This Scandalous Gospel

And they took offense at him.

Matthew 13:57

To think that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of warm-fuzzies and world-peace is a great deception.  Very great indeed.

In this verse, the word "offense" is where we get the word "scandal". Many have been offended by His words, His actions, His silence, His abstentions and have simply walked away.  I dare say all have been offended by Jesus or rather our preconceptions of who He is, and here are just two examples: Jesus' home town filled with people who are convinced that He couldn't be anything special.  A presiding puppet of Rome who is afraid of his own shadow.

The Gospel of Christ is always offensive.  It offends our fears, our fears of the thoughts of others, our understanding of the way we think things are or should be.  Yet if we step beyond this tattered veil we find the Cross.  We find the death sentence - the wicked execution of innocence for the ransom of the guilty.  And on the other side of this, we find a place of relationship.

In this relationship we find that, though offences continue we realize it is the world that offends.  Living in this new, we are now walking it all out through the eyes of our Lion King.  We can perceive situations through His understanding.  We can remain unshaken when the world threatens our very existence.