New Eyes: A Fresh Perspective on Jesus for First-Time Listeners

What would it be like to hear the story of Jesus for the first time?

Most of the readers of this blog are old-timers. We were raised on a mother’s knee in church, memorizing verses for classes, and owning a dozen copies of the Bible.

I have to ask myself an accusatory question. Have I taken the life out of the truth? As a preacher and teacher, I dissect and delineate details worthy of a graduate student’s stupor.

It is familiar enough to skim and know what it says. But what about the person unfamiliar or foreign to the story? What if they never read a Bible and could barely spell the word?

We must shed the tradition and familiarity that cloud our perception of Jesus’ story, allowing us to rediscover its profound human, real, and raw essence.

The Outcasts

The story of Jesus on earth starts in a twisted way. We meet a woman named Mary. She’s supposed to get married to a carpenter named Joseph. But she becomes pregnant. Out of wedlock. And when asked, she said, “It is the Holy Spirit.”

Who believes that? She becomes the fodder for Galilean gossips. She loses her reputation and is close to losing her prospective husband. Feel the isolation as she tells the story again and again to the snickers and rolled eyes.

But Joseph stays. The story seems far-fetched but he’s seen the visions too.

Here are two people, social outcasts, living in a community that shuns them as sinners. No friends. And the synagogue meetings are difficult.

A Birth in Isolation

Nine months pass when Joseph reads an official notice to report to the city of his birth for Roman taxation purposes. He and his pregnant wife must travel the 80 miles to Bethlehem on the back of a donkey. Every bump in the road prompts another groan…and they are coming more regularly.

Bethlehem is full of pilgrims. Joseph can find no hospitable homes suitable for a wife about to give birth. Perhaps doors slam because they know Mary’s story and don’t want to sully their reputations.

It must have crossed Joseph’s mind. They were homeless and unwelcome.

Finally, Joseph finds a cave that serves as a shelter and feeding for sheep and cattle. It is her, among the dung and stench that a baby enters the world. Wrapped in linen, he makes his first cry in a feed trough.

But something is different. This baby born to a woman out of wedlock gets attention. Wise men from the east come with expense gives, the perfume of a palace. And kneeling by the makeshift cradle are shepherds ushered to the site by angels singing songs of peace on earth. Peace on earth is rare.

Perfume and pasture. Rich and poor. Pedigreed and pitiful. They come to this baby.

Refugees and Immigrants

But the word “king” spoken by the wise men in Herod’s presence pricked his ears. His narcissism and self-importance would not permit any rival, even a swaddled one. Isn’t this how revolts begin?

So he marches the mob out in a measured extermination of boy babies. If you can’t find the one on a hook, you can capture him in a net.

Joseph is concerned. This boy he now calls his son (even though it was not his) was in danger.

An angel tells him to flee to Egypt. They make the 12-hour walk to this nation where they will become both refugees and immigrants without permission or paperwork.

The Rest of the Story

This is not a story of pictures in a baby book but a panorama of history. The baby would grow and change the world.

He would raise the dead, heal the leper, make the blind see and the deaf hear. He offered something in short supply….forgiveness.

Then, the rulers killed him. What could he have done if he had lived?

But there’s more. He came out of a sealed tomb and is alive. He still heals. He forgives the sinner who comes in obedient following his ways.

Think of it. He was the object of busybodies. He was homeless. He was a refugee. He hurt. He died. He lives.

If you never read the story, and you heard this story for the first time, would it change you? That someone so much like us but so much different than us. He came and gave so I could not feel worthless or hopeless again.

Would it not bring a tear to your eye and rip at your heart?

Perhaps you have grown too comfortable with grasping facts with your head to grasp the glory with your heart.

So, what do you hear in the story?