The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey

Fully detoxed from the Life You Always Wanted never-ending study guide. Ready to rid myself of the Battlefield of My Mind. Moving on.

I read the first chapter of this book yesterday and I have one word – scholarly. It has been a while since I read a book that wasn’t angled toward the masses. Even the plethora of Christian Non-Fiction that I’ve been reading for the past 2 years hasn’t challenged me so quickly. This book demanded my mind – my thinking mind.

Part 1 – Who He Was

Chapter 1 – The Jesus I Thought I Knew

I grew up on the Jesus who “loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.”

There were three pictures that confronted me on a daily and weekly basis. At home, there was Jesus knocking on the closed door waiting for someone to open it. At school, there was the mosaic of Jesus walking towards me – life-sized in bright colors. At church, there was the close-up of Jesus face where you could see the bread and the cup on His forehead if you knew to look for it.

And of course, Jesus always had long brown hair with full mustache and beard. Brown eyes. A somber almost sad face, but mostly those were feelings I attributed to Him. He never smiled. And of course He was very white. He looked like my hippy father ... only unanimated.

There was a Christmas song – “some children see Him lily white” – that I never loved, but there was a phrase – almond-eyed – that meant a great deal to me. My mom always said I was almond-eyed, whether that’s true or not, and so I always imagined Jesus had my eyes.

Growing up, THE bookmark had the short story called Footprints on it. Where I learned that Jesus carried me through the hardest times leaving only one set of footprints in the sand.

But looking back, the Jesus I knew was strangely unemotional and boring and inhuman. He was always set apart and distant by at least a few feet. Hanging up on a column/cross for all of us to look at, but not get to know. Someone always had to tell us about Him. We could not meet Him for ourselves. It’s kind of like a story told not third person, but billionth person. A game of Operator gone horribly awry over the centuries.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Revelation 19:11-16 (ESV)