Jesus challenged his culture, now culture is challenging him

The institution of the idea that Jesus would have created non-alcoholic wine is only a symptom of the sickness that is affecting the Christian church. In a time of misogyny in politics, political correctness and tolerance it would appear Jesus is becoming more and more watered down so that he is palatable for everyone. Jesus is being reduced to a good man who died on the cross for us and to teen bobby Christian music where many lyrics give a ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ kind of feel to worship. Most of the hard things Jesus talks about get brushed over because we find them to uncomfortable for our picnic in the park faith where the non-believers are begging to be fed. Jesus was a calm man who knew the right things to say but also knew how to literally ‘turn the tables’ on the people of his times.

This watered down Jesus is a return to the early tendency to change the focus of who Jesus was from the Messiah who came to battle sin to a romanticism of a great man who saved us and told us many wise things. The only way we can counter the overly meek and mild Jesus is to return to the text and study what shaped his actions. It’s time to dust off the Old Testament and see the signs that Jesus followed in his ministry and to look at what around Jesus caused him to become the radical (in its original sense) leader urging the people to return back to a true faith as we must now do also. Where as Christians have turned Jesus into a security blanket our modern culture have tossed him away as you toss away a restrictive coat, they feel they have no need for him. For us we should be showing those who don’t believe that life is lived more fully and that we have something more than those who choose not follow Jesus. In Australia even up until the 70’s a large influence was held on the culture but since then the Christian faith has just become fake and hypocritical to most people making it seem pointless and a way of those in power to control the lesser.

Jesus wasn’t about control but rather he was about freedom, freedom from sin, freedom from our selfish desires and freedom from us. We need to capture this freedom back... Actually we need to submit to this freedom for as we all know “If any man wants to gain his life, he must lose it first.” This regaining of the faith the way Jesus wanted it to be will draw people into the love of Christ like a horse to a watering hole.