Who is Jesus?

Having read through Doug Pagitt's interesting book -- A Christianity Worth Believing -- I found intriguing his take on Jesus. He admits that in moving away from what he calls the Greek Jesus -- the one who served as a bridge between an angry and distant God and a sinful humanity -- to one rooted in the Jewish tradition he was forced to ask the question: Who is Jesus for me? In other words, if he's not simply a means to an end (rescue from divine judgment), then what should we make of Jesus?

He writes:

The Christian faith finds its center in the story of Jesus not because this is where the problem of God's anger is solved. Jesus is the core of Christianity because it is through Jesus that we see the fullness of God's hopes for the world. Jesus is the redemption of the creation plan. He shows us what it means to live in partnership with our creator. He leads us into what it means to be integrated with God. (Doug Pagitt, A Christianity Worth Believing, p. 195).

Of course this isn't as clean and easy as the standard line. It doesn't fit neatly in a tract. But the point is -- as Christians we find our selves reconnected to the Creator who loves us in Jesus, and it's Jesus who shows us how to live in the presence of this God.

So the question is: are we comfortable with this more complex understanding of Jesus? It's not cut and dry, but it allows us to enter into relationship with the intimate and loving God rather than fear the demanding tyrant who holds sinners in his angry hands.