When it comes to religion, there's more questions than answers. For the better part of two
millennia, Christians have anxiously awaited the second coming of Christ.
Has one of the world's greatest religious leaders forsaken us?
Maybe not.
But if the Son of God has fulfilled the prophesies by silently slipping back to Earth, there's little evidence of the miracle.
And if God was one of us, how would we recognize Jesus Christ?
What would he look like?
It doesn't take an Einstein to realize we're living in
a world of wannabe demigods and imposters, ready to pounce on the gullible at the first hint of insecurity.
Would the Messiah walk up, and proclaim, "I am Jesus of Nazareth?"
Doubting Thomas would reply, "Take a number, Jesus."
And when it was his turn, how would he prove whom he said he was?
Birth certificate?
"Something more Jesus."
Ask him to walk on water? Make computers friendlier? Improve the quality of television? Turn water into wine? Niagara peninsula
farms do that every year.
Our world is significantly larger than the one Jesus left 2,000 years ago. So how would he get his message across? Billboards? Internet? Satellite?
After Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to the cross, many have claimed to be the anointed one. Christianity by the tube is bursting with raging thunderlizards performing miracles,
healing the crippled, making the blind see.
Check for the dirt under their nails: Jimmy Bakker - embezzler, Jimmy Swaggart - consorted with prostitutes. How about Oral Roberts who
said God would take his life if his followers didn't cough up $1 Million? He's still alive.
Badboy Charles Manson connected with God and people followed. Hundreds followed Jimmy Jones to
Guyana and into death.
Heaven's Gate cultists committed suicide to elevate their souls to higher ground.
Just two weeks ago Taiwanese spiritualist
Hon-Ming Chen informed the world Jesus would appear on Channel 13 in Dallas, Texas.
Jesus never showed.
Now Chen says God, at the controls of a flying saucer,
will whisk hundreds of millions of people to safety in another galaxy.
Maybe Roswell, New Mexico residents are right. We're not alone.
With kooks and
charlatans proclaiming to be the Messiah, it's easy to see how Jesus might be mistaken for a lunatic.
Rev. John Gould of Point Edward's United Church, believes we could trip over
Jesus and not even know it.
"My guess is we wouldn't recognize him. Some of the early Christians said when Jesus came back he'd likely be crucified again. We'd fail to recognize what he
was, all over again."
If and when Christ does return, and the scriptural timing is a bit fuzzy, his arrival might not be as welcomed by the church as we might think. Gould
theorizes that the church has become "so divorced from the concept of Jesus Christ" it would continue to operate as it has.
"And it would probably disturb the
bureaucracy of Christianity. It would upset the scheme of things."
He thinks the Jesus of today wouldn't be able to navigate church policies and wouldn't be able to make his point.
We wouldn't be able to hear it. We wouldn't listen to it. We would reject it based on our prejudice of what the church should be. And if it was accepted, "It certainly wouldn't be within the traditional
organization of the church."
A minister for 21 years, Gould says that if Christ did return, "he might not be involved in the church at all. And what's to say he wouldn't choose the
Muslim side?" "The Church has always claimed to be The New Israel. What's to say in the second coming, Mohammad isn't the true prophet?" Early teachings of Christ and the evolution of the church
are very different, explains Gould. Christianity was born an Asian near-Eastern religion that became a European religion, "a faith of legalism."
"Christianity evolved out of
the collapse of the Roman empire" and latched onto the Roman legal system.
"So there was the evolution of a doctrine, certain things you need to believe if you are becoming a
Christian."
Gould says the church is reactionary and doesn't readily accept change. Declining membership in Europe and North America is evidence.
"The message needs to be the same, but how it's packaged is something that needs to change, and literally each generation."
"The organization of the
church has difficulty communicating the gospel actively," he adds. 'They haven't been able to keep up with the times."
Galileo is a perfect example of the generation gap.
The 15th century Italian physicist was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for declaring the world round. The pope forgave him only a handful of years ago.
.While the church is "frozen in a moment of time" and "bureaucratically stuck in the industrial age", Gould says the Bible is relevant "because they're simply good stories."
But Gould says, "Even if we're not around to see the Second Coming," we have to recognize Christ in other people."
And if we do live to see it,
"You would see who were prepared to listen, operating outside what we know as the church today."
