Jesus and Student You

My name is Christian. And I’m a Christian.

Along with innumerable people throughout history, I follow Christ.  A man who lived 2000 years ago, who never received a degree or a position of status,  who never wrote a book and who died at the age of 32. Executed by the powers of his day as a criminal upon a cross.

Yet if you were to ask one of us what the deal was with this ‘Jesus’ guy, this carpenter from Nazareth, this tragic martyr of a bygone era; we would tell you that this ‘irrelevant man of the past’ is in fact the biggest love of our lives.

“Phssss!” you’d say, aerosoling the content of your mouth onto whoever is in the vicinity.

“That’s ridiculous! How can you possibly claim to be affectionately in love with a guy from history? Its absurd! I mean, you don’t have such an obsession with Napoleon, do you?”

Sure, an avid historian could have quite a thing about him, but he wouldn’t claim to love him like a friend. They wouldn’t arise early each day to memorize a snippet from his biography that you can take into your day.

When they fail a module or lose a family member they wouldn’t reflect on a small fat French guy – and in so doing find comfort for their soul.

They wouldn’t allow Napoleon to dictate how much they had to drink at Fruity, or who they chose to date.

They wouldn’t spend lunch breaks on campus, wandering around interrupting people’s afternoons to persuade them to take the life work of Napoleon more seriously. Nor would they give their hard-earned cash to Napoleon role-play societies or build a house for a homeless person in the name of one Napoleon Bonaparte.

Such actions would be stupid because he is just a historic character, a pile of decomposing bones in a tomb in a French Museum. To claim to know and love him would be absolutely mad — beyond mad. You’d be insane, worthy of great pity.

Yet some of your fellow students believe this exact thing – that is that we can be in a relationship with a historical character.

How? Because unlike Napoleon, this guy Jesus wasn’t like any other man, he was more than a man. He led a perfect life and died a perfect death, and to really mess with your conceptions of scientific possibility, he rose again!

That’s what Christians believe.

That’s what your housemate, or lab partner believes. That God – not a God but the God – lives within them.

These Christians are not just nice people. They are either mad as marched hares wandering around attempting to persuade others of their lunacy and must be pitied, or they’re liars, claiming that events happened that actual didn’t and so must be rejected.

Or finally, they’re telling the truth, in which case one would do well to listen to them.

There are thousands of us that believe this and we’re all around you.

Isn’t that something?

Steps: Promoting discussion about Jesus?        Thursdays 1pm Outside Union.