal Jesus.  Yes, I believe this is tragic, and I wish far more of my fellow believers could see this.

I can only pray that God continues to overcome the failures, if not outright defiance of His own people, to reach people in a way where they can see who He truly is.