Jesus was a dangerous man

I was reading, just a minute ago, in the book Jesus Centered Youth Ministry by Rick Lawrence and it made me think a lot about the trends that we, as ministers of the Gospel of Christ, use to communicate to today's generation. Lawrence talks, in Chapter 2, about how we have lost sight and passion about what our ministry should be focused on - Christ. We have completely lost sight in the search for new programs, new styles of worship, new ministries, new this, and new things that we have lost the passion that we first felt for Christ when we first "married" our Savior. He describes it as a midlife couple that has lost the passion for the other partner - like living different lives inside the same house. We have drifted from the passion that once was, in search of something bigger . . . turning to other "gods" in search of what we failed to look for and find in Christ. Lawrence states that we have "de-clawed who Jesus really is" and substituted a "nice Jesus" in his stead.

Think about it. What is the first thing that you think of when you hear the name Jesus? Is it the word . . . . "nice"? Have we really become comfortable with Jesus enough to think that he is always a nice guy? The Gospel describes Jesus in such different terms, aside from Christ healing people and inviting the children to sit on his lap. Christ was a rebel and renegade, taking his generation by storm of a radical message of love, redemption, and forgiveness. In Luke 11:37-45, Jesus calls the Pharisees "unmarked graves", and if that's not a blatant enough insult the teachers sitting around him ask if he really intended to insult them. Of course, Jesus responds by telling them that he knew he was insulting them!

I think that we take little pieces of the story of Christ and "run with it", because we want a neat, squeeky-clean image of Jesus. The contrary is that Jesus wasn't always what the people expected him to be. So what does this mean to us, in our daily lives? I believe that our culture can't be transformed by the type of Christian that is willing to live an anonymous life, but by a Christian that focuses all their gaze upon Christ . . . and nothing less.

The question is . . . are we willing to do what is necessary, even if it's not the "polite" thing to do?