Description
Jesus experienced poverty at its worst. At birth, his parents’ request for a room was rejected and they were forced to deliver their baby in a feeding trough in a manger. At his baby dedication, his parents could only afford two doves, the poor man’s offering. In infancy, his parents had to seek shelter in Egypt for his protection. Throughout his life, he carried the tag “child of fornication” (bastard) because no one believed the story of a virgin birth. The religious establishment, envious of his powerful works and radical interpretation of the scriptures, sought his demise, and when they failed, resorted to name-calling. He was a drunk and a glutton and a prince of devils whose miracles were inspired by Beelzebub.
This man was betrayed by his trusted friend, denied thrice by his closest disciple, and in death was abandoned by all save one of his followers. At his trials, they scourged him with a cat-o-nine, put a blindfold on him and struck him on the head, and then mockingly asked him to prophesy who did it. Human depravity showed its ugliness when they ripped out his beard and covered his face with spit. Then came the coup de grâce. They put a purple robe on him, slammed into his skull a crown made of thorns, gave him a stick for a diadem, and mocked him as the King of the Jews. As if the humiliation was not enough, they jeered him while he hung on a cross between two criminals, and had it not been for a rich sympathizer, his body would have been tossed into the dumps outside the city gates as fodder for the vultures.
Unlike many who hide their past, rejig their ancestry, and pad their biography so as to give the impression they have always enjoyed a privileged social and economic standing, Jesus shows us that there is no shame in poverty, or in an upbringing in a seedy neighborhood, or rejection for being misunderstood. Like water on a duck’s back, he shrugged off the nicknames and continued to render love for hate. The hallmark of his brief life is a lesson in how to use adversity to dig gold out of dirt. He shows us how we can leverage our experience of hardship, unfairness, and injustice for personal and societal transformation.
These messages focus on the sufferings of Christ, from birth to death, to give us a sense of the hell Jesus went through to restore us to the divine image so we can find the joy and adventure that accompanies the pursuit of our creational purpose and reap the reward of eternal life when this phase our existence comes to an end.
