Getting to the Point.

I just got ripped off by Bank of America.  Again.  If I can offer one piece of advice to everyone out there, it would be this: Do not bank with Bank of America.  Anyone but them.  This blog isn't about the ripping off, so I won't go into detail... ask me in person sometime and I'll disclose the full details of the rip off.

So what is this blog about, exactly?  Glad you asked.  In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus is sitting on a mountain and teaching the multitudes of people who had followed Him "from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan."  The people had just witnessed Jesus heal many people of their lifelong disabilities and crippling diseases, preaching in synagogs with the words of the prophets dripping from his tongue.  He is the Messiah - the Promised One sent by God to free the Jews from Roman occupation.  The Conquering King, who will rise up and strike down Caesar and the oppressors.

So in light of that, Jesus sits down with hundreds and hundreds of eager Jews who are ready to hear him give a Braveheart-style sermon.  And this is what He says; 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, 

      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn, 
      for they will be comforted. 
Blessed are the meek, 
      for they will inherit the earth. 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 
      for they will be filled. 
Blessed are the merciful, 
      for they will be shown mercy. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, 
      for they will see God. 
Blessed are the peacemakers, 
      for they will be called sons of God. 
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, 
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Not exactly a 'down-by-a-touchdown-with-one-minute-left-in-the-fourth' speech.  Yet when I came home today after having been frustrated almost to the point of straight-up yelling in the face of the Bank of America branch manager, it wasn't a Coach Carter speech or a Mel Gibson monologue that reminded me of who I am.

I love reading about Jesus because the more I do, the more I see that the punches kept on rolling with Him.  Everyone expected Him, the Messiah, to kick some serious Roman butt and take back the land of Israel so that the Jews could finally know rest and live in God's kingdom.  Yet Jesus goes not to the leaders or to the popular 'celebrities' or to the intellectuals.  He doesn't go to the White House or the Pentagon or the G8.  He goes to the bums on the street.  The prostitutes, the embezzlers.  The average Joes, the rejects.

Okay, but You're still going to take things over, right Son of God?  You're forming an elite fighting force of God's warriors to attack, right?

Then He preaches to love your enemies, to walk an extra mile with your oppressors, to give your cloak to someone suing you for your shirt.  He gives us a third path, not of violence nor of apathy.  A scandalous, nigh impossible path where we walk by Spirt and Truth to enact change impossible through retaliation or indifference.

Yes yes yes, but when do we get to the whole 'taking back God's land' part?  When do we get to live in communion with God after having crushed His enemies?

Finally, to top it all off, Jesus gets Himself killed.  And not just killed, but beaten and thrashed and stripped of all dignity and spit on and then nailed to a tree.  And then He dies, slowly, between two thieves.  Murdered in cold blood.

What?!  What happened to the righting of the wrongs?  The crushing of injustice?  The healing of disease?  What happened, Messiah?  I thought You would save us...

*                *                *                *

I think what concerned me most before I came to follow Christ was a simple question: What is the point of my life?  Going through high school, I thought about this a lot.

Why did I get good grades?

To get into a good college.

Why?

To get a good degree.

Why?  

To get a good job, of course.

...But why?

To get a lot of money.

Why?

Well... so I can afford to buy the newest iPod and send my kids to college and own a nice house and pay the bills and go on good vacations and... and...

Why?

I followed this train of thought, asking why I wanted what I wanted.  I came to the conclusion that my objective in life - the point of my life - was to be happy.  So I had my answer:

I exist to make myself happy.

And I hated that answer.  It seemed so... empty.  Pointless.  The point of my life was pointless.  Luckily (or unluckily, I suppose,) it was easy to think about other things and forget my findings.  I could focus on a Geometry test or a book report or the upcoming wrestling match against *gulp* Trinity Perkins.  So life was fine, because I could easily avoid thinking about the pointless point of my life.

I suppose I could live my life helping others, though.  I could get that good job to give more to charities and educate my kids to go do great things and love my wife and treat her like a queen.  I could help others out of financial situations and maybe even serve in the Peace Corps!

But where does that leave me when I die?  Even if I spend a life helping others out, there would still be skeletons in my closet.  I would still have wronged more people than I could count.  I probably would have stolen - if not a priceless piece of art, then gum from a store.  I still would have made people's lives miserable - fired bad employees, cut people off in traffic while flipping the bird, made fun of people I didn't agree with, talked down to people who offended me.

Even if my heart was weighed after my death, good deeds versus bad ones, the "bad" side would break the scale.  We get so used to doing wrong that a lot of the time we don't even realize we're doing it.

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So when I read in the Bible about Jesus and what He preached, I was intrigued to say the least.  He promised a life full of hardships, persecution, rejection, and bad days.  A life spent denying what comes naturally and clinging to a God who we have not seen.  A life where the least become the greatest, where the meek inherit the earth, where you find your life when you lose it.

This was so utterly different from the "get a 6-pack of abs or girls won't want to have sex with you" message of the world that I wanted to know more.  It was different, it was beautiful, and it was dang confusing.  Seriously, what does all that mean?  Will the meek literally inherit the earth?  How do I find my life by losing it?

After a while of researching the Bible and the claims made by Jesus, I decided that the life He described was the life I wanted to live.  Even if I didn't fully understand and even if it was weird, I wanted what He described.  I wanted to leave what I knew - to leave a life full of wanting to be something I'm not, full of trying so hard to get something I don't need, full of experimenting with a hundred different things just to be happy - and take the alternate route.

I wanted a life where no matter how many time a bank steals my money and then asks for more of my money to balance out what they stole, I know that there are more important things to get mad at.  I wanted a life full of mystery and love and community and adventure.  A life where I cannot simply run away from my problems.  A life where I get to wait for my girl and not have to worry about the latest fashions or the coolest hairstyles to find her.  A life where I don't need anything that can be taken away from me.  A life spent glorifying the only One who is worthy of it, through sacrificing my comforts and advantages to help others.

And that is the life I'm trying my hardest to live.

Thanks for reading,

-Daniel K