
If Jesus never existed, or if the things he said about himself weren’t true, then the gospel message doesn’t matter. (And let us not add, ‘or they matter a little, insofar as they enjoin us to be nice to each other’, for that is only a part of the gospel message.) If he did exist, and if the things he said about himself are true, then the gospel message is the most important thing ever given to us. What it can’t be, and C.S. Lewis pointed this out, is only kind of important.
Let’s put it a different way.
Imagine, and maybe you are this person, eyeing up Jesus from a distance. (More likely, you’re eyeing up people who call themselves Jesus-followers, not Jesus.) You’re considering him in the manner of a rumor. Is he real? And if so, what could you expect if, theoretically, you became a follower too? Most people from this perspective imagine a mild hardship, a denial of things they like to do, like not being able to read the comics on a Sunday, or drink, or cuss … and maybe there would be some friends who would look askance at the whole enterprise, and that would be awkward. And then, in exchange, you might get Jesus as a sort of fuel additive that would make your life run smoother in some way. You size up his followers to see how their lives are going. You’re not really asking, ‘Is it true’? You’re asking, ‘Would life be any better?’ And if it did get better, then maybe the Jesus thing was worth doing. That’s a teeny Jesus concept. And looked at that way, who’d bother with it? Not me.
Then there’s the person who really does want something, in the sense of knowing what’s true, and good, who could consider a change of orientation, and does wonder now and again if the right direction is this Jesus thing. This person runs a different calculus. Again, it’s ‘What would I have to do?’ And after whatever that is, there’s a fair certainty that things would be better, though again, in an undefined sort of way. But here’s a different hangup. If this person is serious about the prospect, he probably thinks, ‘I could never approach something as grand as God, or even the Son of God … they’d never have me!’ That’s a giant and terrible Jesus concept. I wouldn’t have the nerve to go there myself.
So Jesus, for a lot of us, is either too little, or too big.
We come back now to what he always said about himself. (1) He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He’s not just another great teacher and a nice guy. And (2) He came not to be served, but to serve, and he gave his life in order to rescue us. And that means (and it can only mean) that he wants the entirety of each of us, not just the parts we want him to see.
We may not choose to enter this bargain, which is nothing like the other two. But it is the bargain.