emerging mosaic

last fall when i read Brian maclaren’s book generous orthodoxy i was particularly taken by his chapter the seven Jesus’ I’ve known. it really got me thinking about Jesus and the way that we, i interpret him. is Jesus our understanding of Jesus completely culturally conditioned?

then i found a book simply titled Jesus catchy isn’t it. anyway it featured reflections (mostly excerpts from their books) by max lucado, Sheila Walsh, billy graham and Charles Swindoll (yea not exactly the emergent crowd) on the many ways we experience Jesus. that got me thinking about the various images of Jesus in the scripture and culture. right after that i discovered a series on beliefnet.com called in search of Jesus essays by Jesus scholars on the various ways we interpret Jesus. i knew i had to share this stuff.

so for the last four week I’ve been exploring (investigating) with the folks of mosaic life images of Jesus in scripture. we’ve explored Jesus as lord, peacemaker, fighter and healer. pretty interesting to me that Jesus could be all of those things. but in each case he turned the conventional wisdom on its head. he was a servant lord, claimed peace in the middle of trial, fight for things that are not of this world and offers healing for the “unhealable”. as Len sweet says in this book following Jesus could drive you crazy. he is just so different and unconventional and not caught up in the stuff we human being get caught up in.

following him calls me to a unconventional lifestyle of serving others and living beyond myself, being courageous enough to seek peace in the middle of turmoil, being willing to fight for kingdom values, and surrendering my whole life to his healing power.

what a ride! the journey continues this week as i shift to looking at the images of Jesus in pop culture particularly music. I’ll be exploring Jesus images in four Grammy nominated songs by Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Hoobastank and Los Lonely Boys.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Technorati Tags: Brian_McLaren, Jesus

Trackback URI | Comments RSS