What is so appealing about Jesus Christ?
So, from a very young age I was told that Jesus is incredibly important. I’ve heard pastors yelling multiple times about how Jesus died for our sins and that to accept him as the only Lord and Savior was the only way to go.
Back then, I never truly understood these things. First, they always made a poor job explaining the role of Christ’s atonement _ which isn’t that bad considering that, even after learning good theology, it still doesn’t make much sense to me (and I doubt the average Christian cares about the theological implications of it). Secondly, how would I “accept” Jesus if I was born into Christianity? He had always been the only god character I knew at that point.
What made sense to me is that Jesus was, somehow, God incarnated. This I understood.
Still, Jesus never had a strong appeal to me. I mean, I’ve always found the idea of a powerful transcendent God both appealing and comforting, but I wasn’t very interested in his human incarnation. Even thou I believed Jesus was authentic and holy, for an omnipotent God, appearing on Earth as human isn’t that big of a deal, so, I’ve always taken this as one of his many manifestations. In the Old Testament, God can appear in many forms: as a burning bush, an angel, a cloud, a pillar of fire… manifesting himself as a human wouldn’t be that big of a challenge, right?.
As you can imagine, I missed the point…
Only as I entered adulthood, I started to properly study the Bible, which changed my view of Jesus. The thing that called my attention wasn’t his miracles or divine nature (which is pretty ambiguous, by the way), but his teachings. In the Gospel narratives, Jesus firmly stands against the organized religion of the time that he saw as legalistic and hypocritical. This is something Christians rarely discuss or talk about.
Besides that, I could not see the appeal of Jesus. If we are talking about a message, Buddha seems like a more intelligent holy man. If it is about power, I’d say Zeus is quite a more appealing deity.
But again, I was missing the point. Because, in the figure of Jesus, there is something that is appealing to many, but not for me.
Believers don’t really stop to rationalize their faith, they very often go through the motions, so it’s all about certain needs the belief fulfils and the trip itself.
People see in Jesus this personal savior, a friend that can heal you, guide you, accept you as you are… and this friend happens to be omnipotent as well. They see on him someone that can take your suffering and fix the issue of your sinful nature.
Oddly, Jesus is quite unique in the sense that he is both the God and the scape goat, he can take away your karma into himself and at the same time be the almighty God.
Well, this doesn’t make much sense to me, specially because I doubt this has ever been Jesus original message. But does it matter for most people? After all Christianity is not a rationalization of faith as much as it is a tradition and an experience, specially, one that is lived within a community, so it surely won’t suit spiritual hermits like myself.
Another thing is that a faceless transcendent God is something lots of people have difficulty in dealing with, Jesus works as the face for this faceless God. In Jesus, this God is humanized and becomes some sort of divine friend.
For me, this is precisely the problem, because I can’t think of this transcendent God as a buddy I can sit down and chat with. I can understand getting signs from God and even seeing Him acting in subtle ways in my mundane daily life, I can even buy that sometimes God may appear in a less abstract form or being represented in a more humanoid shape for pure ritualistic reasons, but God’s true nature still ineffable.
Being so, I cannot buy God being both God and human, being both superior and equal to me. Surprisingly, for most Christians, this paradox is exactly what works. It makes God both transcendent and relatable. Both a master and a fellow in labor. Sky and earth into one being.
But again, my biggest problem is buying into the idea of Jesus that is present in Christian tradition, I cannot think outside of the confinements of the historical person of Jesus, as it seems clear to me, his consistent attack on organized religion as well as his moral message make me believe the character Christianity calls “Jesus Christ” would be completely alien to the original Jesus in whom the gospels were based of.
But, as I pointed out in a different article (you can read it here) Christianity’s main concern is not historical accuracy, but the tradition itself. In the Jesus Christ of tradition, God gets a face, a lovely personality and a role that fits both a cosmic purpose and an individual more personal one as well, God becomes both the almighty power in Heavens and the perfect earthly friend that can understand and help you in your daily life struggles.
