I have finished reading Philip Yancey’s book “The Jesus I Never Knew”, which is a culmination of Philip’s research into trying to look at Jesus and his own personal faith in a brand new light. This has inspired me to use the chapters he put forth in his book as a “jumping off points” for my own personal reflections that I hope as you read, you too may be inspired to go deeper with your walk with God.
“The Jesus I Thought I Knew”
The childhood image of Jesus, the gentle Shepherd, the one with no sharp edges at all, the Mr. Rogers figure, it is only part of who this Messiah, this Rabbi from Nazareth really was. These ideas are only part of a complete and robust picture of the Son of God. As much as we may be afraid to admit it, Jesus was controversial.
He had to be or else why was he put to death by powers and rejected by-and-large (though not completely) by people.
It is easy for our Western society to simply dismiss Jesus as being “a nice guy”, “Having many good ideas”, or as C.S. Lewis noted of the generous skeptics of his time, “a great moral teacher.” It is simple for us to say such notions for two reasons. First, most of us have grown up with a very safe Jesus. Second, Western society (by which I mean Europe and North America) was highly influenced by the teachings of Christianity, and some would argue it was outright built on them.
As the Roman Empire fell and Medieval Europe emerged, the presence of the church was one of the only constants. It provided a unifying thread throughout European and later North American society. So, it is easy to take values of a culture and project them back on to the Keystone of those values and say “ahh look how he upheld the values that we promote!”
Yet, we often fail to recognize the dilemma of circular reasoning here.
We are essentially saying that Jesus lived by our standards of uprightness without realizing they were not our standards to begin with but His!
Rather, we must transport our imaginations back to the days of first century Palestine and into the shoes of Jesus’ original hearers. Only then can we understand the emotions His words evoked from the audience who heard His teachings and saw His miracles. Once we do that, quite a different, or should I say, a more complete picture of Jesus emerges.
This Jesus still has many of the characteristics we have grown to adore. He is still compassionate, even if He shows compassion to “the outcast and the stranger”. He is still forgiving, even if it is to the worst of sinners in the land. He is still loving, even if it is a radical love that condemns both overt wickedness and religious hypocrisy and preaches a kingdom of God where both redeemed and sanctified priests as well as redeemed and sanctified prostitutes will sit at the same banquet table.