Here’s the thing: I find Jesus compelling.
The things he taught, the way he taught them, the way he treated people- he was something special, and it makes “special” sound like a lame word. There’s something about Jesus, something different. Something big, and something important. There is something about him that makes me want to find out as much about him as I can, and makes me want to try to be like him and follow the things he taught.
He seems significant. And not just as a great moral teacher. I don’t know what I belive about God and the universe and everything, but I believe that at the very least, Jesus was connected in a way that other people aren’t. He was connected to whatever it is out there that makes us stare in wonder at the skies and realize how big the universe is.
It’s kind of hard to explain. But he was radically inclusive, he preached counterintuitive things in a way that seems not counterintuitive at all, but like intuitive on a different level. Superintuitive, maybe. He taught that the Kingdom was at hand, and he told us how to live it. They killed him for it, but even his death just proved him right. He won by losing.
At the risk of sounding lame and trite, I’m not going to gomuch further than that. I’m not going to claim to know truth or God or much of anything really. All I know is that there is something magnetic and electric about Jesus Christ that I want to have more of. This is new, this is different, and I like this.
I don’t know about theology, or truth, or cosmology, or anything like that. But I know I want to know Jesus Christ.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Kullervo, as a fellow Jesus-follower, I know exactly what you mean. I can’t explain every part of my faith or fully defend my belief in God, but I know that there is just something about Jesus that I can’t get past. Even if I completely rejected the rest of my faith, including the existence of God, I still couldn’t reject Jesus.
BTW, would you mind if I quoted this post on my blog?
Quote away, but I’m not sure this particular post is very eloquent or quotable.
K.,
I’ve struggled with this issue in the past. I once held your opinion of Jesus then I read the Gospels through those eyes and discovered so much there contradictory to that view.
After reading the “other side” of Jesus, it was definitely difficult for me to see Jesus in the same light. Hence, I recently started a project to pull from Matthew what I consider lines up with your definition of Jesus (above). I’ve neglected it a bit lately but it can be found at http://thejesuscult.wordpress.com
Let me know what you think.
Paul
This sounds like plenty enough reason to be going on with at this point in your journey! I sincerely hope you’ve found what you’re looking for.
But I know I want to know Jesus Christ.
Me too!
I know what you mean about Jesus being “radically inclusive” and “superintuitive”. My favorite story about Jesus was his response to the woman caught in adultery and those that were accusing her. It is so transcendent and powerful that it is almost not human.
I’ve been praying for you and it’s good to know that Jesus has been seeking you out. I’ll be looking forward to what comes next. Don’t ever feel you have to let go of logic and reason or questioning and seeking the truth. The Word promises that one day you will know in full even as you are known!
Kullervo,
Thx for put it in words what I feel. and yes – this particular post is very eloquent or quotable.
Who is Jesus and why did he come to earth?
http://mdpmusings.blogspot.com/2007/06/christianity-101-part-4-jesus.html
Very well put, thank you. Yes, there is something about Jesus…
Many have felt, and still feel, the way that you do. Christians and non-Christians alike. Personally, I’m not sure how useful that designation is—there are many who call themselves Christians and claim to love Jesus, but who do not seem to live up to that love or display outside of the meeting tent. Likewise, there are those who worship differently than Christians (or do not worship at all), yet these people are inclusive, loving, and close to God.
In the end, it seems to me religion is not so important as the orientation you bring to it. In the end, perhaps this thing called “religion” does not really exist.
I do too Kullervo. Very much so. I’m just not able (or at this point willing) to take the good and ignore the rest.
It doesn’t sound lame or trite at all. Actually, this is what I found myself having to do to hang onto Jesus, and it worked for a while. Then I’d branch out and get involved in “Christian” discussions, or pick up my bible and read a passage and it would all come crashing down. 😦
You’re right though. We are crazy opposites! 🙂
Great post, and i share your desires to know Jesus too. I highly suggest reading a book called “The Case for Christ” (by Lee Strobel i think).
It wasn’t an airtight gospel truth book for me, but i found it very captivating and it kept me striving for more. I could hardly put the book down, and it made me feel much more validated for trusting in Jesus as a Christian. It certainly closes a lot of holes which a doubting mind may have.
God bless,
tiredoflies
Who can forget the words of Jesus when somebody came to him for help with his son, who was having eplieptic fits and falling into water or fires?
Matthew 17:17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”
Can you imagin Benny Hinn saying ‘How long shall I put up with you?,’ to somebody who came to him desperate for help?
