40 Days with Jesus: Day 18

A United Methodist pastor in a small Kansas town decided to carry a cardboard cutout of Jesus with him every day for the 40 days of Lent. This series will document some of their adventures. We have affectionately taken to calling the cutout, "CJ" which stands for "Cardboard Jesus."

By Vicky Miller

Looks like Jesus will be watching quite a bit of tennis in the next few weeks. We were off again today to watch our college son, Wes’s, tennis tournament.

I grabbed the Saturday paper to read on the way. I read three articles from the faith section aloud to Jeff, and we found one to be particularly inspiring. It was by reporter Edie Ross. She had been on a weeklong dental mission trip to Russia and was telling about the impact it had on her life. She starts the article with a question, “Why there and not here?” Then she goes on to say, “For five days in a frozen Siberian city I possessed a single-minded focus and passion to tell people about Jesus Christ-His sacrificial death that paid the penalty for our crimes against God (sin), His resurrection that gave Him victory over death, and the gift of eternal life that we are freely given if only we submit our lives to Christ, claim His victory over death as our own and out of absolute gratitude live in devotion to Him.”

She wonders why now that she is home she can’t seem to open her mouth and tell the people she encounters the same good news.

This article made me think about our experience thus far with Cardboard Jesus. It’s been fairly easy to talk to people about CJ, but when it gets down to talking to people about the person of Jesus Christ, that’s a different story.

Many of us don’t want to offend people in a culture that says whatever you believe is fine. Take for example Fox News Commentator Brit Hume's remarks when the Tiger Wood’s scandal broke. Hume said, " the extent to which [Tiger] can recover -- seems to me to depend on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'"

Some people were outraged by Hume’s comments. How dare he suggest that the Christian faith, with belief in Jesus as the only way to God at its core, is above any other religion.

Jesus’ claims that he was God’s son, the Messiah, the Chosen One, enraged people of his day and ultimately convicted him to death.

Back to Edie’s article. She tells how outspoken Russian Christians living in a communist country sometimes suffer consequences for their beliefs. She asks if she herself is willing to make the sacrifices the Russian believers make because of their relationship with Jesus.

She says, “I think that too often American Christians settle for ‘living out’ our faith with hopes that somehow the way we act-the characteristics we display-will clearly tell the story of Jesus and salvation.”

Ross continues, “Exhibiting compassion, forgiveness, patience and selflessness is good, but should not be considered a ‘replacement’ for an intentional conversation about who Jesus is and what He has done.”

“It is the Christian’s responsibility,” she says, “to proclaim the good news. The unbeliever’s responsibility is to hear, and it is God who will do the saving.”

When Jeff came into the clubhouse today after Wes’s matches were over, he leaned Jesus, folded in half, against the wall. After a while, I went over and put CJ in his standing position.

Immediately we heard a group of international students behind us start to have a discussion about Jesus. We heard them debating about who Jesus was: a prophet, the son of God, God himself.

Neither one of us joined in the discussion, but should we have? I couldn’t get Edie’s news article out of my mind.

The funny thing is, I didn’t discover until I had read the whole faith section that I was reading last Saturday’s paper.

To read Edie Ross’s article, go to hutchnews.com and type “Trip abroad stokes a desire to witness at home” in the search engine.