How Famous Could Jesus Have Been If He Had Tried?

I want to be famous.  I always have.  It’s a toxin inside of me that eats away at the lining of my soul sometimes.

Jesus is famous.  Pretty much from the day He was born, He had people searching Him out, wanting to be around Him.  He ran from it.

I want to be like Jesus.  You see the contradiction, don’t you?

I’m reading in John 4 today, and here is how the chapter begins:

1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

You see, Jesus started drawing a crowd everywhere He went.  When you start being known as someone who draws a crowd, you know you’re famous.  Jesus was famous.  He knew the reality of what that fame would bring him, and He left the crowds, and the fame, and ran.  How could He do it?  No, seriously, how in the world could He walk away from people who wanted Him so badly?  He had just turned the water to wine, making Him the king of the party.  He has people just wanting to touch Him, and He walks away.  He does it over, and over, and over.  Not out of fear.  Not out of an uncertainty of how to handle the pressure.  He leaves it, it seems, because He simply does not want it.  I mean, we are created as humans to serve and worship God.  People were shoving to get close to Him, to declare Him King.  How can He, as God, not want to be adored?  It doesn’t line up.

Unless He doesn’t want to be adored.  Maybe the emotion and the desire He saw wasn’t worship.  Maybe it was a shallow impersonation of worship, and He knew it.

So, He ran.

Did I mention I want to be famous?  How about the part where I also want to be like Jesus?

I did?  Ok, just making sure.

It stinks for us, doesn’t it?  We want to be liked, to be adored, to be wanted, to be needed.  We want to be worshiped.  Yeah, I said it.  We want to be worshiped.  But even Jesus knew that what everyone offers isn’t worship.  Or love.  It’s just selfishness on their part, using Him, using us, to get their piece of this power.  It’s an infinite circle of chasing what we imagine that others have, so we can try to grasp it for ourselves, when it never exists for either of us.

I want to be like Jesus.

I’m gonna run.

We can run to the shadow of fame, or the arms of the One who Loves us.  We each are running.  Run well.