The Rebel Jesus

I heard a fabulous song today for the first time, thanks to my XM satellite Radio and an interview with Jackson Browne playing on The Loft (channel 50) this afternoon. It is a song he wrote since he was asked to contribute to a Christmas album. Rather than deconstruct the song, I only wanted to note that I found it moving and powerful. We too soon forget that Jesus came in many ways as a "rebel". I use the term with a small "r" since Jesus did not come to be the "Rebel", as if that defined His essence. But, the ideals of the kingdom when justaposed against the measuring stick of our world, clearly makes Jesus appear to us as a "rebel".

To Jesus, all of our weak and frail human efforts, though understandable within the content we live, must be submerged below the true meaning of life in order to live well. Jesus came and told us that those that seek power, will not find it. Those that seek peace, will not find it. Those that seek to be respected and treated as important, will not find it. It is in entirely seeking something else, that these things are awarded...but they cannot be sought, succesfully, on their own.

That makes Jesus, among many other more important things, a "rebel". We have to ask in what sense we believe today's visible chruch body carries on that tradition...and to what extent we have traded our world-changing "rebelious" worldview for some sort of compromised faith.