"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! (Luke 13:34)"
What is it about Christ that is so repulsive? Many men would readily admit that he was a good man, and that he did many good things. Yet, when it comes to following him - and I mean really following him, not just doing good deeds and/or going to church to appease guilty consciences - Jesus stands alone weeping over the multitude who would sooner assume ignorance to be bliss, than actually care to know Christ. To quote C.S. Lewis regarding Jesus' question, namely "who do men say that I am?" Lewis wrote..."I feel that in a society such as ours, men must come to terms with the claims of Christ upon their life or else be guilty of evading the question." And so it is: men would rather have apathy, and not the Savior, as their scapegoat.
Now lest I paint the wrong picture and so perpetuate the popular caricature, I will say the following. Jesus Christ is no tame lion (to quote Lewis again). Do not assume as some do, that Jesus is some emotional deity too weak to save the people he loves; but must, by some irrational and unintelligible law, send the ones whom he loves to hell. Christ "WILL save all those whom he intends" (John 17:2, etc). Christ is God. As God, he commands "all people everywhere to repent and trust in Jesus' finish work for the forgiveness of their sins." This is the King's mandate, and it is NOT negotiable! While it is indeed true that God would rather sinners to "repent" because "he finds no pleasure in their sufferings" in hell (Ezk 18:23, etc.), it is equally true that God WILL send sinners to hell if they do not comply to his commands. And his command is this:
Repent from your ways of doing this. You will not earn God's favor by your own deeds and righteousness. You MUST trust in Jesus. It is he that lived a perfect life (having NEVER sinned; whether in thought or action), and died as a sacrifice to both show the justice of God, and to make it possible for a Holy and Good God to justly justify sinners. Moreover, it is Christ who rose from the grave to prove to History that he is no normal man, but God in the flesh. Finally, it is he who sits at the right hand of the Father to offer prayers for all those who trust in Him.
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