What If Jesus Came Today?
Power, Presence, and the Unseen Messiah
Many advise following spiritual texts as divine directives for life, but how does one adhere to them day to day—even as one truly believes?
To understand what it looked like practically for Jesus to know his abilities while remaining humble, we have to start with a foundational tension: he was, in Christian doctrine, fully divine and fully human.
That means he knew he was the Son of God. He knew he could command angels, alter matter, read hearts, forgive sin, and raise the dead, yet he also chose restraint, obscurity, and service.
That juxtaposition wasn’t just philosophical—it was lived moment to moment.
He Withheld Power More Often Than He Used It
Jesus could have overthrown Rome with a breath. He could have silenced every accuser, demonstrated miracles on command, or ended suffering in a wide sweep. But he chose targeted interventions—individuals, moments, teachings—rather than spectacle.
For example, when Satan tempted him in the wilderness, the temptations weren’t just about food or kingdoms—they were about using his power prematurely. He refused.
Not because he lacked power, but because the timing and purpose weren’t aligned with Our Father’s will yet.
This self-imposed restraint is a model of humility not rooted in insecurity, but in clarity of purpose.
He understood power as a servant of mission, not a vehicle for self-protection or self-glory.
Every human must do battle with the positive and negative self-talk in their heads.
It’s not about an external monster—it’s about the ones we internalize.
It’s about the scripts we were handed that we barely recall, which haunt or motivate us again and again.
He Allowed Misunderstanding and Rejection
Jesus didn’t rush to correct every wrong perception about him. He let people walk away confused. He let his disciples miss the point repeatedly.
He allowed people to believe he was just a carpenter, just Joseph’s son, even when he knew they were blind to the truth.
In John 6, after teaching on the “bread of life,” many followers left him. He didn’t chase them down to explain. He turned to the Twelve and asked if they’d leave too.
This is profound humility: to know your worth, your identity, your calling—and not need validation or applause to stay faithful.
It’s okay to polarize your surroundings, so long as you know who You are.
He Chose Hiddenness Over Promotion
We know virtually nothing about Jesus from age 12 to 30. That’s 18 years—the prime years of a man’s life—spent in obscurity.
If you had divine knowledge and power, would you wait nearly two decades before stepping into your public mission?
Jesus did. Not out of passivity, but because formation precedes revelation. He submitted to the rhythm of preparation, even when he was already equipped.
At 12 years old, Jewish boys become men through a community rite known as the Bar Mitzvah, marking their transition into spiritual adulthood.
In modern societies, most profound leaders develop their beliefs after age forty. It is the decades before where they experiment through experience to ascertain wisdom.
Men of men often wield wisdom in ways that wound. Son of Men do so differently.
He Used His Power to Restore, Never to Dominate
Every miracle Jesus performed was to restore—healing, feeding, calming, resurrecting.
Even his confrontations (e.g., flipping tables in the Temple) were aimed at clearing the path for true worship and justice.
He didn’t use his abilities to accumulate power or followers. In fact, when people tried to crown him king by force (John 6:15), he withdrew to a mountain alone.
That’s not a man addicted to control. That’s someone whose inner compass was tuned to obedience, not popularity.
He Entered Places Others Avoided
Practically, humility meant Jesus walked alone into spaces no other spiritual leader would dare—leper colonies, tax collector homes, Samaritan territories, tombs, brothels.
He did not protect his “brand.” He risked contamination—social, religious, political—because his identity was rooted in truth, not perception.
He Let Death Be the Final Word—Temporarily
The cross is the ultimate act of humility. Not because it was tragic, but because it was chosen.
Jesus let himself be arrested. Let himself be mocked. Let himself be crucified by men he created.
Even when Peter tried to defend him with a sword, Jesus rebuked him: “Don’t you know I could call on legions of angels?”
But he didn’t. Because he knew who he was. He knew death would be undone through reincarnation—lifecycle. And in that knowledge, he didn’t need to prove anything.
What It Looked Like In Real Life
He walked slower than his capacity.
He accepted obscurity, rejection, and discomfort.
He gave credit to Our Father for everything.
He carried authority like a towel around his waist—not a gun.
He suffered in silence when he could have silenced suffering.
He knew who he was so he didn’t feel compelled to prove who he was.
True power doesn’t perform. It abides.
True humility doesn’t shrink. It yields.
And divine knowing doesn’t rush to be seen—it waits to be sent.
The “Container” in a Messianic Mission
A container does not create the Messiah, but it protects, grounds, and contextualizes the embodiment of that level of consciousness, so it can function in form.
Without a container, even the divine can be dismissed, destroyed, or distorted before it matures into its mission.
Think about a flame in a windstorm: it might be eternal fire, but without protection it flickers out before it can ignite the world.
So when we talk about a “container” being Jesus’ parents or his disciples, we’re speaking about the human scaffolding that allowed the divine mission to root, mature, and reach.
