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Be Childlike

Back in Jesus’ day, children weren’t regarded the same way they are today. This made his teachings around the value of being childlike countercultural.  Jesus taught, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” And he lived it out — childlike in humility, compassion, and gentleness. What can we learn from his example today?

Love Your Enemies

We see conflict all around us. We align ourselves on different sides of the fight in battles of politics, religion, justice, and too often, we let that conflict morph from a dignified defense of something good into a dehumanizing attack on the people we don’t agree with. It’s tearing us apart.   But Jesus offered us an alternative as an example — and his solution wasn’t to grow apathetic and avoid the conflict altogether. He showed us something else entirely, a third way. His response to the ever-increasing volume of hate and conflict was love. Not just any love — confounding, sacrificial, selfless love. You see, Jesus still stood up for what he believed in. He defended the defenseless, spoke up on behalf of the voiceless, even flipped a few tables, but in everything he did, he first moved with love toward the people he disagreed with. What if we tried to love our enemies the way Jesus loved his? How would it change the tenor of our conflicts and our conversations?

AI Love

We asked an artificial intelligence image generator to show us pictures of love. The results were very abstract, flowery, and fake. At first, we were disappointed in the AI, then we realized the AI is trained on real images out in the real world — if the AI’s depiction of love feels fake, it’s because fake love is what we’ve shown it. So, we regrouped and tried something else. We gave the AI text prompts that were simply Jesus’ own words describing love. We were floored by the results. *All the images shown were created using Midjourney. All text prompts shown are the real text prompts used for each corresponding image.

That Day

More than just about anyone else, Jesus had reason to harbor resentment and hatred. He was wrongly accused, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. But in his last moments, he didn’t speak out against the people involved in his wrongful execution, he had compassion on them. He displayed radical love until the end, forgiving the very people that put him on the cross.

Imagine this scene: Two young parents grab their toddler and whatever they can carry on their backs and flee the country. There was no safety for them in their homeland, so the only option was to seek foreign soil. This was the reality for Mary, Joseph, and a very young Jesus. When King Herod ordered all the male children 2 years old or younger to be killed, Mary and Joseph had no other option. They fled to Egypt. Jesus was a refugee.

The Making of “Refugee”

These behind-the-scenes interviews provide valuable insight into the experiences and harsh realities that refugees face every day. The same nearly insurmountable odds that Jesus and his parents faced 2,000 years ago as they were seeking refuge in Egypt, outside of their homeland.

Dinner Party

Jesus was radically inclusive. His love movement ran counter to cultural norms and religious expectations of the day. He went out of his way to care for people whom society had rejected – from disabled people, to conquering military oppressors, to prostitutes. He befriended corrupt tax collectors and violent nationalists. He treated women as equals at a time when such behavior was unheard of, and he embraced people in historically oppressed races and ethnic communities. Many times his love was so radical that it even violated the law.     Jesus invited all to participate in the love, but not everyone was interested. The powerful and the wealthy were often threatened by Jesus’ movement, because it always resisted systems of oppression. After all, many benefited from oppressing the poor, the sick, women, and even certain races that Jesus embraced throughout his activism. So, they didn’t just reject his invitation, they killed him for it.   But in spite of their best efforts to silence the movement, Jesus’s message still resonates today. And its still radically inclusive. We’re all invited.

Family Matters

Jesus had strained relationships with his loved ones. As he gained popularity and began speaking to larger and larger crowds, his own family “came to take custody of him.” They seemed very concerned with either the direction or scale of Jesus’ ministry. But when they disagreed with him, he didn’t push them away or get defensive. Instead, he looked to restore healthy relationships. In some of his last recorded words, as he died, Jesus asked a close friend to take care of his mother. Jesus understood that relationships are messy. His closest ones, even with family and friends, were too. But he knew people close to him were more important than their differences and pride.     Scripture references: Mark 3:20-21; John 19: 25-27

The Influencer

Jesus had a following, to say the least. People came to him from every quarter to hear about his extreme views on love. Many because they found hope in his words. But some felt threatened by those words. They wanted him canceled. 

Good Times

Jesus was no stranger to joy. He went to weddings. He shared lively meals with his friends. He drank with them. He had so much fun and acted so freely around the dinner table, the uptight religious leaders called him a glutton and a drunkard. 

Alone

As a man who traveled the world gathering fame and followers, Jesus knew how it felt to be surrounded by loving company. But like us, he knew how it felt to lose that love without warning. 

Jesus faced insurmountable controversy. So often, he was the target of unjustified hate or saw others being mistreated. How did he stifle his outrage? Sometimes, he didn’t. 

Anxiety

One night, he became particularly worried because he knew his adversaries were coming for him. He’d soon face arrest, torture, and even execution. It created an unimaginable weight. A weight so heavy he began sweating blood. 

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