Think with me just a moment about the life of Jesus, not just his birth:

His was not a planned pregnancy, and his parents weren’t married. At birth, he was homeless; they became refugees shortly thereafter. In order to escape political violence and almost certain death, his family became illegal immigrants in a foreign land.

As a teenager, he was raised in a single-parent household.

He was misunderstood by his own siblings, and rejected by his neighbors and community. He faced the usual temptations, and resisted them. The crowds he attracted were fickle, eating his bread and even waving branches to salute him, but making no commitments; and within a week they called for his death.

He was betrayed by one of his own, denied by another, and ultimately deserted by the rest of the disciples he had hand-picked to follow him. He was arrested on trumped-up charges, didn’t receive a fair trial, had to defend himself, was convicted by corrupt officials, beaten by officers, and executed for crimes he did not commit, between two criminals. They even took his clothing away to shame and humiliate him.

He died in poverty; he had no assets, and left no estate.

Yet Jesus lived a life which has affected more people than any other human life, and his presence in this world permanently changed the course of human history. A billion people today claim to be Christians.

We should not be surprised by this remarkable life. But what should surprise us is that Christians today—the people who claim to be followers of Jesus— do not follow him very closely. The resemblance of our lives to his is faint, at best. Even with this remarkable life as clue and role model, Christians are suspicious of unmarried couples, of children born out of wedlock, of homeless people, of refugees and illegal immigrants, of single-parent households, of the poor and hungry and those in prison. We condone violence in society; we still let our police beat and shoot people. We do little to stop corruption in high places. We don’t want taxes adequate to pay for our criminal justice system, but we re-instituted capital punishment.

In short, Christians still uphold the entire system of privilege and power, and have too little concern for the people who struggle the hardest to survive in our society. Jesus was one of those who struggle, not one of the privileged. Why don’t we see this? Why don’t we conform our lives to his?

—Pastor Dan