The Gospel, According to Sam

God created man and the world around him. God created man to live with man, intimately and personally, as if they were best friends. Man could see God, man could hear and talk to God. It was the perfect relationship. But then man decided to trust his own thoughts rather than His creator’s, and man and God’s relationship was never restored.

So then there’s this big gap between when Adam saw and spoke with God, to when God sent His son to see and speak with man again. I wonder what God was doing and thinking in that gap, when He was separated from His best friend. I wonder if God was itching to just pat man on the back, sit down with him, watch a sunset, have a meaningful conversation, show him cool things…whatever it is best friends do. But God couldn’t, because man didn’t want anything to do with God. And then at some point, I don’t know why it was when it was, but at this one specific point over 2,000 years ago, God sent Jesus to fix things. God took a piece of Himself, coated it with skin and flesh and a human brain and all that junk, and set it on the earth He created. It’s kinda like God created an avatar and His name was Jesus. And Jesus was God, in human form, sent to interact with all the other unholy humans. God wanted to befriend man again, but the only way He could get to man, was to become man Himself. And He wasn’t really received well, even from the very beginning. First, God decides that a teenage virgin is going to give birth to Him. The teenage virgin first has to travel all the way to Bethlehem for this even to take place; and she finally gives birth in a barn, with hay, and stinky animals. Not a spectacular entrance; but that’s what He wanted.

Jesus grows up with His mom and (new) dad, Joseph. Mary and Joseph teach Him how to tie His shoes and eat with a fork. Which I have to think was pretty strange for them, since they knew Jesus was God and He already knew how to tie His shoes and eat with a fork. I wonder if Mary and Joseph ever got frustrated and said, “Come on Jesus, you already know how to do it! You created shoe laces!” I’m guessing they didn’t, since it was Mary and Joseph and they were filled with patience, wisdom, and righteousness. And every day Mary woke up, she’d go get Jesus from His room and think, “I’m holding God in my arms right now. This is crazy!” And unlike us, Mary never bragged about it. She didn’t call up Elizabeth and say, “Hey Liz, I know your son is supposed to be the forerunner and he’s gonna baptize all these people…but MY son is God! I mean, you can’t really compete with that.” Nope. Mary never said any of that. In fact, Mary just kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. She never let on to anyone that she had God’s avatar living, breathing, eating with her. Hugging her before He went to sleep, taking walks with her, sitting on her lap to read a book.

Then Jesus grew up. He was smart, too. By 12, He was teaching guys twice His age about stuff they had spent their whole lives studying. Jesus would say things like, “Hey Guy, you had a question about the burning bush? I’ll break it down for you. The bush was on fire, but the fire never consumed the bush. And the fire was God, and it spoke to Moses and told him what to do. Actually, the whole burning bush symbolizes how I was born, but I don’t think you’re ready for that one.” Jesus went to middle school, where He probably got teased by other mean middle school kids. Then Jesus went to high school and started helping His dad with the family business. Jesus got pretty good at building tables and chairs and all that jazz. He didn’t talk a lot, but when He did, it was meaningful. Jesus was one of those guys who always had the one-liners. There’d be a conversation going on with His buddies, and they’d be arguing about something like, “If you saw a guy who’d been beaten up along your journey, would you stop and take care of the guy?” And His friends would argue and say “well, it could be a trick” or “how do I know I won’t get robbed?” So Jesus would wait till it settled down, and say something really profound like how helping the stranger on the road to eat and get dressed is just like helping God Himself. And His friends would just stop and think about it for a while.

Finally, Jesus turned 30. Mary and Joseph never bugged Him about getting married. No one ever said, “Jesus, you’re 30! It’s time to find a nice girl and settle down.” They never did that. Instead, they shook with awe and fear when Jesus, now a man, spoke to them and told them that He had to leave home to go and do the will of His Father. And Joseph never got mad and said, “But I thought that I was Your father?” Joseph understood what Jesus was talking about. Joseph wasn’t dumb, and Joseph loved God. So Mary and Joseph, sadly, watched as Jesus took nothing, and left the house. Then Jesus met some guys along the way. He met 12 guys, actually. Some of them He met while fishing, others He met underneath trees. A lot of them were related to each other anyway. And Jesus said to them, “Hey Guys, follow me.” And strangely, they did. They didn’t really ask a lot of questions. It was almost as if they had been waiting for a guy like Jesus to come up to them and say exactly that. Throughout their trip, Jesus explained things here and there. He didn’t really brag about being the Son of God, but He dropped hints here and there. These 12 guys saw things that no one ever saw, ever. And Jesus was the man behind it all. Sick people made well, people who hadn’t moved in years all of a sudden get up and walk, demon-possessed people turn normal again…heck, even dead people brought back to life. It was like a roller coaster of emotion for these 12 guys. They constantly had to stop and ask themselves, “Do I really believe what I just saw? And who is this guy Jesus, really? I mean, before I thought He was a prophet, but now I really think He’s the Messiah.”

