The Real Jesus

In Philip Yancey's prayer journal Keeping Company with God, he gives two biblical descriptions of Jesus as Messiah, one from Isaiah as suffering servant and the other from Revelation as king of glory.  

We are asked to list some of the differences in the contrasting portrayals and how prayer might help in reminding us of the "unseen" world.

I apologize but again I don't seem to be able to address these questions directly. It's not because they are not good questions; it's that these questions don't lead toward answers for me but rather, more questions. Without beating a dead horse, it comes back to this "trinity" thing, a word that attempts to tightly and neatly define each member of the Godhead. But before someone begins to think I might be teetering on heresy, let me say I believe that Jesus Christ, as God's only son, suffered and died as the ultimate sacrificial atonement for the sins of mankind, mine in particular. I believe somehow he was present when this all began, the Alpha and the Omega. The creator. The sustain-er. In Him all matter and energy are somehow held together when they should be flying apart. I believe all that.

But there was also the Jesus of the gospels, a man somehow, with a human mother and brothers and sisters. He's the one we learned to "color" in Sunday school and the one we saw depicted on flannel boards. He loved children and lambs. And then very mean people killed him.

So when we pray "in Jesus' name," do we picture the being with the blazing eyes of Revelation? Or is it the man of sorrows in Isaiah? Or the brown-haired, blue-eyed one with a bunch of children looking up adoringly?

I am taken back sometimes when I hear someone talk so casually of Jesus. "Jesus told me..." or "I just asked Jesus..."--you catch my drift. I want to interrupt, "Which Jesus? The creator of the universe? The one who inhabits eternity and holds the keys? The angry one who seemed especially upset with religious hypocrites like you and me? Or the one who willingly in some mysterious way took my sin and shame as his own and endured the death penalty that was meant for me?" Perhaps if we spent a little more time and thought on this Jesus instead of the one who punctuates the end of our prayers, we might spend a little less time on ourselves.