I Wanted to Write About Jesus, But…

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I Wanted to Write About Jesus, But…

By Jane Tawel

August 7, 2023

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I wanted to write about Jesus, but….

I wanted to write something about Jesus,

but then I kept asking myself, “Which Jesus would that be?”

I still think a lot about this person,

known to history only by the name “Yeshua”,

and maybe you have heard about him,

and later, people added on the title, “Christ”,

and I think about that,

even though I don’t think about him the same way I used to any more.

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I no longer wanted to write about

the Jesus that people had invented from their need for a new god,

because they didn’t like the Jew’s God (or the Jews).

And I no longer wanted to write about a Jesus that died,

so that I never had to face what was expected of me,

by that same Jesus, expected of me in order to live the right way.

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I didn’t want to write about a Jesus that wasn’t human at all,

but whose myth conspired and morphed

into weapons used by millennia of power-hungry people.

I didn’t want to write about a Jesus who came not to heal the broken,

but one who oppressed the very ones Jesus said he loved;

the weak, and poor, and judged, and hungry,

the very ones he said he came to save from oppression and greed.

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I didn’t want to write about the Jesus who

supported gas chambers or inquisitions

or “detention centers” in places like Guantanamo Bay,

or greedy, polluting pipelines on sacred land.

And I didn’t want to write about the Jesus,

that was hidden away in people’s hearts,

without ever coming out to show me,

Christ’s hands, and feet, and mind, and smile.

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So, I was left with nothing to write about Jesus.

Then I remembered that the man Jesus,

also had nothing to write about himself,

or others,

or his God.

He never wrote a single word to leave behind.

He once wrote something in the sand,

which saved a woman’s life,

but what he wrote there,

blew away with the next wind,

like dust to dust.

He simply lived,

and loved,

and shared some food, and wine, and conversation.

And maybe that is the miracle –

Maybe that is where the miracles came from — 

that he simply lived and loved,

and shared.

And so that is what I decided to do.

© Jane Tawel, 2023