There is an article on Fox News about an interview in Parade magazine with Elton John. I must commend his efforts of now using his money and talent in a positive way but couldn’t help feel sad when he described his many past relationships.
You can read the article here …
In the interview Elton explains what he believes about Jesus:
“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems,” John told the Sunday supplement. “On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East — you’re as good as dead.”
I think in some respects he is correct. Jesus was very forgiving and it is shameful that people are so cruel. Being gay should not be a reason to execute someone. But I think he is wrong about Jesus being gay. We really have no evidence to support this position other than reading between the lines and assuming that because he was single and had some close male friends he must have been gay. During my time at College I had many close male friends and was single but that didn’t mean I was gay.
The reason I mention this story is because I think it is a great illustration of how people create a “Jesus” that is very much like themselves. In the past the quest for the historical Jesus has simply resulted in many different images of Jesus that turn out to be super versions of the historian who does the exploration. This doesn’t mean it’s not possible to discover the real historical Jesus but just that we have to be very careful to let the evidence speak rather than simply making the evidence fit our own preferred image of Jesus Christ.
Elton’s image of Jesus is distorted to end up looking like a super Elton John. It is very important to discover the true nature of Jesus and just making Jesus fit our own image will not do at all.
Jesus
Lent is a time for giving stuff up and in the UK people like to give up lots of stuff. Some people give up chocolate – to lose weight; some people give up smoking – for their health; other people give up drinking – for their livers sake; etc. What strikes me, though, is that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyway say that they are going to be trying to get closer to Jesus during Lent.
I’ve heard plenty of Christians who are giving stuff up and plenty that will go to special house groups for Lent but I’m sure I’ve never heard anyone say that they are going to be getting closer to Jesus in Lent. Of course this is just what some of the groups are supposed to be doing but I don’t hear anyone ever say it.
I’m sure this is just because I’m not mixing with the right people but it saddens me every year that so many people seem to think that Lent is a time to give stuff up purely for their own health. This isn’t what Lent is about at all.
Christians have been encouraged to fast in Lent as a way to prepare themselves for Easter. The whole idea being that you get yourself right with Jesus during Lent so that when Easter comes you are in a good place to celebrate it.
So I’m challenging every Christian to not give up Jesus for Lent. Don’t give up anything other than those things that get in the way of your relationship with Christ.
Jesus lent
This one comes in 2 parts (no I’m not cheating). Part 1 is the parable and part 2 is Jesus’ explanation. You can find the real parable in Mark’s gospel Chapter 4 verses 1- 20
The parable
Farmer sows seeds on different soils: hard = birds eat seed, rocky = plants wither, thorny = plants choked, good = fantastic results
The explanation
Soils = Jesus’ message: Hard = message snatched away, rocky = short lived response, thorny = other concerns choke interest, good = success!
Jesus
There are plenty of people who believe in God but some of them say that although they accept that God exists they don’t think it is possible to know anything about God. They might be willing to accept that there must be a creator but that we can’t know what that God is like.
Of course this belief can give a lot of comfort to people who want to believe that there is a God but still want to live and behave as though there isn’t one. It’s possible to admit that the evidence points to the existence of God but then by excluding any possibility of knowing anything about we can continue to live however we want to (without any supreme being interfering with things of course).
Unfortunately, in my view, this doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
For instance, why would God want to create such a magnificent Universe just to ignore it? If God did create everything and then decide not to take any notice of it we get a pretty bad picture of the way God is. Wouldn’t this also be a self defeating argument with a God who is all knowing but doesn’t want to know? All powerful but doesn’t ever do anything? Omnipresent but not wanting to be everywhere. One would have to wonder why such a God would want to bother creating in the first place?
Doesn’t the fact that God created give us an idea that God must, at least, be interested in his creation?
Christians, of course, believe that God is more than interested in his creation. That God is so interested that he chooses to reveal himself to his creation. That within the design and manufacture of the creation it is possible to discover things about God. But then Christians want to go even further and say that God is so concerned about his creation that he incarnated himself in the person of Jesus Christ. That to know God all we have to do is to know Jesus Christ.
Then we believe that God loves us so much that he would be willing to suffer and die for us and then to rise to life to show us hope for the future.
So far from it being impossible to know God it is in fact possible to know God as one might know a friend.
Thoughts jesus christ