You Might See Jesus Like Ricky Bobby (And Why That's a Bad Thing)

If you’ve seen Talladega Nights you know the scene well. Ricky Bobby insists on praying to “Baby Jesus” despite his family explaining that Jesus did grow up. As Ricky’s father in law, Chip, put it, “He was a man. He had a beard.” But Ricky “likes the Christmas Jesus best.”

My pastor recently gave an Advent sermon in which he said something that caught my ear. He said, “People love to celebrate Jesus in a manger, but hardly anyone wants Jesus to get out of the manger.” When I recently watched Will Ferrell’s movie, the “Dear Lord Baby Jesus” scene immediately reminded me of my pastor’s point.

It’s true. A lot of Christians love Jesus as a baby, but pay little attention to his life as a man. The baby Jesus is less dangerous and less challenging. It is much easier to fall in love with an “8 pound, 6 ounce” newborn wearing “golden fleece diapers” than it is to love a homeless man bent on radical living. But when we put Jesus in a box that fits our own specifications we no longer worship the real Jesus. We worship ourselves.

The call of the Christian life is to joyfully follow Jesus in every season and through any circumstance. We do not get to pick which parts of Jesus we like. And we don’t get choose to obey teaching we enjoy and neglect teaching that is hard. If we truly want to know the real Jesus, we have to take him as he is—all of him. This probably means that you will need to remove your own presuppositions and rediscover who Jesus is.

Though I would never advise anyone to stop reading Scripture devotionally, I think it is wise to read it objectively as well. What I mean is that, every so often, one should step back from his or her own experiences (even church experiences) and read the Gospels for what they are. Not what you think they should be. Allow Jesus to teach you without assuming what he is going to say. Read Jesus with no agenda. Simply read and discover who Jesus really is and what he really said. The result could surprise you.

Warning: this could be difficult. Though we often read Scripture to make us feel good (whether that is always a good thing is for a different discussion), Scripture is strikingly offensive. This is especially true of Jesus. Jesus will convict, challenge, and offend you. He might even make you angry. But it is important for us to know the true Jesus rather than our own fictional preference of who we think he should be.

But we can’t stop here. Rediscovering Jesus for who he really is is great! But it’s not enough. It is one thing to know a person, even deeply, but it is another to love a person, and even more to obey him. Once we have gotten to know the real Jesus, we must accept him as he is (after all he did the same for us) and, more importantly, we have to take what he said seriously. Christians are very good at proclaiming enormous admiration for Jesus but we are not as good at following his example. We ask questions like, “What would Jesus do?” but if and when we discover the answer is something that makes us uncomfortable, we hardly ever imitate it. But it is of vital importance that we get to know the real Jesus and follow him even to difficult places.

After a time of celebrating Jesus’ birth, I pray that we don’t end the celebration simply because of a change in season. My prayer is that we see Jesus, all of Jesus, as beautiful. Even when he offends us. Let us live lives replete with love for the real Jesus and not our own versions of him.