Jesus's first followers were often baffled at how he operated because in many ways it was different than their expectation for the Messiah. We face a similar reality when we simply think of Jesus as improving our lives in the ways we would choose and not confronting us with the true reality of Himself and His Kingdom to invite us in to something more than we would ask or imagine on our own. This series explores how radically different the hope that Jesus offers us if from the alternatives in the world, how it is an invitation to root ourselves in a coming Kingdom that will outlast all other Kingdoms. It is a meditation on how Jesus has become our peace not by conquering Rome through might, but by absorbing the world's sin and violence, offering anothre way that would crack the empire's hold over time. We look at the surprising means that God has used to offer us his joy in the middle of scandal and outside on the margins of our world, a joy beyond circumstantial happiness. And lastly, how the love of God is expressed so fully in the coming of Jesus, but not in a way that is ours to control or commodify, but that confronts, pulls us in, and changes us.
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