The Real JESUS (Matthew 24:31-46)

 Who Are You Following: The Real Jesus or the Religious Jesus? Are you following the real Jesus or the religious Jesus? The biblical Jesus or the whitewashed Jesus that is often presented in Hollywood and the movies? The real Jesus is not who you think he was. The real Jesus came from a blended family everyone didn’t have the same father in Jesus’ household, and they weren’t all full-blood brothers and sisters. They were a blended family. If Jesus were around today, he might have been on Maury Povich to find out who the father was because Joseph wasn’t the biological father.

The real Jesus had anger issues. He came to the temple and threw people out, turned over tables, and cleared out the church. Today, we would have called the police and had him locked up or committed to an insane asylum. The real Jesus needed therapy. In modern times, his friends and family might have taken up a collection because he didn’t have insurance. He was buried in a borrowed tomb, which means he didn’t have a pre-need plan; he didn’t have insurance.

He didn’t have a house, an apartment, a lease, or a mortgage. He was homeless. He said, “The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man,” in my human, natural state, “I am homeless.” That’s why Jesus was able to say, “I was hungry, and you fed me; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was sick, and you visited me; I was naked.” that’s why he didn’t have an issue with being naked on the cross because he experienced poverty he was raised poor, and he was naked.

He said, “I was naked, and you clothed me.” He was relating to and identifying with those who have been marginalized. He said, “I was hungry, and you fed me or didn’t. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink or didn’t. I was sick, and you visited me or didn’t. I was in prison.” The real Jesus broke the law by eating on the Sabbath and eating bread from the priest’s table. These were criminal offenses. Healing on the Sabbath was also a criminal offense. He was behind on his bills; the tax collectors had to come to him and ask if he was going to pay his bills. I see him healing the sick and raising the dead, but is he going to pay his taxes? Is he going to pay his bills?

The real Jesus grew up in the hood, not in suburbia with a picket fence, a garage, and 2.5 children. The real Jesus grew up in the hood, so they said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” because Nazareth was the hood. Can anything good come out of the hood? He said, “I was homeless, and you gave me somewhere to stay.” The real Jesus is not the religious Jesus that we paint. We must ask ourselves a question: Can the real Jesus come to your church? I mean, really come to your church? Would the real Jesus pass your ordination process? Would the real Jesus be able to serve on your ministerial staff?

We have images of Jesus that are erroneous. So, my prayer for us today is that we let go of these incorrect ideas, these limiting beliefs, and these faulty perceptions about Jesus. We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He was tempted in all points, yet he was without sin. There is no group of people, no person, that Jesus cannot relate to. He hung out with the prostitutes, the sinners, and the alcoholics because this was his neighborhood; he was familiar with these people.