I took on my Marxist neighbour in a sort of rhetorical judo: “Of course Jesus wasn’t a nice person!” I agreed, to his confusion. “You don’t crucify nice guys.”
If we reduce Jesus to a nice person, or a mere do-gooder, or a groovy mystic–as so, so many “Christians” do, including many who are preaching sermons in Christian churches this weekend–then we cannot possibly explain why the leaders of his own religion and the highest political authorities of his region decided he was worth a moment’s notice, let alone an extensive whipping and then a brutal execution.
Beyond Sentimentality, Moralism, or Mysticism: A “Crucifiable” Jesus – John Stackhouse
Yeah, Jesus wasn’t nice, he’s just brutally honest about out hypocrisy, which we utterly deny. That’s why we nail him to a cross and make him shut up.
If we find ourselves irritated and infuriated when our spouses nag us about our bad habits, when our parents tell us the truth, and when our honest friends confront us…… and we want them to shut up…… that impulse is the same as if we were nailing Jesus on the cross.
Anson, read NT Wright’s Easter sermon “Let Beauty Awake”, Read especially the paragraph starting “So what next…”
And make sure you won’t get a heart attack after reading that!!