The Jesus of my Own Creation
Blog by Emma McCoy | 5 minute read
Spending the last four years (three, if you don’t count the COVID year) at a Christian university has been an interesting experience for me, because it meant I got to exist in a fairly closed space where lots of people had lots of ideas about who Jesus is.
Christians have a baseline agreement about Jesus: he is the Son of God, was made a man, and died for our salvation.
But beyond that, Christians and religiously diverse folks can disagree, fight, interpret Scripture differently, and even import their own ideas about how Jesus really is.
So at my university, there was great space for people to talk about Jesus, and by watching and listening, I got a good sense of just how difficult it can be to see Jesus through the lens of our own human experience. In one of my classes, a girl confidently declared that Jesus ate with prostitutes because he was trying to show how these women were living their lives “in an empowering sort of way.” In a different class, the Jesus a boy described sounded like an angry and vindictive father. In some conversations with my friends, Jesus was a cop trying to stop anyone from having any fun.
This kind of thing is exactly what we did at Heading North last Sunday, though it was just an exercise and not a college free-for-all. Jessie and Matt took our story of Simon and The City Woman (Luke 7) and read Jesus’ words in different voices. We had passive-aggressive Jesus, angry Jesus, and disappointed Jesus. These are all lenses that are super easy to see Jesus through, based on our own broken experiences as people.
I’m certainly not exempt from seeing Jesus through a haze of my own creation.
Because I struggled with making friends growing up, Jesus was like a flaky and uninterested friend to me. Sometimes showing up, didn’t really care one way or the other, and couldn’t be depended on. He would always leave, just like my fallible human friends. But that was never Jesus. That was just my idea of him.
So how can we possibly understand who Jesus really is?
There’s a saying that comes from the FASTER scale and my friends in recovery:
“The easiest person to lie to is myself, but my behavior tells me the truth.”
This can be applied to our study of Jesus and his love. What does Jesus’ behavior tell us about who he is?
If we take a look at Luke 7 and our study of the City Woman, Jesus is absolutely beyond our human comprehension. It’s easy to put up an idol of Jesus because the real Jesus simply. Doesn’t. Make. Sense. He comforts a woman who shouldn’t have even been at the table. He ignored and chastised the people who were “getting it right.” The Religiously Serious were following God’s law. Why was Jesus saying “your sins are forgiven,” to someone who couldn’t be forgiven? To us, it doesn’t add up.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus hung out with the worst kinds of betrayers, backstabbers, thieves, murderers, and the forgotten of society. His behavior tells us that his love transforms in a way we can’t possible manage on our own.
Jesus doesn’t love who we find difficult to love. He loves who we find impossible to love. And if we look at Jessie’s lovely graphic (below), that can include people like your cheating ex, your judgemental relative, or your least favorite politician. It can also include an abusive parent, a narcissistic friend, or the person at fault for a loved one’s death. Because that’s not difficult to love. It’s impossible.
Jesus’ behavior in Luke 7, and throughout the Gospels, shows us the truth. Jesus is someone who loves radically and unconditionally, and it changed the people around him. It changes us too. If we love Jesus and want to walk in the direction he’s walking in, his love will help us do things we can’t do on our own.
I don’t where I’d be if I were on my own. As I said earlier, I had a hard time making friends when I was younger. There were people who left, or drifted away. There were also friends who were unhealthy, or who I didn’t know how to love. I was hurt again, and again, and again. When it was time to go back to my Christian university after COVID, I had to pray long and hard to be open to trying to make new friends again. So I went back that fall, and I did make new friends.
But the story ends with me getting hurt again. The story will always end with me getting hurt again, because I’m human. But Jesus isn’t. When he writes the story, it ends with reconciliation, this side of heaven or not. So even though my urge is to seal myself off, not get hurt again, and go on with the rest of my life, I’m praying. I’m praying for loving, lasting friendships, and for the strength to keep going. I’m going back to grad school, and I’m trying again. Which isn’t something I’d even consider if it weren’t for Jesus’ behavior in the Gospels, loving people again and again.
This Sunday, we’re going to be exploring how Jesus’ transformational love has already shaped our lives. As we walk with Jesus more and more, the truth about his love and who he is can’t help but slip into our lives.
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