Yancey, Jesus, Chapter 5

Why does the Apostles' Creed skip right from Jesus' birth to his death?
Why do you suppose no one who saw Jesus in the flesh left a description of his appearance?
Why was it possible for people to see Jesus and not know who he was?

How do you imagine Jesus' personality? As Yancey correctly points out, some people liked to spend a lot of time with him, but others were deeply insulted. Maybe the best illustration of this was Palm Sunday. A crowd welcomed him to Jerusalem, and later called for his death.

The chapter title is "What would I have noticed?" It would be hard not to notice, or at least hear about, the miracles, IF you lived in the area where Jesus performed them. It seems that many people who did know about the miracles managed to miss the point of why Jesus did them.

Jesus liked to use parables, which wasn't all that unusual. But he told them to all who cared to listen, not just his inner circle. He even claims to have used them just for the purpose of separating the friendly from the unfriendly. It seems to have worked - a little too well perhaps.

In the centuries since Jesus, his image has grown quite a bit. Perhaps if we saw him today, we may also be surprised by what we notice.