What If Jesus Showed Up?

Picture this - It’s Sunday morning. You wake up, put on your “Sunday Best” or maybe just whatever makes you feel the best. Spend the whole morning trying to get everyone together. You finally get there, walk inside, and there it is - someone is wearing something you didn’t like, I mean come on… nobody ever wore sandals to church when you were growing up, what are they thinking?! A HAT?! Ripped jeans…. You spent the whole morning trying to get your family to look “churchy” and here these people are…. just galavanting around wearing whatever they want. That’s not “tradition”….I mean, your grandmother would be appalled. That’s not how you are suppose to “go to church”…. right?! 

Let me tell you about a man named Jesus. He was a carpenter, probably dirty a lot. I picture His hands, that were later pierced with nails for you and I, rough and calloused. I’m sure there were times He didn’t smell the best. He worked hard. He had shoes that were most likely made out of grass, rope, that kind of thing…. as you can imagine, they probably didn’t look the best or even function the best. I would imagine His clothes were ripped, His hair wasn’t the trimmed up “traditional” mens cut you may expect now. If Jesus, looking the way He did when He was physically walking the earth in the flesh, walked up to us right now… it begs the question, what would we think? If He walked through some of our church doors… would we be so focused on the way He looked that we miss an encounter with the King? 

As a minister, one of my favorite things is to study the ministry of Jesus. The greatest ministry to ever exist, and yet so untraditional. Jesus was a rebel in the sense that He didn’t care what anyone thought. He broke cultural norms to heal people. Relationship mattered to Jesus far more than ritual. 

Mark 3:1-6 - MSG translation 

3 1-3 Then He went back in the meeting place where He found a man with a crippled hand. The Pharisees had their eyes on Jesus to see if He would heal him, hoping to catch Him in a Sabbath infraction. He said to the man with the crippled hand, “Stand here where we can see you.”

4 Then He spoke to the people: “What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?” No one said a word.

5-6 He looked them in the eye, one after another, angry now, furious at their hard-nosed religion. He said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” He held it out—it was as good as new! The Pharisees got out as fast as they could, sputtering about how they would join forces with Herod’s followers and ruin him.

In this time, it was absurd to do what Jesus did. To heal someone on the sabbath. I love the response Jesus gave. I love that this version words it as “hard-nosed religion” Jesus is wild and I love it. He doesn’t just want your religious tradition, in fact that means nothing to Him. He wants your heart. 

There are good traditions and it’s okay if there are some traditions you like. However, anything can be an idol. It can get to a point where tradition becomes our god. We are so caught up on trivial things, that we miss what God is doing right in front of us, all because that young worship leader had a hole in his jeans or a strip of pink in her hair and sometimes we show up to corporate church to serve ourselves instead of serving God. 

It blows my mind when I hear people talking about how “disrespectful” it is to not wear traditional “church clothes” as if the first church did. In biblical times, people would crawl to see Jesus if they had to. They didn’t dress up, they didn’t have time to make sure they smelled good and looked “churchy” enough for Him… they were desperate for Jesus and that desperation mattered far more than their appearance. I just think we could go so much further in our walk with Christ if we focused on Jesus instead of our own idea of what “church” looks like. 

What I love about the ministry of Jesus… it was real, raw and messy. It wasn’t always pretty but it was beautiful. 

Y’all, I love fashion about as much as possible. I think it is fun to get ready, find good deals, wear nice clothes - it’s a form of creativity - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think it’s a passion given to many of us by a creative God… but we have got to get past the idea that tradition trumps everything. Culture changes, trends come and go, but the one thing that remains the same is God wants you and loves you exactly as you are. Don’t just go to church, BE THE CHURCH. The Bible teaches us to LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. That includes your neighbor that doesn’t wear the kind of clothes you like. 

I also want to end this by adding that there are so many good churches filled with amazing people… not perfect, but amazing - so please do not avoid corporate church all together for the fear of being judged… you’re just as likely to be judged at the grocery store. This is just a call to all Christ followers - myself included - Let’s just be more like Jesus every day. That’s my prayer and my desire. I fall short but I will never stop striving to be as much like Jesus as possible. 

Let’s just grow the kingdom, guys. Suits and ties and ripped jeans and hats. Let’s join together and be the church and build the kingdom of God. Let’s go and make disciples, focusing on what really matters. 

God bless!