The Jesus I don't yet know

I'm just past the first chapter of reading Yancey's "The Jesus I Never Knew". It's fitted in very well with the first chapter of McClaren's "A Generous Orthodoxy"! And a post at NotPerfection challenged my image of what Jesus looked like too.

Having grown up in one denomination and never even attended another until a few years ago, I had no idea of how "stereotyped" my image of Jesus might be. I didn't realize that different branches of Christianity might see Him differently, might emphasize different traits or "functions" of His presence on earth.

I'm on a learning curve though!

My ideas and beliefs have been hugely challenged since I started blogging a year back. Things I've taken for granted everyone believed, it seems not many do. I'd never even heard God referred to as "she" until a year back, and it was a bit of a shock! It wasn't the only one - I've had all sorts of brain-stretching going on since then.

I've still got a long way to go to learn about who Jesus is to me. I'm only at the beginning. I'm scratching the very surface yet, with a long long way to go until I hit the "meat" of a personal relationship with and love for this GodMan.

But last night I wondered - what if God, what if Jesus actually is different for each of us? What if for those who need Him to be feminine, He looks like a woman, acts like a woman, is a woman, and has felt a woman's pain? What if for those of us who need Him to be Asian, or African, or Indian, He actually is - along with knowing the issues and struggles each of these groups go through?

What if when we meet Him face to face He won't just look like one thing to all of us, won't just have one face, but will be visible to each of us differently?

Would that make it easier for us to know Him and love Him?