We’ve been looking at the unaltered, unadulterated, and unchanging Jesus. We have enough challenges in following Jesus without being ignorant about who it is we worship. This post continues the discussion about the Jesus presented in the scriptures to draw some clearer distinctions between the timeless Jesus of history and the pretend one we hear about much too often.
Jesus, I found, bore little resemblance to the Mister Rogers figure I had met in Sunday School, and was remarkably unlike the person I had studied in Bible college. For one thing, he was far less tame. In my prior image, I realized, Jesus’ personality matched that of a Star Trek Vulcan: he remained calm, cool, and collected as he strode like a robot among excitable human beings on spaceship earth. That is not what I found portrayed in the Gospels and in the better films. Other people affected Jesus deeply: obstinacy frustrated him, self-righteousness infuriated him, simple faith thrilled him. Indeed, he seemed more emotional and spontaneous than the average person, not less. More passionate, not less.
The more I studied Jesus, the more difficult it became to pigeonhole him. He said little about Roman occupation, the main topic of conversation among his countrymen, and yet took up a whip to drive petty profiteers from the Jewish temple. He urged obedience to Mosaic law while acquiring the reputation of a lawbreaker. He could be stabbed by sympathy for a stranger, yet turn on his best friend with the flinty rebuke, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ He had uncompromising views on rich men and loose women, yet both types enjoyed his company. -Philip Yancey, ‘The Jesus I Never Knew’, page 23
Whether nice guys finish first or last is to be debated—but they are liked by just about everyone. However, Jesus stated that there would be folks who’d hate us because of him.
I want to talk about a pretty common Jesus I hear about. His name is Nice Guy Jesus. It’s the Jesus who says ‘try your best to be nice to everyone and you’ll get into Heaven.’ He never demands we abandon our attempts to be good enough and simply trust him for what we can’t earn. Everything is okay with Nice Guy Jesus, just groovy actually. He is the consummate people pleaser. His mantra is ‘live and let live, just don’t hurt anybody while you’re at it.’ This pretend Jesus forfeits truth in the name of tolerance and avoids confrontation like a plague. He is calm, cool, and collected—a sort of no drama Jesus.
Nice Guy Jesus has no qualms with sin and its ravenous effects on those he loves and came to die for.
Like Yancey, I grew up with my own ideas about Jesus. The Jesus I heard about as a kid was one of two people: He was a cosmic hall monitor wearing a scowl or a mystical version of Mister Rogers on steroids—no offense to Fred Rogers, he was a decent man I am sure, but a wretched sinner nonetheless.
For me, Jesus was neither the Prince of Peace or the King Triumphant. He was a policeman or a pathetic loser in my view. Most of us don’t struggle with the hall monitor picture I mention as much as we do the mamby-pamby Jesus that typifies much of the preaching (where production hasn’t replaced the preaching of God’s Word by now) you are likely to get at many seeker-happy churches on any given Sunday. Nice Jesus is too busy to do any good because his finger is always up in the air trying to get a feel for which way the wind is blowing. The real Jesus was no push over and he wasn’t moved an inch by opinion polls and surveys.
We have this twisted inclination to assume that Jesus was nice to everyone, as if his heavenly mission was to win some giant popularity contest. But the real Jesus wasn’t quite so politically correct, he would have been much too controversial to be class president at many of our Christian centers of learning today.
A couple years ago I was meeting with some men and this whole topic of being a ’nice Christian guy’ started to be discussed. I must admit, pictures immediatly surfaced in my mind of some guys (more like manikins) I know who are so nice it’s enough to make me queasy just thinking about their niceness. No where do we hear of Jesus instructing his followers to be nice guys. C.S. Lewis wrote, We must not suppose that if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world.
Now, my idea here isn’t to be harsh. I do that without trying. But Jesus never asked us to check our spine at the door. To the contrary. It is Jesus who gives us the courage to stand up to injustice. Shouldn’t our passion be following Jesus versus being nice, and when necessary speaking the not so nice truth? If we are perceived as nice so be it. But sometimes being nice isn’t so nice when you think about it. What’s so nice about ‘You and I are sinners through and through, and without Christ, we will spend eternity in Hell’?
Mercy and grace are not to be confused with nice. I don’t picture Jesus being nice as he cleared the tables of the money changers who were making a mockery of God. Sometimes I think we equate being soft-spoken and laid back with Christ-likeness.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it (Luke 11:42-44).”
Nice guys are too busy being nice to unapologetically call out those who do harm to others.
Now, the real Jesus was no gun-slinging hard guy (sorry Driscoll, I love you, but Jesus was too classy to be into ‘ultimate fighting’). But when the love of Christ compels you, you are going to get angry from time to time (Paul writes to the Ephesians, ‘In your anger do not sin’—not, ‘it’s a sin to be angry’). Actually, it’s sin to not be outraged at the things that outrage God. Of course there will always be the temptation to jump into the ditch on the other side of the road and paint Jesus as a rebel, someone who had no respect for authority and was always bucking the system. But Jesus submitted to his Father in everything. It was the religion of man he refused to be subject to.
So, just as Jesus isn’t a clone of Mister Rogers, he’s no tame version of Jesse James either.
Rather than just another nice guy, Jesus is the lover of our souls.
2 Comments
January 16, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I am a friend of your Mom’s, but more of a contemporary in your generation (41). Your parents have come into my life at a time when I desperately needed guidance in my marriage. God is using them to help me to get through the toughest time in my life.
When I first met your Mom, she told me about your website. It is now, in God’s perfect timing, that I am finding my way here. In my heart, I know that God is speaking to me through you with these words,
“…when the love of Christ compels you, you are going to get angry from time to time (Paul writes to the Ephesians, ‘In your anger do not sin’—not, ‘it’s a sin to be angry’). Actually, it’s sin to not be outraged at the things that outrage God.”
Please pray that I have the strength, the courage, and the wisdom to obey Him.
January 16, 2009 at 3:04 pm
great to hear from you Joan! I will pray for you. Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Ken