The Worst PR Campaign

Jesus has a knack for ruining a good thing.

He does it here—turns everyone’s bubbling affection into murderous rage. One minute, they’re ready to carry him on their shoulders, the next toss him off a cliff. And he ignites that with an incendiary speech.

He does this elsewhere, too—attracting thousands after serving a spur of the moment banquet, then offending every last one of them so that they all walk away in a huff. Insulting dinner hosts at uptown parties. Baiting the high and mighty. Humiliating the elite.

It’s like he doesn’t know any better.

He does things calculated to get himself in trouble. He sabotages his own popularity. He offends his fan club. He pushes everyone’s loyalty meters to the red line.

This, frankly, is no way to run a campaign. If he’s stumping for King of the Universe, he needs a better scriptwriter. More . . . grooming. A bit of PR spin. Image-management.

Or is this the wisest strategy? It certainly sifts out the committed from the excited. It separates those easily quickly impressed (who are just as easily quickly unimpressed) from those who actually have ears to hear. It divides the loyal from the fickle.

Jesus is asking for all of you. Your whole self: mind, body, spirit, soul. Nothing held back. To hail him King is to surrender all. Everything short of that is only a ploy, an evasion, a bit of rhetoric. Jesus sees right through our sweet pious platitudes: “Oh, what a nice young man—so well spoken. He has my vote.”

Jesus knows that such sentimentality and cliché carry us no distance in the kingdom. If we are going to crown him King, we relinquish all terms. We simply come and say, as Peter does when Jesus asks him if he’d like to leave, “Lord, there is no one else that we can go to! Your words give eternal life. We have faith in you, and we are sure that you are God’s Holy One” (John 6:68-69).

Are you convinced of that?

Respond in Prayer

Dear Lord, may I not humour you with platitudes, but surrender to you as Lord and King. Deepen my resolve that no matter where you lead, I will follow; no matter what you say, I will obey. In Christ’s name, I pray, Amen.

Mark Buchanan

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®).