Cliché Jesus

There was an interesting image that came to mind earlier at work. It was like a very short scene played out in front of me, and it seems that it could make others think about their own personal idea of Christ.

There were two men before me, and there was a choice that had to be made; follow one, or follow the other.
The first one was the idea i all-too-often have of Christ: handsome face, chiseled jaw, groomed facial hair, you name it. His hair was immaculate, long and tangle-free, wavy and smooth. He was quite muscular, wearing a royal purple sash, a brilliant crown on his head, and he had thousands of followers in nice clothes, preachers and well-to-do people all rather urbanely dressed, and he told me that he was Christ. From his voice and manner, it seemed wasn't a decision for me to make, he simply was the Messiah, and he said it with authority.
The second man was really ragged looking. He was skinny, like a homeless man. His hands were cut up, scabbed, scarred, blistered and calloused, with split fingernails to top them off. His face was weak and feeble, covered mostly by a muddy and matted beard, His face had all manner of sun-damage and weariness. His clothes were torn and stained like a mechanic's favorite t-shirt, His hair was shaggy, and He somewhat ugly in the way that you'd walk around this person while purposefully avoiding eye-contact. His followers were few, but looked much like Him. He asked me who i believed He was.

I've actually thought of this quite a bit and always figured Jesus was of the more lowly type, but until this came to mind, it never struck me just how lowly.
He was a carpenter, which results in lots of cuts and scrapes, many callouses, splinters, and the like. Foxes (these are wild scavengers, mind you), have holes, but the King has no place for His head; He was homeless. When the disciples asked what there was for Him to eat, He said doing the will of His Father was His food. He walked from town to town, not always on a donkey. He was without money, and so most likely without clean water the majority of the time.
We glamorize Jesus, even when we attempt to portray Him as a "nobody" from that time--clean (or at least without tear) clothes, clean face, soft beard, flowing hair. These things were for those in the houses of royalty of that era, not workers, carpenters, wanderers.

The thing that hit me most about that little image was that the one stated He was Christ, the other asked who I said He was.
After all, it doesn't matter to the non-believer whether or not Jesus was the Christ; it matters to those who call Him the Son of God. It matters who I say He is. It matters who you say He is. He could walk around proclaiming to be the Christ all day long, and yet it wouldn't matter if nobody else said He was the Christ.
In the same way, we can proclaim to be Christians day in and day out, bumper stickers plastered on our cars, t-shirts with "edgy" Christian slogans or Bible verse, cross and fish jewelry adorning our necks and fingers, and it won't matter. It won't matter one bit.
If someone can't look at our lives and tell who we follow, are we actually following Him? Does His light really shine from us, or are we just perpetuating the Christianity Machine?

Here's a question i am asking, paraphrasing a question Christ presented His disciples, and i implore each and every one of you to ask it to a close friend, preferably a non-believing one; aside from my shouting, aside from my claims, aside from my apparel, who do you say that i follow?

Cultural Differences

"Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies...Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" (Psalm 27:11, 14 ESV)

The world is entirely opposed to Christianity because Christianity is entirely adjacent the world.
Christianity does not conform to the world nor the "progression" (a misnomer, as progression implies a measure of positive change; progress) of the world in such that the Bible does not change. It is a living thing, it affects everyone differently, but the words stay the same, and the world has an issue with any two-thousand year old text written that shapes lives today in different ways than it did a century or a millennium ago.
What's more, society is against a belief system that says that all people are equal, believers in it or otherwise. We crave exclusion, something that says we're of an elite group, even if we're not. That's why so many organizations exist, as well as titles and such. We always want to have a one-up on everybody else, and the Bible destroys that line of thinking by telling us that anyone can be saved, and that God loves all of us, even the sinners and the "Christ-killers." They are opposed to the idea of a merciful God who loves unconditionally and tells us that if we're to be truly abundant outwardly and inwardly, we must love both our neighbors and our enemies alike (as G. K. Chesterton said, “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people”).

The world hates the idea of a murderer being no more a sinner than a petty thief or a liar or an adulterer (being one who looks at another with lust, not only those that have sexual relations outside of marriage). This ideology says that we all have sinned, and that all have broken part of the Law and, therefore, broken the whole Law, and that we must humble ourselves to overcome our offenses. And, simply put, people who have said a seemingly innocent "no" when the answer was "yes" or have malicious/hateful thoughts just don't want to be lumped in together with a murderer or a child molester.
So the only answer to how society sees the Christian culture is for them to shun it.
Jesus covered this, as did certain apostles, in saying the world will hate us because we're not like them, because of Christ's sake.

But i would like to look back, pre-Christ, for an answer, and the verses at the beginning of this post, though not written about this particular situation, are not irrelevant.
I don't want to call the world our enemy, but the world has set itself against Christians, be it in the tame mocking we receive here in the United States, or the martyrdom found in other nations. Persecution, in all its forms, of Christ is becoming quite rampant, so it is safe to say they're our enemies, whereas it's perhaps more precise to call us their enemies.
But if we have faith in God, He will lead us on a level path because of our enemies. So wait, be strong, have courage--wait for the Lord.