The Messiah (Same Savior. Different World.) - A Blog Series

You know this story… or at least, you think you do.

You know about the carpenter from Nazareth, the fishermen who left their nets, the blind who suddenly saw, and the crowds who followed Jesus from town to town. You know about the Pharisees who questioned Him, the religious leaders who feared Him, the government that eventually executed Him, and the handful of terrified disciples who watched everything fall apart.

But familiarity can do something strange to a story. After hearing it enough times, we can forget how disruptive it actually was.

So, let me help you imagine it again.

Imagine Jesus entering a world of highways and television cameras, megachurches and government agencies, smartphones and livestreams. Imagine miracles happening before thousands of witnesses and spreading across the country before anyone could control the story. Imagine religious leaders trying to determine whether this unlicensed preacher was a revivalist, a heretic, or something far more dangerous. Imagine politicians discovering that a carpenter from nowhere had somehow become a national problem.

Imagine Washington (now, the new Jerusalem) watching as He approached.

THE MESSIAH retells the story of Jesus in a modern American world, so as to help us feel its shock again. The geography is different. The clothes are different. Caesar has changed names, the Sanhedrin has a boardroom, and news travels considerably faster than it did two thousand years ago. But the people are painfully familiar. They still love, doubt, worship, betray, manipulate, hope, fear, and hunger for something this world cannot give them.

And walking directly into the middle of all of it is Jesus. 

Which raises an uncomfortable question: If He disrupted their world so completely the first time... what makes us think He wouldn't disrupt ours?

Welcome to THE MESSIAH. The story begins again.

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A QUICK WORD TO THE HERESY HUNTERS

Before anyone lights the theological torches, assembles an emergency tribunal, or begins gathering screenshots for my public excommunication, please put your swords away. There will be no online witch burning today.

THE MESSIAH IS NOT SCRIPTURE. It is not a new translation of Scripture, an updated Bible, a lost Gospel I discovered spiritually during a midnight prayer vigil, or my attempt to improve upon something God has already done perfectly well.

This is pure storytelling. I have taken the people, events, tensions, and truths we encounter in the Gospels and imaginatively placed them inside a modern world. That means I have taken creative liberties with locations, conversations, institutions, technology, personalities, and details the biblical text does not give us. Some things you will read are directly rooted in Scripture; others exist simply because my mind requires scenery, dialogue, characters, and a world for them to inhabit.

So please enjoy this story for what it is. Read it for fun or for inspiration. Let yourself wonder what these familiar moments might have felt like to the people experiencing them for the first time. But please do not place anything in these pages on the same level as the actual Word of God. When my imagination and Scripture part company, Scripture wins. Every time. No recount necessary.

In fact, my hope is that this story sends you back to the Bible. I hope something makes you pause and think, Wait… did that really happen? I hope you reopen Luke, Matthew, Mark, and John, notice details you have skimmed past for years, ask better questions, and encounter Jesus with fresh eyes.

If THE MESSIAH makes the Gospel feel vivid for you again, wonderful, but if you want to know what actually happened? READ THE BIBLE!

Okay, heresy hunters.

You may lower your weapons now.

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