The World's Biggest Loser

Steve Arterburn

At first thought, it may puzzle you, startle you, or even offend you to think of Jesus Christ as the world’s biggest loser. It should. But those reactions don’t make the claim untrue. They only help us grasp just how counter-intuitive, how grand, and how scandalous the gospel really is. Here’s some food for thought, which I hope you’ll take some time to meditate on:

Being conceived by the Holy Spirit—that is, virgin born—was certainly an occasion for scandal. So much so, in fact, that Mary’s husband-to-be, Joseph, nearly terminated their engagement. Our Lord came into this world—his world—under the meanest of circumstances. His parents were insignificant people from an insignificant town. The world had no room for his coming. He was born in a barn, placed in a feeding trough for animals, and welcomed by lowly shepherds.

Jesus’ upbringing was not one of privilege or social prominence. When he began his public ministry, he sought and attracted the so-called dregs of society: the poor, the sickly, the uneducated, tax collectors, prostitutes, widows, and fisherman. His family and friends were perplexed by him. Many others were outraged by him. On the night of his arrest, Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends, and abandoned and denied by the rest of them. He was beaten and mocked by the Romans, and stood bloodied before his own Jewish people, only to hear them cry for his death. And then, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, a hill reserved for dumping garbage and executing criminals, Jesus was stripped nearly naked and nailed to a cross. In pain of body and distress of soul, he hung as a spectacle and an object of ridicule, as one who was abandoned by God and despised by humans.

Since that time, Jesus Christ has not attracted many of the world’s perceived winners—those who are rich, powerful, and well-positioned. In fact, it has been the case from the beginning that the church has been composed of mostly those whom the world has not esteemed. Even now, as the peoples of the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing unprecedented advances in their standards of living, they are cooling to the bedraggled Jew from Nazareth while those who suffer—those in Africa, South America, and  Asia—are presently flocking to the Kingdom.

In his amazing mercy and meekness, Jesus Christ has entered into the darkest, ugliest, and most broken places of human existence, and reflected a picture of the human predicament that is quite staggering. But it’s a predicament that we all share. Therefore, he continues to call all those who feel the burden of life East of Eden, those weighed with grief, fear, confusion, regret, loneliness, and addiction. To such as these, Christ is, and will always be, matchlessly beautiful. To the rest, however, Jesus will remain One of little account or consequence; that is, the world’s biggest loser.

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