Jesus the celebrity

he had no beauty
or majesty to attract us to him
he was despised
rejected
a man of sorrows
we esteemed him not

I am entertained by the thought of what would happen to the writer of the above words if they were alive today. The following questions prance in satire on the flood plains of my intellect: in which Christian expression would this writer fit or not fit, not by their choice but by the empty gestures from our ivory towers of fleeting knowledge? Would the writer fall into the evangelical camp who so forth rightly defend god's honor as if the very foundations of belief and the existence of god depended upon it?; perhaps this piece of writing will be used as a 'weakness' by those who choose to data pick to destroy religion?

Christ disciples understand this writing to be a prophetic Annunciation of Jesus, rejected by his own ethnic culture, yet his own rejected him cause he just didn't fit the bill, he just did not look and sound the part. If He were to wonder through the crowds today, through the pews and among the devout, would they unknowingly be drawn to Him as to the image they have inflated of him in their heads, an image they need Him to be not for His sake but theirs? Would his own today be the very faith that exclusively claims to follow him and who today may fulfil that prophet writing? Will the Son of man find faith among the religious when he returns?

He possibly even was no inspiration to those who followed him as their track record was not all that good either but maybe that was not the point...or was it?

It is this mystery that causes many not to believe
because it really does take faith not in what we need to believe but in the encounter that scars us and leaves us wondering, captivated, addicted.

Not quite what we expected
Not quite a celebrity
Not quite what we present either

A man once said while chatting on Skype, 'if only I could meet the Christ, that would change my life'. Is he not found in suffering, in the thirsty, in the rejected? For where he is found, is where we don't want to be. He is not our commodity to consume or product to brand. What he is remains clouded, not hidden, transformative in encounter.