The Christian faith is unique in the way that it permits its deity to be portrayed.  No tales told of other gods are anything like the picture painted of Christianity’s central figure, Jesus Christ.  To say that this portrait is very strange and oddly unflattering is to engage in understatement of the worst kind. Moreover, Christians—and even Christ, himself—have a most peculiar way of enticing others to embrace the faith as their own.  To illustrate the point, here is a selective synopsis of Christ’s résumé.

Although Jesus is co-Creator of the universe, he became a human being like one of his own creatures.  His birthplace was a little burg called, Bethlehem.  His parents had journeyed there from their hometown of Nazareth, a no-account village in the hill country of Galilee.  Since they didn’t have a place to stay when baby arrived, Jesus was born in a stable, wrapped in strips of cloth and laid to sleep in a manger.

Mystery and suspicion clouded the infant’s origin.  His mother Mary, had become pregnant while betrothed to a man named Joseph. Joseph planned to divorce Mary quietly, for her sake, but had a dream in which an angel told him that the child had been conceived not by a man, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Reassured, Joseph set aside his plans to send Mary away and instead, honored the marriage contract.

When Jesus was a toddler, his family was forced to flee to Egypt, because the paranoid king of Judea saw him as a rival and sought to murder him.  Upon the king’s death, the family returned to Nazareth. They were poor.  Even as an adult, Jesus said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

Jesus was ordinary in appearance and bearing.  There was nothing outwardly remarkable about him that would have naturally attracted anyone.  On the contrary, wrote the Prophet Isaiah, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not…we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:3-4).  Now there’s a ringing endorsement!

When Jesus taught in his local synagogue, folks ‘who knew him when’ asked, “…Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?  Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?  Whence then hath this man all these things?  And they were offended in him.  But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house” (Matthew 13:54-57).

Even a man who would eventually become one of Jesus’ disciples snorted before meeting him, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth…?” (John 1:46)  What an auspicious start!

The eyewitness accounts presented in the gospels set them apart—far apart—from all other religious writings.  According to these reports, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, Son of God, Savior of the world, was underestimated, misunderstood, doubted, denied, dismissed, challenged, opposed, and rejected.  He was disbelieved by his own brothers, by many in his own hometown, by a majority in both political parties (the religiously strict Pharisees, and the worldly, cynical Sadducees), as well as by the chief priests, scribes, elders, and rulers of his people.

Those frustrated that they couldn’t trap Jesus by his words claimed he was out of his mind. When they couldn’t deny or explain away his miracles, they said Jesus was simply a sad case of demon possession. Some even blasphemously accused him of working miracles through the supernatural direction and help of the Devil.  That’s a good one—the Prince of Light working for the Prince of Darkness!

Continuing to hold nothing back, the gospel writers point out that Jesus was betrayed by a volunteer from his own inner circle, who offered him up for the princely sum of thirty small pieces of silver—the price of a slave.  Then the leadership of God’s “chosen people” plotted to arrest his Son Jesus, under cover of darkness, try him before kangaroo courts, and hand him over to Gentile authorities.  They conspired together to frame him as a seditionist and traitor to Rome, in hopes that the Roman governor could be manipulated into exercising Rome’s exclusive power of capital punishment.

Judas, the sell-out, devised a particularly humiliating recognition symbol for the raiding party, sealing his treachery with a kiss identifying the Nazarene, Judas’ erstwhile lord and master, as the one they were after.  Things quickly went downhill from there.  Jesus was seized and bound, while all of his disciples abandoned him and ran for their lives, leaving him to face the mob alone.

From his illegal arraignment, preliminary hearing and trials in multiple venues, it was obvious that Jesus was being railroaded.  Many false witnesses obligingly perjured themselves, but since they were lying, their stories didn’t agree.  The hastily trumped up case was falling apart until the High Priest, desperate to avoid an acquittal, demanded that Jesus testify against himself under oath. When Jesus said he was indeed the Son of God, the Jewish council promptly sentenced him to death.

The rest of that night Jesus was mocked and beaten.  Early in the morning, he was led off to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. The prefect repeatedly declared Jesus innocent, yet had him flogged within an inch of his life anyway, in a bid to satisfy the increasingly rowdy and bloodthirsty crowd.  But Jesus’ agony had been for naught.  The ploy had hadn’t worked any better than Pilate’s attempt to throw the case to Herod or the gambit to release a prisoner of the people’s choice. At the instigation of the chief priests and elders, the mob chose a murderer and insurrectionist over Jesus, about whom they shouted, “Away with him!  Crucify Him!”  Pilate refused at first to order Jesus’ execution, but eventually caved when the plotters threatened to report him to Caesar for freeing the emperor’s alleged rival, Jesus called Christ, “the King of the Jews.”

Roman soldiers led Jesus into the barracks.  There they stripped him, threw a scarlet robe on him, jammed a crown twisted from thorns on his head, and stuck a reed in his hand, as a royal scepter.  Then, they jeered him, knelt down to hail him as “king,” spit in his face and repeatedly struck him over the head with a staff.  Finally tiring of their sadistic sport, the soldiers marched Jesus out to skull hill.  They nailed him to a wooden cross, hoisted him up and waited for him to die. As they sat near Jesus’ feet, they divided his garments among them, and casually gambled for his seamless cloak.

The Jewish religious authorities from Jerusalem couldn’t resist going just outside the city walls for one last chance to ridicule Jesus.  Passers by his cross and even the criminals who hung right beside him on crosses of their own, taunted Jesus.  Psalm 22:6-8 predicted this macabre and malicious mockery, as the messiah would experience it: “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.  All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.”  Before his death and burial later that day, Jesus would quote this Psalm from the cross, to identify himself as the sinless sin-bearer of the world: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me…?” (Psalm 22:1).

Forsaken by God. Rejected by the people he gave his life to save.  The butt of jokes.  Dead. Buried.  An apparent failure.  Maybe a madman, maybe a fraud.  Despite hundreds of detailed and specific prophecies about the coming messiah, made by their own prophets, the Jewish people had failed to recognize Jesus as the long-awaited deliverer.  Psalm 53:1 asks, “Who hath believed our report…?”

Who would make up a story like that?  Even if it really happened that way, why write it down and preserve it?  If you’re trying to sell people a fantasy or a fairytale, would you even hint at any of this?  Why spread the embarrassing details all over the world?  Why risk everything, suffer, maybe even die, to share Jesus’ story? Unless… Unless… it’s true—all of it—and you wanted people to be certain they could trust it.

Think about it—if Jesus wanted to draw crowds, why would he warn believers: “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.  Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you…” (John 15:19-20)?

Why would he tell recruits, “Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves…” (Matthew 10:16)?

Why would he say, “…If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23)?

Why would the Bible advertise the fact that “…ye are bought with a price [the precious blood of Jesus]: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (I Corinthians 6:20)?

It doesn’t make any sense, unless…well, unless Jesus is honest and truthful, and genuinely caring.  That’s crucial information vital to an accurate bio.  But a few additional bullet points are needed to fully flesh out Jesus’ CV: resurrected, ascended, exalted, returning, ruling and reigning.

Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, suffered and died for our sins, according to the scriptures.  He was buried and rose again the third day, according to the scriptures.  Those same utterly trustworthy scriptures declare: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed…For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:9-11, 13)

If God is impressing upon your heart that this is true (but you have not already repented of your sin and given your heart to Jesus) I urge you to respond now, this very instant. Scripture says now is the acceptable time and now is the day of salvation.  Ask God to cleanse you and make you a whole new creature, and He will do it.  Come to Jesus.  Come to life.  This may be the last call, your final opportunity!