"Jesus loves us regardless"

Tonight, a lesbian couple walked by while I was passing out tracts…routinely, with my trademarked awkwardness, I handed them a “Ten Reasons Jesus Came to Die” pamphlet.

“What, you gave us it just ‘cause we’re lesbian?” one of them laughed back.

“I’m giving them to everyone,” I said.

“Jesus loves us regardless,” she said dismissively, and they walked on.

In a way, she was right, but I wish she was more aware of what that really means. Christ loved his children regardless. He died for sinners. But he desires, requires, and affects a process of dying to sin in his children, and this does not appeal to the lover of sin. To his enemies, to those who reject him, the real Jesus poses a terrible threat. I wonder what the significance is of people feeling more intimidated by Jesus’ followers than by Jesus himself. The push-over Jesus is easy to dismiss. But he wasn’t a push-over, and that’s part of what makes his sacrifice so incredible. He laid his life down willingly. But his wrath-bearing sacrifice implies the existence of wrath-incurring sin. And that bothers people.

“Jesus loves us regardless.”

She was right, in the sense that he offers his love regardless, but I wish she was more aware of what that really means. Because then maybe she would love him back.