Good Friday Church Service, Jesus People USA – Photo Jon Trott (c) 2010
“What is it that leads you to Christianity today?”
[This question, along with my answer, comes from my face book page. I’d like to thank Sean Huncherick for asking the question.]
Q:
Clearly you’ve done a good amount of research on different beliefs, so I have to ask…What is it that leads you to Christianity today?
A:
It isn’t politics.
It isn’t the church.
It isn’t the past.
It isn’t the present.
It isn’t my own goodness.
It isn’t brainwashing.
It isn’t a perfect argument for God.
It isn’t America.
It isn’t fear of hell or promise of heaven.
It is Jesus.
Jesus is why I am again and again led to Christianity. The haunting, human Jesus of the New Testament. The Jesus Who is a Suffering Savior, identifying with broken people such as myself. Jesus who confronts stubborn people — gets in their face and tells them they are wrong — yet with such love and conviction. The Jesus who in His Own Person exemplifies an unwavering commitment to and expression of Holiness, yet in dealing with prostitutes and tax collectors is tender and patient in a way that brings me to tears.
It is Jesus.
Jesus, who met me at sixteen years old as I knelt on Gary Huffman’s farmhouse floor. Jesus, who flooded my being — so empty, so yearning for love yet unable to believe (Help Lord my unbelief!!) — with Love beyond all my imaginings. Jesus, who though he will not take sufferings away from me (as paltry as they are, they are enough for my weak shoulders), meets me and gives me the strength to love Him and my neighbor. (The fact I do not always do so is not his fault.)
It is Jesus.
There is no other religious teacher or guru or “god” who compares to this strangely wonderful figure, this contradiction of Power poured out into powerlessness (Phillipians 2) for my sake and for the sake of my sisters and brothers. There is no God Who comes to us, the hard and broken and unwilling, and gives himself over to our hardness of heart even to our nailing him to a cross and raising him up a spectacle. There is no God Who appears to women first when he rises from the dead, who uses us (the things that are not) to confound the things that are. There is no expression of all that is Good, all that is Eternal, all that is Tender and Perfect, that compares with Jesus.
It is Jesus. I love Him, quite simply, because I *know* by faith that He loved me first.
