Saturday, 03 January 2009

• What Jesus Means to Me

  Guest post submitted by its_me_katie

  I know Jesus means something different to everyone. Whether it's how you live your life, or maybe how you try to act, or who you worship every Sunday, or even just a name.  Maybe the humble leader with good intentions or now the excuse behind a huge mass of people who stand behind hate for gays and abortion? Whether any of these apply to you, or nothing at all, this is what Jesus means to me.

  In kindergarten and first grade, Jesus meant BEAD CRAFTS! WOOOO! Specifically, these kind:

  

  Every week at Sunday School, the teacher would elect one of us to read out of some long, boring book with no pictures. There would occasionally be a drawing of Moses and his staff or Jesus being born. Since none of us could read at that time, the teacher would attempt to summarize it. He would just say something like, "Jesus loves you and that's why he died. So, Katie, do you want to make a star or a heart today?!"

  Basically, the only thing I remember actually learning from Sunday School was how to make iron-on bead crafts. And wow, I had so many! I had already made EVERY pattern from the box at least five times, but hey, that's what Jesus was to me. Jesus is a colorful, fun guy that I can hang up in my house and refuse to let my sisters touch.

  At the very end of first grade, my parents announced they were getting baptized. Both of them were baptized right after another. It was a pretty cool thing to see, both of your parents plastered to the wall behind some glass containing water. Their free white tee shirts were flying up and they looked like white flowers bobbing around behind that glass. It was kind of cool. Everyone around me was asking me if I was proud, if I was happy, if I planned to get baptized too, one day. I was like, uh, DUH. If my parents look that cool, glued to the wall looking like giant pieces of tissue paper, then sign me up. Seriously. It was just a cool thing to see... but at that time I didn't really understood what it meant. It was just how cool it looked and how happy I was supposed to feel. And believe me, I was happy. Jesus made you happy and Jesus could make things look cool (namely, my parents floating around for everyone to see).

  I moved to Texas, shortly after that. I started going to the church I currently attend, now. To me, Jesus was singing! I honestly don't remember doing anything else in worship besides those two things. I can remember all the songs fondly. The Papaya Song... The faaaaaather I adoooooore yooooou, and a few more (We sang Father I Adore You in echo, where one group sings and then the other group sings the same thing, only later, and it's supposed to sound cool? Yeah, we did that at least once every Sunday).

  In fourth grade, my view of Jesus changed drastically. [story time!]  My family went on our first trip to Hong Kong. We stayed at the small flat of one of my mom's aunts/cousins/something like that. They lived on the sixth floor. Next to their apartment door is one of those small Buddhist statues. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's like some little shrine. It's red, there's a picture of Buddha and there's oranges on plates, and some small red lights. There's a few sticks of incense propped in there. It's less than two feet tall, and right next to the walkway. Okay, upon entering, my sister completely trips on that thing and it falls over. My aunt/cousin/thing was like, aw, it's cool! She didn't make a big deal, nor did anyone else. She calmly goes to fix it that was the end of it (for her).

  Okay, later that night, my dad was joking with my sister saying, "Ooooh you woke up the spirits! They're going to get you and haunt you!" Of course, we were really young at that time and believed every word. My sister starts crying, and my mom said "oh man, look what you did. It's okay! Since we believe in Jesus Christ he's going to fight off all the spirits! Nobody's gonna hurt you tonight, okay? Jesus is more powerful than them."

  I was nine at the time and suddenly, it hit me. Jesus was a superhero. He's better than Buddha, a lot, apparently.

  By middle school, Jesus was just a little bit different (I guess in some ways he was still a superhero). I was still in the same church, same everything. I started attending the youth programs, those were completely different to what I had been used to. Worship was like rock concerts, where superhot singers (and I remember the name of every single one of them, ) would come out. Everyone around them were like crazy, awesome, believers! (in my eyes) They had their hands up, they were dancing, they were crazy, they looked like rainbow aliens (because we had bright lights and rainbow stuff flying around). But worship was COOL, thus, Jesus is cool.

  

  The youth retreats I went to told me that Jesus was cool, too. You see, having a relationship for him and singing loudly during worship meant you were cool. If you offered to pray out loud and you were good at all the games we played at retreat, you were cool. Jesus obviously loved you. It was cool to have a relationship with him. Retreats were cool stuff.

  In school, Jesus was still COOL. At this time, those JESUS IS MY HOMEBOY shirts became popular. I, of course, wanted one! I asked my mom, she took one look at them, asked me what homeboy meant and since I wasn't exactly sure, that was the end. I never got one of those shirts.

  After that, Jesus was becoming something that you should hide. Basically, he was a Sunday Jesus. Sure, you could be on the worship team. Sure, you could attend every youth group meeting and every retreat. But, to everyone else outside of the youth group, it would be impossible to tell that you were a Christian. Sure, maybe your facebook religious views status could read "Christian", but that didn't mean anything. You acted just like everyone else, but still, got back to "religious mode" on Sunday.

  My cousins, who have been believers for much longer than I have and are more involved in the church treated Jesus like this. They would get all dressed up, all in prayer-mode Sunday morning and head to their special Bible shelf. They would have their colorful (or leather) Bible cases lined up neatly on the shelf and every Sunday, they would grab theirs and hop into their car for Sunday worship.

  When it was over, they would eat dimsum with whoever and then go back home, put their Bibles back on the shelf and return to their daily routines.  The Bibles would lie on that shelf, untouched for six more days. Another example of how Jesus was just a Sunday Jesus. He was that to everyone else, he became that to me as well. Jesus was a comfortable guy, someone you'd turn to in trouble and someone you'd thank when you suceed, but ultimately, just a Sunday guy.

  After that phase, Jesus became impossible to reach. To me, the true believers were the girls at church, who looked like they could do no wrong. They were popular, fun, liked by everyone. Everyone, and I mean everyone, wanted to be their friends, all the boys had crushes on them. They had cute clothes, they made good grades. They were talented, they were people - persons, they were intelligent. God was clearly directing their life and making them better than everyone else. They were... perfect. The only thing I could do was become friends with them.

  My view of Jesus has changed drastically since then, but in some ways, Jesus is still everything I just listed. Every time I help a kid do a bed craft or pass by some on sale at the store, I still think of those good old Sunday school days in Tucson, when THIS was Jesus to me. Or when I watch a baptism and get all happy, I always think back to my own parent's baptism. And yet, he IS cool. Sometimes he IS hard to reach. Sometimes he IS confusing.

  But right now, he's a lot more. And I'm still trying to discover what He is to me, what He is to the world. And right now, I don't think I can answer this question quite fully. Every day He's teaching me new things about Him.

  So what does Jesus mean to you? And how has that changed over the years?

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