The Jesus I Never Knew

The Jesus I Never Knew

Copyright ©1995 by Philip Yancey

Contents

Part One

Who He Was

1. The Jesus I Thought I Knew  

2. Birth: The Visited Planet  

3. Background: Jewish Roots and Soil  

4. Temptation: Showdown in the Desert  

5. Profile: What Would I Have Noticed?

Part Two

Why He Came

6. Beatitudes: Lucky Are the Unlucky  

7. Message: A Sermon of Offense  

8. Mission: A Revolution of Grace  

9. Miracles: Snapshots of the Supernatural  

10. Death: The Final Week  

11. Resurrection: A Morning Beyond Belief

Part Three

What He Left Behind

12. Ascension: A Blank Blue Sky  

13. Kingdom: Wheat Among the Weeds  

14. The Difference He Makes

Thanks .. .

To the class I taught, and was taught by, at LaSalle Street Church in Chicago.

To Tim Stafford, Bud Ogle, and Walter Wangerin Jr., whose perceptive comments  

caused me to rewrite this book several more times than I would have on my own.

To Verlyn Verbrugge, for his careful technical editing on matters of biblical accuracy.

To my editor John Sloan, who patiently endured, and helped improve, all those drafts.

THE

JESUS I

NEVER

KNEW

Part One

Who He Was

1

The Jesus

I Thought I Knew

Suppose we hear an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear  

that some men said he was too tall and some too short; some objected to his fatness, some  

lamented his leanness; some thought him too dark, and some too fair. One explanation . . .  

would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is another explanation. He might be the  

right shape. . . . Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least  

the normal thing, the centre.

G. K. Chesterton

1

The Jesus

I Thought I Knew

I first got acquainted with Jesus when I was a child, singing "Jesus Loves Me" in Sunday  

school, addressing bedtime prayers to "Dear Lord Jesus," watching Bible Club teachers move  

cutout figures across a flannelgraph board. I associated Jesus with Kool-Aid and sugar cookies  

and gold stars for good attendance.

I remember especially one image from Sunday school, an oil painting that hung on the  

concrete block wall. Jesus had long, flowing hair, unlike that of any man I knew. His face was  

thin and handsome, his skin waxen and milky white. He wore a robe of scarlet, and the artist had  

taken pains to show the play of light on its folds. In his arms, Jesus cradled a small sleeping  

lamb. I imagined myself as that lamb, blessed beyond all telling.

Recently, I read a book that the elderly Charles Dickens had written to sum up the life of  

Jesus for his children. In it, the portrait emerges of a sweet Victorian nanny who pats the heads  

of boys and girls and offers such advice as, "Now, children, you must be nice to your mummy  

and daddy." With a start I recalled the Sunday school image of Jesus that I grew up with:  

someone kind and reassuring, with no sharp edges at all-a Mister Rogers before the age of  

children's television. As a child I felt comforted by such a person.

Later, while attending a Bible college, I encountered a different image. A painting popular in  

those days depicted Jesus, hands out-stretched, suspended in a Dali-like pose over the United  

Nations building in New York City. Here was the cosmic Christ, the One in whom all things  

inhere, the still point of the turning world. This world figure had come a long way from the  

lamb-toting shepherd of my childhood.

Still, students spoke of the cosmic Jesus with a shocking intimacy. The faculty urged us to  

develop a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," and in chapel services we hymned our love  

for him in most familiar terms. One song told about walking beside him in a gar-den with dew  

still on the roses. Students testifying about their faith casually dropped in phrases like "The Lord  

told me. . . ." My own faith hung in a kind of skeptical suspension during my time there. I was  

wary, confused, questioning.

Looking in retrospect on my years at Bible college, I see that, despite all the devotional  

intimacies, Jesus grew remote from me there. He became an object of scrutiny. I memorized the  

list of thirty-four specific miracles in the Gospels but missed the impact of just one miracle. I  

learned the Beatitudes yet never faced the fact that none of us-I above all-could make sense of