The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
January 2, 2000
Vol. 3 no. 1

Everything But...
           Has there ever been a time in the last 2000 or so years when more people have known about Jesus Christ? It is not just that there are billions more human beings on Planet Earth than in previous centuries. Through modern technology more people have been exposed to all manner of thinking about Jesus and attempting to live like him.
      The Quest for the Historical Jesus is very much alive again, first studied in the early part of the 20th century by Albert Schweitzer. All the major magazines - Maclean's, Time, Newsweek, Life, Atlantic Monthly - are compelled each year to devote a cover issue to the newest buzz about Jesus.
      Is it possible to imagine a time where no one knows about Jesus? I don't mean all the places on earth where another great religion florishes. I mean a place and time in which "He was in the world...yet the world did not know him." To "know" here is to understand, to know someone deep through and through.
      The Evangelist John says that did happen when Jesus was walking in Galilee; people seldom recognized who he was and certainly paid him little attention. It is easier to believe in a Messiah who is coming, than in a Messiah who has come and is mixing it up with us.
      The danger in reading a 2000-year-old set of scriptures is being deluded into thinking that "ignoring Jesus" happened back in ancient times when people weren't as knowledgeable as we are now.
      Looking around today, I believe the Gospel is remarkably contemporary in its portrayal of our "knowledge" of Jesus. There are many Jesuses out there, each serving the needs of a different interest group. Our only interest in 2000 is to know that "knowing Jesus" means to be serving his interests in a broken world.