Who are you?

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Some want to “recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up."

 

My Jesus can beat up your Jesus!

                     Mark Driscoll (as quoted by Brian McLaren in a New Kind of Christianity)

___________________________________

 

Who the heck are you, Jesus?

Are you a long-haired hippie freak?

Or the white supremacists due with a tattoo and an AR-15?

 

Are you the Republican or Democrat Jesus

Or the get-rich-quick Jesus

Or the “God hates you” Jesus

Or the nostalgic Jesus of my youth

 

The Jesus everyone (mostly) agreed on

Who blessed America

Thank you very much!!

 

Are you the Jesus of The Revelation, with eyes like fire

And a robe dipped in blood

Or the Christmas Jesus,

A tiny wrinkled soul baptized in amniotic fluid?

 

It matters Lord, a lot.

 

In my younger days,

A college student full of fervor

We used to sing

 

“Make me a servant, Lord, make me like You,

For you were a servant, Lord, make me one too.

Make me a servant, do what You must do,

To make me a servant, Lord make me like You”

 

But do I really accept you,

That incomprehensible human yet God

Servant yet Lord

Confusing as hell Jesus

 

Who says “follow me”

Who says “be like me”

 

I like you safe Jesus.

Nicely outlined

So I can color within the lines.

 

But you are messy

You came to stir things up

To create change

To change me

 

For this one small moment that I

Plod and trod across this planet

 

I will never figure you out,

And I am always in danger of getting it wrong

I fear getting it wrong

 

But I do know this

You are all humility, all peace

All love

 

You are also justice

and resistance and defiance

 

You embrace me and challenge me

You love me as I am and want me to be better

 

and you must be a little frustrated right now

by me

by us all

 

It must pain you to see us hate in your name

Promote violence in your name

Support and almost worship

Deeply flawed and divisive people

In your name

 

Lord, I don’t have you all figured out

But I have run into you

Time and time again

In odd and fearful places

 

In strange and troubled,

and wonderful people

 

I have experienced you

As a fire in my soul

A soft breeze upon my face

A longing in my heart

 

And I love you

And I need you

 

And I want to be a channel of your presence (and peace)

In this crazy, hate-filled, lie-soaked world