Jesus and the Church

Today we talked about the fundamentals of Jesus' earthly ministry. His methods were not revolutionary for his time...prophets spoke in parables and talked about the Kingdom of God. However, Jesus' message was revolutionary...it was even scandalous. Christ spoke about the marginalized and poor, downplaying the role of the priest. No person in that day would dare challenge the role of the priest or king, who served as the cultural, religious, political and economic leader. Christ clearly declared God as King, something that was counter-intuitive to the Jews; Herod was their king. They believed in the Kingdom of God, but that was yet to come. Christ was declaring the Kingdom of God as happening in the present brought about by followers and disciples. Jesus' teaching shook to the core the foundations of people's faith. It's challenging for me to consider how I would have reacted to this man who made a priority of being around the sick and outcasts of society. There would be pressure from family to remain true to tradition and not break away from that to follow this man and his crazy counter-cultural ideas. Yet, today how grateful I am for this man coming to earth to demonstrate such powerful lessons through action as well as words.