Which Jesus do we know?
In rural western Kenya, some apparently sane people purport to worship an elderly polygamous man. He has nearly a hundred children and calls himself Jehovah Wanyonyi.
The man claims to be God Almighty and teaches his followers that Jesus Christ is his son—although there was a time Jehovah surprised a reporter by saying he was in serious need of money to feed his children.
I thought about Jehovah Wanyonyi following extensive media reports here about an elderly former Christian preacher in northern Tanzania. Mwasapile Mbilikile, 76, claims to have found a cure for nearly every ailment on earth. He uses a certain herb and invokes the name of Jesus.
For over a month, tens of thousands of people have been beating a path to Mbilikile’s remote village home hoping to drink a cup of his concoction and get cured. Some people have travelled from Kenya.
The dirt poor as well as the rich have used every available means of travel to reach Loliondo village. Many of those people are Christian and they believe that the old man indeed has a “miracle cure”, as he claims.
Judging from media pictures, it is an amazing spectacle. The Tanzanian government had to temporarily suspend trips to Loliondo amid fears of a humanitarian crisis after 52 people died while waiting for the “miracle cure” associated with Jesus.
Yet there is nothing particularly spectacular about Mbilikile’s claims. Many faith healers say similar things here in Kenya all the time. In Nairobi alone, there are several faith healers purporting to cure all types of diseases, make one rich, protect a believer from harm or even death.
My problem is that these claims are made in the name of Jesus. Actually, who is Jesus Christ? Is he indeed the son of the western Kenyan man who says he is God? Or is he the alleged power behind the Tanzanian herbalist’s “miracle cure”?
Could he be both? In other words, is Jesus involved in the words and works of everyone who claims to speak and act in his name?
I think a Christian cannot avoid these questions, especially in the quiet of Holy Week.
To begin with, I believe in miracles because the Bible says Jesus performed them. The same Jesus who walked on this earth 2000 years ago is alive today and still does miracles.
But I have a difficulty about going around looking for miracles or believing everyone who says he or she can pull off some amazing feats in the name of Jesus.
For one, I don’t think that is why Jesus came down from heaven. He could do miracles from heaven—as he does now—without coming down here to live with us for while, couldn’t he?
There must be another reason why Jesus took a human body, was born, suffered, died, rose again and went back to heaven. And that reason seems to me not to have been well understood by the thousands of anxious people flocking Loliondo village, or those who bow before Jehovah Wanyonyi.
Yet it is a very simple reason. No one can say he or she is a Christian if they have not heard the following words:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:16-17).
It is that simple. God has shown unfathomable love for each one of us in the freely accepted death of Jesus Christ on the cross to atone for our sins.
Now, all the people who believe in Jesus will still experience suffering and death on this earth, whether they are rich or poor and whether or not they are cured from an illness by a herbalist asserting spiritual power.
But one thing is sure: no matter what, believers who understand who Jesus Christ really is will always be alive and well in him because in his resurrection he has conquered death and lives forever.
A very happy Easter to you!
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