Jesus Christ. No one is more loved and hated than Jesus Christ.
The name Jesus is derived from the Old Testament name Joshua, which means, “Yahweh God is salvation.” The title Christ means one chosen and anointed by God to be the Messiah who delivers God’s people.
Roughly two thousand years ago, Jesus was born in a dumpy, rural, hick town, not unlike some heartland corner in Singapore of thirty year-old, run down low-rise blocks, with stray dogs and cats lying about the neigbourhood and dirty old men squatting for a smoke at the void deck.
Jesus’ mom was a poor, unwed teenage girl who was mocked for claiming she conceived via the Holy Spirit. Most people thought she concocted a crazy story to cover the “fact” she was sleeping with with some guy after school, up in a her flat while her parents were still out, at work. Jesus was adopted by a simple carpenter named Joseph and spent the first thirty years of his life in obscurity, swinging a hammer with his dad.
Around the age of thirty, Jesus began a public ministry that included preaching, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and befriending social misfits such as perverts, drunks, and thieves. Jesus’ ministry spanned only three short years before he was put to death for declaring himself
to be God. He died by shameful crucifixion like tens of thousands of people before and after him.
At first glance, Jesus’ résumé is rather simple. He never traveled more than a few hundred kiolmetres from his home. He never held a political office, never wrote a book, never married, never had sex, never attended the poly or university, never visited a big city like London or New York, and never won a soccer match. He died both homeless and poor.
Nonetheless, Jesus is the most famous person in all of human history.
More songs have been sung to him, artwork created of him, and books written about him than anyone who has ever lived. In fact, Jesus looms so large over human history that we actually measure time by him; our calendar is divided into the years before and after his birth, noted as b.c. (“before Christ”) and a.d. (anno Domini, meaning “in the year of the Lord”), respectively.
No army, nation, or person has changed human history to the degree that Jesus, the homeless man, has. Some two thousand years after he walked the earth, Jesus remains as hot as ever.
I love Him. He is still as relevant today as He was then. I love to serve Him. There is no one worthy of my life like Him.
My Jesus. My Saviour. Lord, there is none like You!
