Are we missing out on a more lively Jesus?

Source: Timothy L. Hall / Christianity TodayThose who follow Jesus have done a good deal to propagate an image of Christ as the cosmic killjoy, the divine naysayer, who never met a delight he could not dull or a dream he could not puncture. Puritanism, the 20th-century writer H. L. Mencken famously quipped, is "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Puritans or not, Christians have done their part to vindicate his statement.When Jesus stood up in the synagogue of Nazareth, the Gospel of Luke says, he was handed the scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Unrolling it, he found the place where Isaiah looked to the Messiah, whose coming would herald a joyful deliverance:The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor (4:18–19).Believers, though, sometimes behave as though Jesus made an altogether different announcement, one chiefly in praise of getting up early and working hard: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to see that everyone lives by the rules. He has sent me to make sure people settle down and lead respectable lives, to work more and play less, to grow up."I stand as guilty of this as any Christian I know. I put faith in getting up for work, paying the bills on time, and having my daughter in bed at a decent hour on school nights. I think of myself sometimes as an ox in a furrow, eyes looking straight to the end of the row, feet trudging step by step toward the goal. I imagine this is what it means to follow Christ each day.To read the full version of this article: http://bit.ly/18Oubl6