I read about the 2^nd coming and I, like most evangelicals, think of a big to do!  I imagine Jesus riding a white stallion with clouds rolling behind him as He comes down to earth, like the pictures I see.  I also imagine everyone waking up to angles playing trumpets. 

 

But what if my view like many other evangelicals in America is wrong.  What if instead of angles playing trumpets, it’s a couple of homeless guys in New York playing. Instead of a great white stallion it is a donkey?  Then what if after Jesus got here He first visited the homeless shelters and bars and drank and ate with the kinds of people evangelicals have declared war against?  And when it says in the Bible that He comes like a thief in the night it means that He did not make a big deal of his return, that He kept it on the down low.  Now to top it off, what if He did not have long waive hair and a good complexion, but was just average or below average looking.  And what would we think if he talked with a hick accent and spoke in parables all the time. 

 

I think if He comes back like this not many will believe He really is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords.  Those that did follow Him would probably be the poor and marginalized.  I can’t help but wonder if the ugly Jesus came to America if we would fulfill the Isaiah 53:3 prophecy once again, where it says He that was rejected by men. 

 

It’s probably easier for you and me to believe Jesus is now in Heaven with God in all his splendor and glory.  I feel this way because I’m afraid the Jesus that exists in most of our minds is hardly the real Jesus at all.  The Jesus that sells books, that is on TBN, the Jesus of many evangelical Americans, is a lot of times the Jesus of the suburbs.  A Jesus that wants you to be a better person, a Jesus who supports your political party, a Jesus who dresses in a suit, who speaks eloquently and says what we want to hear and above all does not rock the boat in our lives. 

 

I think some people live in a fantasy world where Jesus is holding our hand telling us we are the ones that are right and some day soon all the other idiots will pay.  And we are going to make it because we are Pentecostal, Calvinists, Catholics, and Armenians; because we attend the right church and support the right political party.  Or is Jesus actively pulling our heartstrings to feed the hungry, help the marginalized, and the desperate.  Is He the Jesus that is telling you to reach out of your comfort zone to eat and fellowship with those you would not normally talk to?  The Jesus that compels us to pray for our enemies instead of talking about them – the Jesus that says put others before ourselves, the Jesus that said to model our lives like him.  The latter of these is the Jesus of the Scripture, the ugly one.  The first one is definitely more popular in evangelical America, but is a myth, a make believe Jesus sharing a genre with Harry Potter.