Blog Tag. I'm it.

Apparently I've been tagged. "Tagged?" you say? Why, yes. Jill got tagged to answer a question on her blog and she tagged me so I guess I'm it. Apparently it's my job to answer the same said question. So, here goes:

Five Things I Dig About Jesus

1. He became a baby

At a party over the weekend we were discussing getting older and how we aren't as freaked out about being in our 30's as we supposed we would. In fact, I really like being 32 and wouldn't go back to 22 if you paid me. To be so unsure of myself and my future? To be in my first year of marriage and not my 11th? To see my whole life looming before me and thinking every decision would hurl me down a path I couldn't turn back from? Yikes.

And then there is the God of the Universe who chose to be born a baby. To go from Lord of all Creation to having a teen-aged mother birth you in a barn and change your diaper. To be dirty and hungry and sick. To be dependant on people for everything. We think of the cross as a sacrifice, but just being born was one as well.

2. He put up with the bonehead disciples

In the past few years I have come to view the disciples as lovable dopes. I know I have the luxury of a couple thousands of years of hindsight, perspective and collective knowledge and I'm still a complete moron when it comes to most spiritual matters, but those guys...man. The parables are tricky to even the cleverest of folks, but even the most black and white stuff, with Jesus sitting right there in front of them, they just didn't get it. How could they understand what they were in the middle of? I love those guys. I love that those were Christ's guys--the boneheads.

3. Jesus is for Losers

The poor, the weak, women, the unclean, lepers, tax collectors, children, prostitutes--Jesus didn't care who you were. Still doesn't. The last are first. The meek inherit the earth. Thank goodness.

4. He took the crazy stuff in stride and didn't care what people thought

I taught high school Sunday school a few weeks ago. I always try to get them to read scripture as if they have never heard it before. You would think this would not be hard, considering many of them haven never heard it before. But they think it's all the same old stuff. We were reading the story about Jesus reclineing at the table of a Pharisee when a prostitute came in wailing, crying all over Jesus' feet and wiping them with her hair. Say what? I just kept saying, "Isn't that crazy?!? A HOOKER is wiping her hair and tears on his feet in the middle of a dinner party!" And Jesus was just like, "Alright. See how happy she is to be forgiven? Simmer down you disapproving Pharisee."

5. Grace