Jesus Is Not Cool

2 Peter 2:3 …Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

In the late 80s, I had a sweatshirt that had a look-a-like Guess logo on it with the inscription, I Don’t Guess, I Know, followed by some bible verse. I cringe now, but at the time, I thought it was a pretty cool way to express my faith. I had adopted the medium of the day to share my faith with others, right? I longed for my faith to be seen by the masses in a favorable light. I wanted Jesus to be cool.

The problem of course, is that Christianity will always be oppositional to that which the world sees as cool. Wild sex is cool. Rebellion is cool. The message that I am broken and in desperate need of God will never play well in a world that is focused on self.

Peter explains that this should not surprise me. The world may scoff at my faith but I am not to be bothered by this. I should in fact, expect it and brace myself for it. If my goal is to be cool then my goals are broken and need fixing. Following Christ is not the most effectual path to popularity.

We try to make God easy and palatable to the masses, but dying to self and following Christ is anything but easy or cool. This process of sanctification is brutal self-crucifixion and is not something we should try to sell as easy. It may not be popular, but salvation will be profoundly attractive to those who are able to see their desperate need for it. Some will follow, but most will not. Some will embrace Christ but many will scoff. This need not bother me.

My responsibility is to keep my eyes on Christ. It is in my pursuit of my own popularity that I worry about being cool. When I want Jesus to be cool, it is mostly because I want to be seen in a favorable light myself. It pricks my pride when others scoff at me. I have, in my hypocrisy, given the world plenty of reason to mock my faith. I should now concern myself more with being true to Christ and less with what the world thinks.

Christ saved me from the disaster of me. This message will be sweet salvation to some and fodder for mockery to others. My responsibility is not to try to dress Jesus up as cool. I have no business trying to make Jesus be something He had no interest in being. I am to follow Christ and to tell others what He has done for me. The rest is up to God.