You know how it is. Every church service, every revival, every rumbling of spiritual shoulds and shouldn'ts. They all urge the same thing really.
Jesus is counter-cultural. Christianity is radical. Yeah! Go live for Jesus! Do something amazing. Change the world.
But, umm, yeah, start by changing yourself actually. You should definitely, umm, change your perspective, yes. And, don't be a zombie. Whatever you do, oh, don't be a spiritual zombie. Also, remember to get some rest in there somewhere. Spiritual rest, of course.
These are amazing thoughts. We can and should do these things. But does there never come a point when one wishes to relinquish all these burdens and actually rest?
No problem, say the inspirational church messages. Just give it all to Jesus! You know, bring your burden to the cross and all that. It's such a radical, counter-cultural message, you know. Jesus was definitely a trail-blazer, a shaker of society, everything.
That is thirty-year old Jesus. Aside from a short stint giving his parents a panic attack in the Temple when He was twelve, Jesus seemed to have led a rather ordinary life for three decades.
Born in Bethlehem, He spent most of His life in Nazareth, except for a few years in Egypt. So, He experienced both moving around and being a sturdy local.
His job dealt with carpentry, and He seemed to have done well with it—but not godlike well, per se. After all, it doesn't appear that He won any carpentry competitions or fame or accolades or regional recognition or expansive wealth from the woodworking business.
When He became recognizable in His thirties, no one seemed to say anything like "Ah, yes, Jesus, the artist of Galilee. What marvelous furniture has He made recently?" The reception was more along the lines of, "Jesus? Oh, yeah, the carpenter guy from Nazareth, oh, yeah."
The Scripture does not also mention any prospect of Jesus having a girlfriend. In fact, popularity isn't really Jesus' most known attribute apparently. But the Scriptures say that He increased in favor with God and man. Not a superstar (yet) by any means, but rather a trusted and agreeable sort of fellow.
Jesus decided to dedicate thirty years of His earthly life to being a decent fellow. There is no record of pre-Cana miracles in the gospels nor any mention of His consuming zeal for flipping tables in the Temple before His time had come. As far as we can tell, He led a typical human life for an extended period of time. In my opinion, this is almost a greater case for the humanity of Christ than His enormous pain and sufferings experienced at His execution.
If an eternal, omniscient, all-powerful God set aside thirty years dedicated to being a "decent fellow," then can we not find the will to be decent ourselves? What has the Lord God required of you except that you keep His commandments?
Greatness is, well, great. Yet it is not a worthy goal to be recognized and/or mighty for the sake of merely one's own pride and desire for personal exaltation. The desire to be great should indeed be distinguished from wanting to do great things for the glory of God's greatness. For the greatness of decency is that it is available to us all. So may we realize the greatness of decency itself.