Do you know my Jesus? Are you sure? Then that may be a problem.

We know Jesus.  Right?  I do, don't you?  He's a super nice man who watches us all the time, loves us, loves kids the most, and wants to hear what we want and desire.  Wait, that's Santa Claus, never mind...  

But seriously, do we really think we Know Jesus?  Because... I find that a little scary.  And presumptuous.  What I THINK many of Us are guilty of is humanizing God to the point that we do, in fact, believe we know him.  Know how he thinks, why he does or doesn't do things, who he would save and who he wouldn't, what he would like and what he wouldn't, and (my personal favorite) which sins are his top 5.

We believe that we know him.  We have studied scripture, we talk to him everyday, we have gone to school for it, some people even had degrees in knowing God.
You know who else knew God?  Who else had studied scripture, memorized scripture, talked to God daily, went to school to learn about him?  The Pharisees.  And it was because they knew God so intimately, understood him so perfectly, that they didn't recognize him when he was right in front of their faces.

See, Anyone who says they would love to have Jesus physically show up and walk around the earth again, to somehow validate what they're doing, or even hint at the notion that they'd be 100% comfortable with that aren't absorbing what they're reading in the Gospels. 

Jesus was brash, he was shocking, he was NOTHING like the religious people expected, and it was the religious people who, therefore, couldn't accept him. Who were the religious people of that day? His people. God's people. What makes us think we'd be anymore comfortable at his shocking and demanding presence than they were?
Part of our problem is the exact same problem they had 2,000 years ago: we've gotten to the point where we truly believe we Know 'what Jesus would do'. I think most of us would be quite surprised. The religious of the day had God in a box, they had him defined.

They had him wrapped up, nice and neat. They had him all figured out.
("My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways.
for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts")

Consider this:

Do you think for a minute that we would take an adulterer who never stopped chasing skirts all the way to his very death bed as our preacher (David)? 

Do you think we would invite a convicted murderer who spoke with a lisp to be our guest speaker (Moses)? 

Do you think we would take a bar room brawler who never wrote down his sermon and therefore ALWAYS spoke first and thought second (Peter)? 

What about this one:

Do you think if a former Lieutenant from Osama Bin Laden's inner circle showed up at our church a week after his last terrorist attack on a group of Christians saying he had suddenly "Seen the light" that we would even let him through the doors - and listen to a word he said, let alone give him full access to our families (Paul)?

I don't think I would.  And that's why I might miss him.

Sincerely,
-LeviThePharisee