Lately, I’ve been wondering who Jesus would be if I didn’t listen to hundreds of people – in books, from pulpits, on Facebook, in the media, on bumper stickers, in conversations overheard in coffee shops – tell me who he is.
For example…
Liberals (aka “progressives”) call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Conservatives call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Activists call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Pacifists call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Democrats call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Republicans call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Environmentalists call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Faith healers/health & wealth advocates call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Fundamentalists call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Capitalists call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Socialists call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Social Justice Warriors call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Angerists (people who embrace anger as the foundation for their social-change actions) call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
Feminists call them their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
New Agers call him their own, and use examples from his life to support their ideology/theology.
After listening to hundreds of people, from all walks of life, over the past three or four decades, cite Jesus as justification for their opinions and actions, it occurred to me that they couldn’t all be right – especially since their opinions are usually at polar opposites from one another. (Yes, I’m invoking the Law of Non-Contradiction in which A is not equal to non-A: Two opposite things cannot both be true at the same time in the same way.)
The issue isn’t so much could Jesus have been any one of those things (Democrat, Socialist, Conservative, Fundamentalist, Activist, Pacifist, Social Justice Warrior, etc.), it is more akin to this: Could he have been all of them? Or even none of them?
Who, exactly, was the Jesus of the Bible?
When I first contemplated this project, I had just streamed the David Suchet documentary This Changed Everything: 500 Years of the Reformation. Suchet, in case you don’t know, is the actor most famous for portraying Agatha Christie‘s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot for 25 years in the British TV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
One of the people interviewed in the documentary said, “Jesus spent a lot of time feeding the hungry and healing the sick.”
Immediately, I thought, “Really? Did he? Exactly how much time did he spend doing those things?”
A couple of nights ago, I read a statement from an author that, essentially, declared Jesus was a radical, a kind of revolutionary, a person who made it his mission to upset the apple cart. Make changes. Shake things up.
Immediately, I thought, “Really? Was that what Jesus was – a revolutionary whose main goal was to upset apple carts?”
Thus, I realized I’d never taken a long, hard look at the life of Jesus for myself. I’d always relied on pastors and teachers and books and articles and movies and songs, and – well, you get the idea – to tell me who he is.
What I know of Jesus didn’t come from my own efforts to discover him.
And that didn’t sit well with me.
Over the past decade or so, I created projects for myself that I call “…and me.” For example:
180 Days With Mozart And Me (Everything Mozart composed)
81 Days With Oscar And Me (Every Oscar-winning film from Wings through Slumdog Millionaire)
70 Days With Hemingway And Me (Every novel Hemingway wrote)
144 Days With Bruckner And Me (Evaluating Anton Bruckner’s symphonies 1-9 from 16 CD box sets)
63 More Days With Bruckner And Me (Evaluating Anton Bruckner’s symphonies 1-9 from 8 additional box sets)
63 Days With Fritz Reiner And Me (Everything the legendary maestro conducted)
162 Days With Beethoven And Me (Everything Beethoven composed)
27 Days With Billy Wilder And Me (Every movie Billy Wilder wrote and/or directed)
10 Days With Fred And Ginger And Me (Every Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie)
So, that’s how this project came about. I reasoned (not incorrectly), that since I am the master of these self-imposed “…and me” blog projects, I could simply take a number of months and examine the life of Jesus for myself, see him through my own eyes, draw my own conclusions, and contain it all within another “…and me” URL.
Only this time, what I’d discover would be life-changing rather than merely intellectually stimulating and emotionally rewarding.
Thus was born 183 Days With Jesus And Me.
And I knew precisely how to do it.
I’m a writer. Over the decades I’ve written everything from advertising copy to press releases to dozens of blogs to a few screenplays. One of the cool things I learned about screenwriting is how meticulously each one is constructed, especially regarding the protagonist.
The protagonist in a movie is defined, in large part, by the characters around him/her, with each one – friend, foe, mere acquaintance, stranger, family member – bringing out certain qualities in the him/her.
In other words, a protagonist in a movie doesn’t speak in Shakespeare-like soliloquies or speak aloud (or internally, in their heads, for the benefit of the listening audience like characters in a soap opera), to reveal his/her true character. No. A protagonist in a movie is revealed not only by what he says and does on his own (which may actually hide who he/she truly is), but also by what others say and do around him. How a protagonist reacts to those around him is the true measure of his character. In other words, what a protagonist says is one thing. What a protagonist does is often something else entirely. Taking both into account, we come to know who somebody truly is on the inside.
The old adage is true: a person is known by the company he/she keeps.
So, I wanted to take a look at the life of Jesus, paying special attention to who his friends and enemies were, and what qualities they brought out in him. Such would define Jesus far more accurately than merely yanking verses out of the Bible and wielding them like flails in medieval England.
Over the next six months, I will immerse myself in the four Gospels, reading their accounts of Jesus from 12 Bible translations, which covers every major translation published in the last 100+ years.
You read that right. One hundred years. A century.
For a complete list of translations used, and why I chose that many, see The Translations page.
I found two 30-day reading plans online, one here.
And another one here.
I chose the latter, which – if I double up (read two translations per day instead of one) – will take me through 12 translations, reading all four Gospels, in about six months.
Some of the questions I will ask myself as I’m reading are:
Was Jesus an angry guy? Was he joyful? Did he laugh? Did he cry? Was he given to protesting and demonstrating? How did he handle confrontations with religious and political leaders? Was he rude? Patient? Stingy with his time? Compassionate?
Who were his friends? What kind of people were they? What did they say and do? What did their words and actions make Jesus say and do?
Who were his enemies? Why were they against him? How did Jesus react to them?
How many times did Jesus feed people? (When? Where? Why?)
How many times did Jesus clothe people? (When? Where? Why?)
How many times did Jesus lost his temper? (When? Where? Why?)
What did he look like? Height? Weight? Hair color? Eye color?
What did he ask of those who followed him?
What did Jesus say about love? Forgiveness? Peace? Truth? Justice? Life? Death?
What was he most concerned about? What was he least concerned about?
What did Jesus say about money and those who had it, or didn’t have it?
What did Jesus say his followers were to do, to act, and to say to others?
I’m not saying my 183 Days project will reveal anything to me that hasn’t already been revealed to others over the last 1,500 to 2,000 years. I’m just not that special. Or intelligent.
No, what I want to do is find out for myself who Jesus was.
I’m not sure what I’ll do with this information after all is said and done. I haven’t figure that out yet.
When I finish this project proper – all four Gospels from 12 different translations – I plan to read 1 Corinthians 13 from all 12 translations. See my page titled Is God Love? for more on this subject.
So here’s the formula: 30 days x 12 translations = 360 days ÷ 2 (for “doubling up”) = 180. The three extra days (after all, this blog is called 183 Days With Jesus and Me) will come from reading 1 Corinthians 13 from all 12 translations, analyzing…pondering…praying…and then writing my conclusions about everything I discovered.
Total days: 183.
One final word on my Jesus project.
It’s easy to listen to music and blog. It’s fun to watch a movie and blog.
But it’s a pain in the butt to read a book and blog. They can’t be done at the same time. It’s just not physically possible.
So I’m not sure how I’ll do this project, or how often I’ll blog.
I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
From now, I’ll turn to Matthew 1 and begin…