Recognizing Misconceptions

It's easy to think that when we talk we are saying something obvious and clear. If someone rejects what we say they are clearly rejecting what we think we are communicating, right? Not necessarily.

Speakers at very large youth seminars like to talk about how we shouldn't be ashamed to tell everyone who Jesus is, all the time. Just lay it out there and let people accept or reject it.

I think Jesus would have had a problem with this. Jesus recognized that people often have certain hangups that take time to get past before they can hear about an idea. Jesus himself actually did this. On multiple occasions Jesus told people not to tell others that he was the Messiah. So Jesus was ashamed of himself? No, not really. He was considerate of other people and their assumptions.

Jesus knew that the Jewish perception of the Messiah was so far off target that he avoided the term, even though he was in fact the Messiah. Instead he used an obscure term hidden in Daniel called Son of Man. He then told them who the Son of Man was and what he would do, that he would tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days. After his death and resurrection his followers went around telling people that the Son of Man was the Messiah. Youth pastors that look like Brad Pitt would like to tell you that you shouldn't care what people think, but Jesus did care.

And here we are today, and if I'm honest I hesitate when people ask for quick responses about faith. Not because I'm ashamed of what I believe, I just realize that it takes anywhere from good hour of conversation to a lifetime to even begin working past assumptions about what "Christians" are and who Jesus is.

I want people to know who Jesus is, but I want people to know who Jesus is, and that takes more than thirty seconds, especially when all the little Jesus people have been running around for so long yelling that dirty people are a nuisance to him.