Sunday School EP 17: The Difference of Jesus and the Difference He Makes

"You often hear many things about Jesus. Many things such that he was the Son of God or perhaps many other things, such that he was not the Son of God but an enlightened teacher of some sort. Perhaps you have heard that Jesus never existed, and that He was a legend along the lines of a Hercules or Thor. Or Chinnamunda, perhaps. No matter where you go, and especially if you are go looking online, there are many things you will hear about Jesus.

As somebody who was not always a Christian—in fact, for many years I considered myself to be an atheist—but who became religious after an unexpected encounter with grace (I am now, mind you, permitted to use such phrases as these; I gained that right at baptism), I can tell you that the person of Jesus is the most stupefying figure in all of human history, and by far the most frightening for those who consider Him seriously. He simply gives one the chills, when you stop to think about it. And since my coming to realize this—since, that is, my coming to Christ—I've come further to grip with the fact that a lot (maybe even most) people do not see Jesus in quite the way He intended us to; do not see Him as frightening or stupefying or all that different or amazing. Even many of those who profess to in their creeds, do not see Him this way.

I say this not condescendingly, but as a relative outsider and newcomer to the Christian tradition: I think even many of those who are brought up within the Christian religion are simply used to, or otherwise indifferent toward, the utter peculiarity of the person of Jesus Christ. His story doesn't strike them in the same way it struck me, peering in as I was through the stained glass window. In that sense, what I am about to propose is not so much an apologetic, as an exploration. I want us to look into the difference of Jesus and the difference He makes."

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In this episode, Pat shares a talk he presented at Holy Apostles college and seminary on the difference of Jesus and the difference He makes.

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