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

You know this story

Or at least, you think you do.

You know about the preacher 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.

---