Sometimes I wonder about this picture we have of Jesus. The one of the nice happy guy with long flowing blonde hair and bright blue eyes who always bent over backward to help people. I think it makes us feel really good to picture Jesus as a guy everyone would like – the friend you would invite to a party, not just because he could do some cool tricks, but more importantly because he really *was* the life of the party. I like that Jesus, and I suspect most people do. I’m pretty sure he’s easy to “sell”, and popular among crowds.
But would they kill him?
So often in our modern quest to make Jesus marketable to the masses, we’ve made him an impotent, gutless diplomat who wouldn’t make anybody mad. Ever.
And the problem I have with that idea is that nobody would kill that guy.
But when I look at the people who killed Jesus,
and realize that I look a lot like they did,
and when I realize that if he were here today
he might have a few things to say about me…
I wonder whether we’ve killed the real Jesus too.