Jesus was difficult

Jesus was difficult.

When discussing Jesus people seem to invariably disagree on key issues. There are certain qualities of Jesus, however, which seem to be apparent.

For one, Jesus was difficult. Jesus had dramatic moments with Pharisees and many people in the Jewish leadership which were, in a word, ugly. Jesus was harsh to many of these people. His premise was that they were often self-righeous and tended to put restrictions on people almost for the sheer joy of putting restrictions on people. Plus there was the 'trashing' of the Temple. And his interaction with Pilate wasn't, frankly, politically adept. Jesus was difficult.

Secondly, Jesus was honest. We, as a culture, don't always appreciate honesty. We prefer a more 'diplomatic' solution to things. Or, we like being mean and engaging in ad hominem attacks. We don't however, usually appreciate people who are dead on honest. They make us nervous. People tend, with each and every President we have, to try to demonstrate that there was Presidential lying. I mean, duh. The fact that we presume or want them to be honest doesn't mean that they will be.

Jesus was also a pretty rough teacher. The apostles spend a lot of time being 'corrected' often pretty aggressively by Jesus. We tend to want to laugh at their ineptitude; but I wonder how many of us would have made out listening to Jesus preach and teach and trying to comprehend what he had to say.

To summarize this, all I can say is this: Jesus was difficult.