We know the weeping Jesus. Some make a case for the laughing Jesus. But what do we do with the indifferent Jesus?

We live in an age of polarity. People choose their sides and assert them with passion. Some wag on Facebook placed this humorous post last election season: “I’ve just saved a lot of money on Christmas presents by discussing politics on Facebook.”

We live in an age of victimization. A great deal of public discourse involves “rights,” “justice,” and fault-finding. Too often, the question of the day is “Who is to blame?”

The people who told Jesus about the Galileans massacred at their worship no doubt wanted him to share their outrage over the slaughter of these innocent victims, to join them in seeking vengeance for this “hate” crime. Jesus was unmoved.

Jesus responds without pity. He makes no comment about Pilate, the victims, or where is God in all of this? Instead he says “unless you repent, you will perish as they did.”

Instead Jesus refers to another tragedy when a masonry tower fell killing eighteen people. The tower was an accident, not an act of human cruelty. But Jesus’ reaction was the same. He warns his listeners, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Anguish pours out on the news channels and on social media. There are natural disasters – hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes. Immigrants and their supporters plead for sanctuary. Vicious scourges of child abuse, violence against women and the LGBT community, sex trafficking, terrorism, racism, genocide, and war inflict unspeakable pain.

We cry out for peace and reconciliation. The Christian faith is promoted as the cure for the nation and the world. In our vision “the lion lies down with the lamb” and the oppressed are vindicated and liberated. We pray to the Lord to make it so. But he offers us no divine explanation, does not advance our causes, and does not treat the troubling events as signs of the earth nearing its end to any degree we can perceive beyond wishful thinking.

We stretch and strain his words to find some comment on Islam, equality, inclusion, sexual identity and the institutional church, but his word to us remains the same, “Unless you repent, you will all perish.”

We scramble to explain, apologize and make excuses for our apparently indifferent Lord who is not responding as we would have him respond.

What does he mean by “repent?” The word means “to turn and change direction.” But what is he calling us to repent from? The answer is obvious but so hard for us to accept that we Christian believers largely ignore it.

We must repent of our cherished assumptions that Jesus is the partisan God of our country, our party, our class, and our agendas. Jesus is not a member of any particular religious faith or denomination. Our Lord and our King does not vote Republican or Democrat. He is neither a progressive nor a conservative, neither a socialist nor a capitalist.

We cannot presume that Christ shares our priorities and responds according to our determination of what is important. This is hard to accept in the face of so much suffering, pain and injustice. But from the time Adam and Eve chose to determine good and evil for themselves rather than depend upon their Creator for their guidance, the “good” are in as much peril as the “bad,” and Jesus calls both to repentance. This, of course, means all of us, as only God is really good said Jesus (Luke 18:19).

He also calls us to repent of our penchant for ascribing meaning to the events of this world. We claim that our human desires, preferences, enthusiasms, and, to be honest, our prejudices, are either God-initiated or granted significance by God. How the truth struggles in our consciences against the compelling appeals to our self-interest, self-righteousness, and insecurities!

When we claim Divine advocacy for fulfillment of our longings, glorification of our struggles and victory in our causes and conflicts, we are shackling ourselves to the rivalries, discriminations, and partisan violence of this world and dragging our God into them with us. We have no right or call to the claim that he is our ally in such affairs.

Jesus warns us not to put any stock in religious edifices, warned us against misinterpreting signs, and following false messiahs (Mark 13:1-2; 5-23). But he calls to his followers as a matter of eternal significance to care for the destitute, sick and oppressed (Matt 25:31-46). He instructed us to give mercy to those we encounter that need it (Luke 10:25-37).

The entire Sermon on the Mount is a calling to love even those who are our enemies and exploiters, but above that it is a call to trust and focus on him as our source of life and reason for living (Matt 5-7).

One cannot possibly read the gospels and believe that Jesus is indifferent to suffering. No, Jesus’ call to repent is not about indifference to the world and our brokenness and suffering. It is a warning about where we look and the conclusions we draw from what we see.

Jesus’ perspective is so much larger than ours. He calls us to his side rather than to try to settle our scores and his and render our fixes on our own. As I have said, this is a hard teaching but the command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Luke 10:27) is a singular call for our devotion.

When Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of this world and their splendor to do with them as he wished, and we might wish, Jesus’ answer was an unequivocal “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him” (Matt 4:10). There is our answer and our calling.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps. 34:8).

Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.