The most telling feature of Jesus’ own leadership and the greatest reason for His impact on the world was because He touched the world where it hurt most. To try and comment on His leadership from any other perspective would be to cast Him into the mold of an icon: the very reason He had to go away again.
If we remember Him as a man, for all the greatness evident in His life, we will never benefit from His life or death – indeed we will be intimidated by it. He will be to us nothing more than the stones of condemnation that Moses smashed before His people – a standard beyond us. Yet even if we could get past that, we would still veil Him in mystique and miss the very point of His incarnation. He came to die, not to live as a hero.
The golden calf was a depiction of Jehovah, not a throw back to the gods of Egypt. Because Moses had been gone too long they created a replica of their concept of God. Sadly, in remembering Jesus the man and in trying to evoke a visible replica of a savior who never wanted to be remembered that way, many have made another golden calf.
Jesus came to earth in the fullness, or ripest moment, of time. He stepped onto a platform established by the witness of all who preceded Him and He stood in an era that provided an ideal environment for His ministry – good communications, a sense of order, etc.
It took millennia to infuse a sound concept of sin, the real pain of humankind, into the hearts and minds of the Jews. Though sin was an issue, whether they respected that fact or not, it needed to be understood to ensure the relevance of His life and death.
So although Jesus was not able to achieve His objective independently of what others had already done before Him, in waiting for a time when their real need was most clear to all minds, He achieved maximum impact. Thanks to His grasp of our need and His clear articulation of that issue, enough got the message for the original spark to fan to flame.
He was a profoundly effective leader, but not because of His stature and good looks (its doubtful if He had either), charismatic presence (He was humble, soft spoken and retiring), His power (He sidestepped Herod and the Romans and bowed to His executioner) or His miracles (which had to do with preparing His sacrifice). He was effective because He resonated with the crying need of humankind – and still does so.
Then in a final dramatic act, that ultimate need met with the ultimate solution, as the savior gasped His last breath on a wooden gibbet. He led from the front, not as a mighty presence, but as a broken, naked man. In His final act, He exchanged our forsakenness for His life, our death for His, our sins for His sacrifice and our need for His provision.
Question: Was it the man that changed the world or what He represented?
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