"My Jesus"

Jesus stands as an absolute conundrum to those who are seeking a “messiah”.

He just doesn’t fit.

To believe in him demands one of two things.

You can change everything you know about God, everything you have ever done for him, everything you expected him to be and live in a state of continual amazement as he eludes being type cast or contained. You can then live in adventurous questioning, learning, discovering, not so much following Jesus as being amazed at him following you, knowing you. To be known by God, now there’s a miracle worthy teaching. Not worshipping him, but being humbled by him bowing at you feet with a wash bowl and towel….

Or…

You must tie him up with theology, explaining everything he does in ways that reduce him down to our words and our thoughts and our expectations. He then becomes "our Jesus". A Jesus subject to our interpretations. "Our Jesus" can very nicely fit in a book if we make him hostage to our words and our concepts. We can interpret him, teaching those interpretations and even worse, forcing them upon others. In the name of "Our Jesus" we can build nice churches and a nice culture and a nice worship team. He can agree with our silence when the marginalised are abandoned for the sake of prosperity and comfort, he can turn a blind eye with us to the terror that is being committed daily in the name of a culture that bears his name…