People just have to look at how Hinn responds to pleas for help and how Jesus responded to that plea for help, and know who is the true Christian, who would call petitioners a perverse and unbelieving generation.
Not Hinn, that’s for sure.
Jesus then demonstrated the foolishness of modern medical science with their ‘cures’ for epilepsy , by driving the demon out of the boy.
How long will it take modern doctors to catch up with what Jesus was doing 2,000 years ago?
I was with you right up to the point that you took a sharp left turn into the land of demons and superstition. I was standing there by myself wondering what happened. 🙂
I was simply pointing out that the thing about Jesus was his belief in demons, Satan, Hell and superstition.
Not to mention his hatred of all how failed to believe in him, and his calling people sons of Hell if they converted to a religion that involved no belief ihs divinity.
Is my sarcasm detector broken then?
Not really.
It is a good question?
Why has modern medical science dropped the belief systems that Jesus had about illness?
OK. Glad we’re straight now. It always helps to understand each other.
Medical science tests its treatments and is therefore based in theory on empirical evidence. I’m not aware of any evidence that indicates that demons cause disease. Despite this deficiency in evidence, medical science seems to be more effective at treating disease than faith healing.
Beautiful.
Cool post, I’m loving it. I hope you don’t mind, but I read the initial post (There’s Something About Jesus) in a sermon I gave this past weekend. It’s refreshing to see people approach truth as is, without denominational agendas. I came to Christianity from the outside, simply moved by the rawness and truth of Jesus’ words. Wanting to study and know more, I went on and ended up getting a degree in theology, and now that I’m “in the system” it’s so hard to get a fresh perspective. I wanted to speak to that text reference, the one in Matthew 17 (17:14-23). Notice that after the story of the boy being healed of the demon, Matthew has put the little bit in about Jesus saying he was going to be handed over to the authorities and then put to death, but would rise again, “and the disciples were filled with grief.” The position of that final paragraph immediately after Jesus calls that generation “perverse” is significant. The two ideas are connected. Imagine you had seen a friend healing people right in front of you, and he was making all kinds of radical claims, and then backing them up with his actions. Now he tells you he’s going to die and rise again. What’s your reaction going to be? Not grief, not after you’d seen him do the same for others. You’re going to be awestruck, dumbfounded, speechless, but not filled with grief. They were filled with grief because Jesus had said that he was “going to be handed over to the authorities.” Up until that moment, they had been seeing all of Jesus’s work as leading up to the same thing that many political leaders today are so concerned with: Israel as a nation-state, some Zionist type of endtime prophetic fulfillment. When the generation of Jesus’ time read those verses about Him going to, “set the captives free,” they took it to mean political, or class-based–that those who’d been unable to vote, who’d been socially oppressed, would be liberated. When Jesus spoke of a kingdom, they were thinking it would be on earth and they would be political leaders and have authority and influence in their land, with him at the throne. So when Jesus tells them he’s going to be handed over to the authorities and put to death, they’re filled with grief because all their dreams and hopes for the future have now come crashing down. Their faith is misplaced, it’s perverted, misdirected, and they aren’t “true believers” because their aims are totally off, they’re going in different directions. They are just petitioning for themselves, for their own dreams and their own self-centered ideals for the future. Meanwhile, Jesus is talking about a kingdom of heaven. It isn’t until after Jesus’ ascension that they begin to really “get it” and “their number was increased daily” — when their misplaced faith finds its center.
Howie, Contact me brother… Eric Weiszbrod.
There is much more about Jesus’ life and his disciples than what is in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. On http://www.gnosis.org/library.html you can read or download (which I did) the scrolls found at Nag Hamaddi and other writings of the disciples that were not accepted by the Council of Nicea in the third century. I have browsed all of them, which fill a large three-ring notebook, and there are bits and pieces that are most interesting. It changes the flavor of Jesus as the writers of the New Testament wrote it and most of the New Testament was written by men who never saw him or heard him speak. A few years ago I decided to do some research on him and I compiled a writing entitled “Will the Real Jesus Please Step Forth.” I quoted directly from several books by well known Jews and others, including a Jesuit Priest from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and it shows the life styles of the Jews in those days and how the meanings of the words were as different as the word gay is now against thirty years ago. I could not publish it because it was direct plaigarism of excerpts from these author’s books although I identifed the books and the authors. I would be happy to send this research by email to anyone who should reuest it at j.adamak@yahoo.com.