Teeny-Tiny Squish-Jesus

Jesus.

He's two inches tall. You ask Him into your heart then put Him in your pocket.

A good luck charm.

A prayer whispered beside a five-year-old's bed, and the peace that flows into the heart of the mother.

The ticket to heaven.

What was the fate of her five year old's soul the night before?

Not a conversation that should be had.

At times it seems that the only belief in Christianity more important than belief in Jesus, is belief in hell.

Because without hell...

Who the hell is Jesus?

That man.

A commodity. Buy Him at Wal-Mart and toss him on the check out line. Swipe your "confession of sins" credit card and toss Him in the bag.

Boom Bop Bing.

Jesus.

The splitting point in history. The AD to your BC. And He lives in your... pocket?

Who was this man?

The One who turned water to wine, the Alchemist. The One who read the secrets of hearts. The One who uttered the words, "neither do I condemn her."

But the church shrink-wrapped Him and slapped on the fancy title, "substitutionary atonement theory," and this was why He mattered. He helped you not have to deal with a cosmological crisis that, quite frankly, you never chose in the first place.

And it works until it doesn't. Until your faith stops faithing.

Until one day, to your horror you discover a lose thread, a fray in the fabric of faith...

Until the day comes, that almost on accident, you give that lose string a teeny tiny tug...

...and little did you know it would be the beginning of the end of that "faith."

The unraveling. When your world falls apart, where hope goes to die.

The death of Jesus.

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Someone I recently met pondered the death of Jesus in a way that intrigued me. He told the story of a boy who fell in love with a girl. And the boy wanted to show the girl his love by giving her flowers. But the girl said, "It's easy to do something nice. But real love is doing something you don't like. If you love me, eat this cricket."

Silly, I know. But maybe it's actually pretty profound.

What if Jesus just wanted to show us how much we really meant to Him? It wasn't some cosmological penalty cancellation, but just a manifestation of the extent of His unfathomable love?

I don't know. I sure don't have this all figured out. But something feels like I'm getting closer. Something inside feels like the birds are finding their melody again.

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There's something they don't tell you in Sunday school... they don't tell you that there's more than one way to understand resurrection. They tell you it's your ticket to some celestial heaven. That "He rose."

But what if there's a deeper meaning? Something more?

What if His death... His dark night... His resurrection...

What if it's a metaphor. An overlay. A parallel...

Of you?

Your own death... dark night... and resurrection?

What if it's the death of the "you" that lived in a box. A box called "church." While He lived in the "box" of His human body?

And what if, after your own dark night when all is lost...

You rise.

Not into the same four walls--the church--but something of Spirit, something infinite, something that can't be contained in words...

Is born...

When the wings of the soul take flight...

In love, beauty, and wonder...

And suddenly Jesus is not just information. He's not a trip to celestial glory some day far away, an escape from cosmic torment...

Suddenly He's something else altogether.

What if in that moment He becomes what He was all along:

Freedom within...

Infinite freedom.