College makes me think about Jesus, A LOT.
I think about what kind of student Jesus would be, what clubs he would be in, where you'd find him. Your first thought may be he would obviously know everything so he would have straight As and extra points for totally being a legacy of his Dad who created everything. You might think he would be in all the bible studies and president of the service clubs and MVP in everything. But I don't think the answers are that obvious.
I've been reading through Luke and realizing with new eyes that Jesus was a bad dude, in the best kind of way. He would probably be failing most of his college classes because he would be challenging the expertise of professors with doctorates in their respective subjects. Think about it, he pretty much told the Pharisees over and over they didn't understand the purpose of the law and what it really said, when they spent their whole lives worshiping the law. He wouldn't go to every bible study, and join every service group because those people already have it together ("It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." - Luke 5:31-32). Although Jesus is far from ordinary, I think he would blend in. He would hang out with other failing students, and spend time alone in his dorm room (But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. - Luke 5:16). I can almost guarantee he would be in the fishing club though! He wouldn't draw attention to himself as president of being perfect. You probably would walk right by him.
Jesus was all about his father's business, and anyone who knows anything about business knows it is messy. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase, "what's right isn't always easy, and what's easy isn't always right." I would say that was Jesus' life motto. If he did things easy, well, we wouldn't have a Savior for one thing, but he wouldn't challenge the norms. What was right for the sake of his father's business was to make people uncomfortable. He didn't do what was expected of someone who loved God, because his relationship with God wasn't based on his performance (although he would've aced that). He wasn't doing good for people to be identified as a Christian, because if you aren't doing good things you can't be associated with God, right? WRONG. He was with the so called "bad" people because he cared about their needs rather than making a respectable image for himself. Jesus never set out to be good, he redefined what is good.
Although Lent is traditionally Catholic, I really cherish it as a time all believers should partake in. This Lent, I want to be bad. I don't want to improve my religious reputation by getting rid of something that is already bad for me, I want to change how I approach my walk with God, I want to learn how to be bad for the right reasons. I would challenge you to do the same. Lent is between you and God, so I will not share what it will look like for me, because it shouldn't look the same for you.
"All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this (teaching from Jesus). They got up, drove him (Jesus) out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way." -Luke 4:28-29