Little by little, over the course of about 3 years, Jesus started drawing some attention. And when He spoke, He had all these thoughts and ideas that really took people by surprise. He was telling people about forgiveness. He described God as loving, compassionate, merciful, enduring, faithful. These were words (in any language) that no one had really considered. Everyone kind of had this fuzzy idea of who and what God was all about; and then here comes Jesus, who is apparently God’s own son, and says all these loving and awesome things. Jesus didn’t care about tribes, ethnicities, politics, or gender. Jesus didn’t even care if you were a horrible person. He only cared if you believed, or at least, wanted to believe. He was just looking for people who were done relying on themselves, and wanted to be friends with God again. Jesus just wanted to make friends and restore the relationship that God once had with man. So Jesus walked around. Jesus talked with man (and woman), Jesus took walks with man, Jesus hugged man, Jesus took boat rides with man, Jesus had really meaningful conversations with man. And really, at the end of the day, Jesus made a lot of promises to man. And sometimes people believed Him, and sometimes they didn’t.

The onse who didn’t started to see Jesus as threatening. They thought Jesus was turning everything upside down and speaking against God. They thought Jesus was hurting God’s reputation as a wrathful, distant, authoritative God. A God who cared more about rules and washing your hands instead of forgiving people and acting with sincerity. They got so upset, in fact, they tried to think of different ways to get Him out of the picture. At one point, they just picked up rocks to stone Him to death, but they were worried about how that would look. So they thought of a better plan. They decided to bribe one of Jesus’s friends into turning Jesus over. So they did, and Judas (Jesus’s “friend”) took them up on their offer and turned Jesus over. Judas didn’t think Jesus was a bad guy; Judas just really liked money. For some reason, Judas didn’t get the memo about not relying on yourself to provide for your needs.

So the bad guys got Jesus and roughed Him up. They put Him in jail, and roughed Him up some more. Then it came time for Jesus’s trial. The judge, Pontius Pilate, didn’t really care. Actually, Pilate didn’t think Jesus did anything wrong. But he had to hear the trial because it was his job, and these bad guys were really annoying. The bad guys said a lot of mean things about Jesus. They said that Jesus claimed He was a king, and that He was the son of God. They said He said crazy things, like about tearing down their temple and rebuilding it in 3 days. And they were so angry and persuasive that Pilate just kind of gave up. Pilate said, “What do you want me to do with Him?” And the bad guys said, “We want Him dead.” And so, Pilate ordered that Jesus be nailed to a cross and hung up with some other criminals so that He would die. And the bad guys were happy.

So Jesus, at 33, was roughed up some more…a lot more. And the whole time, He never said anything. He didn’t complain, He didn’t try and plead His case, He didn’t swear that He was the Son of God and that He could prove it in an instant if they just gave Him the chance. Actually, Jesus had already proven it…many times. And He had already said all that He needed to say. Jesus knew this was part of God’s will; so He never said a word, and He went along with the whole ordeal. Jesus’s friends weren’t there. The one who betrayed him was going crazy with guilt. He tried to give back the money, but the damage was done. And because he couldn’t bear to look Jesus in the face, and because he felt like he could never be forgiven, Judas killed himself. Jesus’s other friends kind of just hid and melted in with the crowd. They were scared. They didn’t know if they would suffer the same fate, or what they would do next without their best friend. Jesus was the Christ, but He wasn’t looking like the Christ at that moment. And so, they didn’t know what to think or do…they just hid. Mary came down after she got the news. Mary was devastated. Mary went to the cross and cried and cried. She saw her baby boy nailed to a cross, and there was a lot of blood. Even though Mary knew in her heart that this wasn’t the end for Jesus, she just couldn’t help crying.

Jesus suffered for a pretty long time. Almost an entire day. While on the cross, He said a few things. He found time to tell the thief on His right that he would be in Paradise with Him when this was all over. He yelled out to God in exasperation. And then, He put down His head, breathed His last breath, and He died. He died so that man could be friends with God again. He died so that all the bad things that man had done wouldn’t have to stand in the way of their friendship with God. He died so that at the end of time, God and man could live happily together in Heaven. Jesus died, and rose again after 3 days. It was never over for Jesus; just over for His time on earth. And when He rose, He returned to His throne, in Heaven, with His Father. Jesus went back to where He came from. And He’s still there…waiting for us to join Him. So that we can take walks, have meaningful conversations, and do the things that best friends do.