Is Jesus relevant?

Jesus was the most unique individual in all of human history. No other man has inspired more songs, more love and devotion, more worship and adoration, more obedience to his teachings and ideals, more respect for his authority, or more contempt or hatred or derision for who he claimed to be. We set our years and dates around his life, and celebrate his birth and death as national holidays unlike anyone else.
Songs by popular artists like Kanye West, Madonna, Carrie Underwood and more focus at least our attention on this man. He is the unequivocally the most beloved and hated man that ever existed! Yet in these last days it seems that when you and I communicate the love of God through the person of Jesus Christ, we are ridiculed and dismissed because in many people’s minds: “Jesus is just not relevant”.

When we use the term, ‘relevant’, many churches have taken major leaps to over-contemporize the gospel and really have provided another gospel, another Jesus. They want to be ‘relevant’ which to them really just means to dress Jesus up in a cool modern way and rewrite who He really is and what He said. In the dictionary, the word, ‘relevant’ means, “having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand”. It can also mean, “to make a connection”. In this light and definition, Jesus is absolutely relevant! He has significant and demonstrable bearing on ANY matter at hand! He makes the connection to each and every one of us and whatever we are going through.

Just in the book of John alone, we see Jesus dealing with: disappointment in religion (John 2), people’s religious questions (John 3), people who jump from one relationship to another looking for fulfillment in companionship and casual sex (John 4), people trapped in their physical handicaps (John 5), those who are hungry and poor and needy (John 6), people who have been disgraced and condemned by the religious establishment (John 8), people born with physical defects and deformities (John 9), people who are mourning the death of a loved one (John 11), people who turn their backs on God and seek selfish ambition (John 13), people who doubt (John 20), and people who have failed in horrible ways but need to be restored and forgiven (John 21).

Jesus IS relevant! He is Lord of the single mom and the widowed dad. He is Lord of the backsliding child and the lustful business owner. He is Lord of the weary missionary and the absentee dad. He can still minister to the tattooed barista or homeless veteran, still speak to the CEO or the unemployed grandfather. He wants to bring peace to the broken, the hurting, the abused, the neglected, the suicidal, the teen girl who cuts herself to escape the pain of life. Jesus is relevant, and we need to tell those around us, no matter who, that He wants to have a relationship with them and work in their hearts and lives. I encourage us to do that as a fellowship as we share the risen Christ this year with a world in desperate need of a connection with the living God.
-Pilgrim