You may identify yourself as being a Christian.
Or not.
My own identity seems to shift back and forth. Depends entirely on which Christianity one is talking about. Or which Christ is being “proclaimed.”
There are, to be sure, two rather primary images, metaphors, or descriptive identities for Jesus in the Bible. Both are found inside the Gospel of John. The first of these comes early as in John 1:29 and 36 when John the Baptist gives Jesus the identity of The Lamb of God. The second comes later as in John 10:11 and 14 when Jesus gives himself the identity of The Good Shepherd.
It doesn’t take an ancient Mediterranean to realize there is a rather large difference between being a young sheep (lamb) and being a good shepherd. Most folks around the world today can figure this one out. The difference is indeed large. So if we invite folks to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, explaining that he is both an innocent lamb and an expert herder of sheep, we should expect thoughtful people to hesitate either a little or a lot. Especially if we go on to explain (or they read for themselves from the Bible) that the John who first called Jesus the lamb soon went on to add that he wasn’t worthy to even untie Jesus’s sandals. That Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd but never a sheep or lamb of God may dim the chance of people buying that Jesus was both a shepherd and a sheep.
So there is that.
That covers, maybe, the question of form. Yet, there’s the other matter of function. John seems to imply that Jesus is a Lamb for God’s benefit. Jesus seems to imply that he is a Shepherd for our benefit. And if one puts two and two together in either Old or New Testaments of the Bible, one realizes that the lamb functions to demand sacrifice. The shepherd functions to demand obedience. Granted, lambs are expected to obey and shepherds are expected to sacrifice, but their primary functions require that the lamb be sacrificed and the shepherd obeyed.
So are we then talking about the Christianity where the lamb gets sacrificed for God’s benefit or where the shepherd gets obeyed for our benefit? Say “both of the above” and we then bump into a rather sizable problem with the Bible itself. The Old Testament authors repeatedly quote God as saying He never has demanded any animal blood or other sacrifices; rather God desires obedience to the command of caring for the stranger, seeking justice, showing mercy, being humble. Then along comes Jesus in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew, first in 9:13 and then 12:7 saying “I desire mercy (an act of obedience to God’s command), not sacrifice.”
I don’t know about you, but if I’m a Christian based on the Bible’s teachings, then it makes a lot more sense to go with the Christ who identified himself as The Good Shepherd for ourselves as people called to obey mercifully than with the Christ who was identified by someone else as The Lamb for a God who calls us to obey mercifully and not to sacrifice any lamb.
Now here we are in today’s world dealing with two very different Christian faiths. Proclaiming two very different Christs. Three if we count those who seem to believe Jesus is somehow both lamb and shepherd, for both God and ourselves, involving both sacrifice and obedience. Proclaiming such an incongruity in both form and function is enough to make anyone shake their heads and plead the case of “it’s all a mystery but I somehow believe.”
I’m something of a mystic myself in areas of complex uncertainty, but the Jesus I claim to know as a Christian based on my own biblical interpretation is God’s way of making simple that which is otherwise complex, concrete that which is otherwise abstract. I’m all in for the Jesus who is my Good Shepherd calling forth my obedience as a follower who loves justice, shows mercy, and walks humbly. Why? Because he said so himself, as best I can comprehend. What others say about Jesus, who they say he is, conjures up other Christs and Christian faiths with whom I'm not obliged to identify.
It’s probably been close to 10 years since I posted a blog entitled, “Why I am no longer a Christian.” I copped something of an attitude back then, if I recall correctly, and re-labeled myself “a Jesus follower.”
My attitude’s probably not much better today, but I can say this. I have as much right as anyone else to the label of Christian if I am a Jesus follower. That there are those today whose Christian identity hinges on some other imagery matters not. The question of “who do others say that I am?” when asked by Jesus was never so important as the one that followed: “And who do you say that I am?” As always, the answers may differ. Jesus, per my own faith, earned the right to speak for God. But none of us has earned the right to speak for God nor anyone else. Only for ourselves. And so?
I AM a Christian.
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