Review: The Secret Message of Jesus

Imagine that you are sitting in a conference room in your workplace, about to hear a presentation on a proposed sales strategy for your company's product. Your boss asks the person who is making the pitch for the strategy to get started, and he says this:

My sales strategy is like a man who had two sons. Before he left the house, one day, he asked each of them to take out the trash and to rake the leaves in the yard. One son said - "Sure, Dad, I'll do it" - but then he after his father left the house, he sat around playing X-Box all day. The other son said "No way, Dad. I'm busy today." But then, after his father left, he did everything he was asked to do. If you are able to listen, pay close attention to what I just said.

The speaker then turns silent and looks across the table at everyone's stunned faces.

Huh?!

If you can imagine the confusion that would follow a presentation of this nature, you might have some small idea about what it must have been like to listen to Jesus teach. His messages were seldom simple and direct. Most of the time he spoke in parables. He even said that the truths in his messages were hidden from certain people.

Jesus' disciples would later claim that his message had the power to change the world. So why be so cryptic? What possible advantage could be gained from hiding this message in strange stories about fathers and sons, plantings and harvests, vineyards, and foolish businessmen? Why not come out and say what he wanted to say?

Brian McLaren is amazed that few people have ever tried to tackle this question head-on, and he seeks to answer it - though not fully - in his new book, The Secret Message of Jesus.

In the early chapters of the book, McLaren discusses the context of the message itself, explaining the important political and historical events that led up to Jesus' message. Then, in the second part of the book, he moves on to discuss the way that the message was communicated. He talks about the nature of a parable - how, rather than simply informing, it exposes the listener for who he or she really is. He writes about how a parable is meant to bring about repentance, or "new thinking" about the world, and about how - beginning with Paul and moving through history, the parables have been doing their work, slowly leading us into a new kind-of existence.

McLaren emphasizes that the end goal of the message is not primarily to get people into heaven after they die, but to change life on this planet. As such, the third section of the book focuses on how Jesus' message could change everything, beginning with individual human relationships, but ultimately culminating in an end to issues of global concern, such as war and poverty. He then concludes the third section with a vision about what "the end" might be like, discussing the mystery of the resurrection of God's people in a new creation.

Secret Message seems to be geared toward people who are interested in spirituality, but who may not necessarily be Christians. However, I found something in it for just about anyone.

For Bible Nerds and Ministry-Types. You won't find many original ideas here, as McClaren borrows generously from other contemporary Christian writers. The influences of C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterson, N.T. Wright (what is it with all of those initials?), and Dallas Willard are readily identifiable throughout the text. McLaren, however, is a genius at finding language that translates other writers' ideas into terms that are accesible to the postmodern mindset. As such, for the theological "practitioner", the book is a solid model of translating complex concepts from academia into words that anyone can understand.

For The Lay Christian. This may be a challenging book for you, not because it is difficult to understand, but because it could forever change the way you think about Jesus' message in the gospels. If you've never read any of McLaren's books, this is a great place to start.

For the Curious Non-Christian. If you like the things that you've heard about Jesus himself, but are hesitant to become a Christian because of the things that are being said and done by Christians these days - this is the book for you. With generosity and frankness, McLaren can help to guide you through a lot of the problems that are probably on your mind and into a world filled with fantastic, new possiblities.

If you're already familiar with McLaren's writing, you will find that most of the ideas in Secret Message have already been developed in his other works, such as A Generous Orthodoxy. But even when the ideas are "old", it is still refreshing to re-tread the same ground from a new perspective - much like sharing coffee with an old friend.

Technorati Tags: brian mclaren, the secret message of Jesus, kingdom of God, postmodernism, emerging culture, the emerging church, emergent