"Knowing Jesus"

Our good friend Kathryn, an ordained Lutheran pastor in a suburb of the Twin Cities, wrote the following for her congregation's March newsletter. After Kathryn shared it with me, I asked her if I could post it here for you to consider. I love it when a good friend writes or preaches something that challenges me and provokes me to think about what it means to be a follower of Christ - thank you, Kathryn!

X percentage of people in the United States know nothing about Christianity. That statement was made by someone in a documentary I just finished watching. The actual percentage quoted makes no difference, because the point is that when the statement was made, my first thought was, I don’t buy it. Not for one second. I dare you to find someone in the United States (the world actually) who knows nothing about Christianity. I know that a lot of people have a lot of ideas about Christianity that are not true. A lot of people have negative feelings towards the idea of Christianity, but I can’t imagine where you would find someone who hasn’t heard of Christianity and who doesn’t at least think they know something about it. Christianity is too imbedded in United States history and politics (not to mention the history of the world…remember the Crusades to name unfortunately just one bad example).

Jesus. Now that is a different story. You’ll have no problem finding someone who doesn’t know Jesus. Someone who not just doesn’t know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, but someone who has been hurt by the idea of Christianity (by individual churches, by government, by people) so much so that they have a completely upside down view of who Jesus is. To far too many people, Jesus is the person who is followed by people who claim to be Christian. And let’s face our ugly story: Christians aren’t always the best examples of following Jesus.

This March, this Lenten season, I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t know Jesus. The Jesus who created the world and all that is in it. The Jesus who was born in the most unlikely of places to the most unlikely of parents. The Jesus who became one of us so that we would know that our creator loves us enough to become one of us. The Jesus who died, who overcame death, so that each one of us would know that death is nothing to fear: the wages of our sins, all our sins, even the stuff we don’t like to admit to ourselves, is death. But death doesn’t matter anymore because God, in the person of Jesus, swallowed it up. No more death, no more tears, no more crying.

It is crazy and radical and astounding Good News! And one of the best ways for people to hear about this Jesus is if you tell them about this Jesus. The Jesus you know. Not the Jesus that people throw around to win votes, or “save souls,” or pump up their personal banking accounts, but the Jesus who overcomes the world not through power and prestige, but through serving others. Serving us. All the way to the cross. And through to Easter morning. And through all our tomorrows. That’s the real Jesus. That’s the Jesus worth talking about. That’s the Jesus worth knowing.