Caleb spent his whole life looking for Jesus.

He started at a young age by flipping on the television and discovered a bunch of smart looking televangelists talking about Jesus but being poor and humble of heart, Jesus obviously wasn’t to be found there. So, Caleb continued on in his quest.

As the years passed by, he sat through many seminars and learned many wonderful ideas about Jesus taught by people who had obviously never met the man. He endured countless hours of cheap entertainment that dropped in the name of Jesus to turn a faster profit. He marched with all the people clamoring for war in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. He even purchased all the latest, high priced and low quality merchandise with the name of Jesus boldly stamped on it. Still, the presence of Jesus himself eluded him.

Finally, frustrated at the futility of his search, Caleb took his search to the places he would least expect Jesus to be and discovered Jesus quietly giving grace to the single mother struggling with the consequences of someone else’s selfishness.

Later on, he found Jesus sitting in the cold with a homeless man, just outside the large conference on, “How to Be a Better Christian.”

Still later, Caleb saw Jesus in a Nursing Home giving comfort to a bunch of seniors who didn’t even have the mental capability to recognize and honor the great teacher in their midst. As curiosity and amazement overwhelmed him, Caleb approached Jesus and asked him about all the troubling things he had seen during his travels. Jesus simply replied, “if you would have examined my words, you would have seen I never told anyone to follow after people like that. I told people to follow me. They have their own ways and I have mine. By their actions you can see that they never really knew me, so why would you have ever trusted them to teach you anything about me?”

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One of the weirdest things about North American Christianity is how a movement founded by someone who was stripped naked and nailed to a cross came to be interpreted by some to be about making as much money as possible, looking good and staying comfortable.