Shock that would meet Jesus were he to visit Kenya today

The early apostles were a lucky bunch. Thomas, that ever-doubting faithless apostle, was visited by Jesus himself, and invited to put a finger through the hole that the nail made in Jesus’ palms. The rather rude Chief Apostle, Simon Peter, received regular visitations, and admonitions, from the risen Jesus.

Even Saul, who was the early Christians’ most ardent persecutor, received a visitation here, a vision there. It seems in the early days of Christianity, all you had to do for Jesus to notice you was more or less just exist. The Saviour of the World would then drop in for tea or a chat.

Or, if you were a nasty liar like Ananias and his wife, an end-of-life experience with the guy that created you in the first place. Very, very special moments, those early Christians had. And then it all stopped. Jesus just decided he wasn’t going to drop in on humankind anymore.

Pagan religions

He staged a spectacular departure, leaving the apostles all aghast and all alone, wondering how they would navigate the world around them without their leader.

And as always happens when a big man exits the scene, matters rapidly went south , nations turned against each other once more, Christians ran into pagan religions and turned to them, and we ended up with the messy situation that is the world we have today.

What if Jesus dropped in on Kenya today, quite literally out of the blue (sky)? What would he think of this society we are building and living in? What would he make of the people that are ostensibly his followers, and of the societies that claim to live according to his precepts?

As some unhelpful people have asked before, if Jesus came to Kenya today, would he even want to be a Christian? First, he would be shocked at the apathy of what is ostensibly “His” church.

Some things Jesus would recognise immediately from his day: church workers who are actually little more than merchants, selling miracles and prayers for money, priests and self-declared “bishops” who are actually politicians and are no different from the Pharisees of his day, and the competing sects and divisions of Christianity that are uncannily like the Sadducees vs Pharisees animosity of his day.

Second, though, he would be exasperated at the complete disregard for humanity that is modern Kenya. In Kenya, in which the supposed custodians of the law are its most flagrant violators, from government officials to politicians to law-enforcement agencies.

Long-haired wimp

Surveying the corruption that scars Kenya, Jesus would notice the parallels with the Judean courts and governors, who allied themselves with Rome against their own people. Disappointed at the terrible state of the leadership of the country, Jesus would turn his eyes towards the masses, and would be shocked even more.

A population brutalised by corruption and violence has allowed itself to deteriorate into little more than a cesspit of competing little factions, with corruption and licentiousness their chosen respite from the ills that afflict them. The Saviour would be heartbroken to see what his creation has turned into. But Jesus was a tough guy.

He was nothing like the soft, effeminate, long-haired wimp so common in today’s Christian iconography: this is a carpenter who chased moneychangers out of the temple with a whip, and survived 40 day and nights in the desert without food or drink.

Your average Kenyan politician’s potbelly would be gone by the third day without nyama choma, and by day five we would be making funeral arrangements.

And so Jesus would take one long, hard look at what Kenya has turned into, and decide that a new flood was necessary, wipe out about 99 per of the population, and start again with one or two righteous families. And he would be right!