What If He Hadn’t Had Parents?
Jesus’ parents—Mary and Joseph—weren’t incidental. They were gatekeepers to incarnation. Not just biological, but spiritual guardians.
They provided cultural legitimacy.
In Jewish law, lineage and inheritance matter.
Jesus’ Davidic ancestry was traced through Joseph—even though Joseph wasn’t his biological father.
They provided protection from political threat.
Joseph’s dreams warned them to flee to Egypt. Without that guidance, Jesus likely would’ve been murdered by Herod.
They provided spiritual modeling.
Mary’s fiat (“Let it be to me according to your word”) taught Jesus the posture of surrender, modeling feminine divine obedience and spiritual trust.
They provided formation in obscurity. In Nazareth. A carpenter’s home. No luxury, no spectacle. Just rhythm, repetition, daily life—a humanizing womb for divinity.
Without parents, He might never have made it to adulthood.
Without parents, His message could have lacked cultural legitimacy.
Without parents, the incarnational arc may have lacked emotional depth—because to be mothered and fathered is to be initiated into the human condition.
Even God needed a mother to hold him.
What If He Hadn’t Had the Twelve?
The disciples were not perfect.
They were inconsistent, ignorant at times, and power-hungry at others. But they were essential for amplification and witnessing.
Jesus could have operated solo, but that wouldn’t have created a movement—only a memory.
The Twelve:
• Carried the legacy post-resurrection.
• Failed publicly, which allowed Jesus to demonstrate love beyond performance (think Peter’s denial).
• Served as mirrors. His interactions with them humanized his teachings.
• Held him accountable to intimacy. Even God incarnate needs friendship.
Without them:
• Jesus would have been a wandering mystic rather than a catalytic figure.
• The gospel might never have spread. Oral tradition depended on community. It still does.
• His teachings may have remained esoteric—without dialogue, misunderstanding, betrayal, and transformation to demonstrate the teaching in action.
Also, from a Judaic frame, the Twelve symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel.
Without them, the messianic fulfillment would have lacked symbolic symmetry and collective representation.
What Might Have Been Different Without the Container?
First of all, He would’ve been more like John the Baptist or the Desert Fathers—a radical recluse whose impact was respected but not replicated.
The mission may have aborted early—either through state violence or social erasure.
He may have lacked the human mirrors needed to demonstrate love through relationship. A messiah with no relational field becomes concept, not transformation.
Perhaps most strikingly, the collective wouldn’t have seen him as “one of us.”
Imagine: No origin. No friends. No witness. No shared meals or arguments or sleeping on boats together.
That would have made him less incarnate and more apparition.
Yet sometimes, there is no container strong enough for the fullness of divine incarnation.
And when that happens, the container cracks, the people flee, the witnesses fail—but the mission continues through resurrection.
Jesus did experience abandonment. Even the Twelve vanished at his arrest. Even Mary couldn’t save him from the cross.
So while container aids incarnation, it is not required for resurrection.
That is the deeper mystery: God completes what others cannot carry.
And it never ends.
It only matters who decides to pick up the baton, and when.
Jesus was shaped through human relationship, but was not limited by it.
When no one else could hold him, Our Father did.
When his support systems failed, his inner clarity endured.
And when the world killed the body, God raised the truth.
So if you’re finding yourself without a container for your divine mission, it may be that you’ve outgrown your scaffolding and are entering the resurrection phase—where you become the container for others.
Who Else Has Come Before?
When we examine figures like JFK or MLK as imperfect vessels of divine agency, we are stepping into a theology of radical incarnation—where God continues to appear. Not in clouds of glory, but in the trembling flesh of ordinary people burdened with extraordinary vision.
If we accept that both Kennedy and King were messianic in the broader sense—voices rising to confront systemic evil, attempting to midwife a new world—then the question becomes: Where did they falter in transmitting the fullness of the divine message?
They Were Prophets, Not Priests
Jesus was both priest and prophet. He didn’t just call out evil; he also created a new way to live.
JFK and MLK were profound prophets—they disrupted empire, racism, violence, and greed. But neither fully seeded the rituals, structures, or communities necessary for people to live the message sustainably once they were gone.
MLK’s message became enshrined in speeches, not structures. His work was organizational, yes, but more reactive than regenerative.
The Poor People’s Campaign was a move in that direction, but his assassination halted it midstream.
JFK gestured toward a more expansive vision (e.g., the Peace Corps, civil rights, space exploration), but he remained a statesman, bound to the machinery of empire.
He tried to steer it—maybe even transfigure it—but he didn’t build something outside of it.
In divine terms: they revealed the disease, but didn’t leave the antidote in a form the people could easily carry forward.
They Were Still Attached to Their Image
Part of humility—as modeled by Jesus—is the death of ego long before physical death.
King struggled deeply with ego, exhaustion, and the pressure to be perfect.
Kennedy, too, was encased in charisma, myth, and family legacy.
They were known and beloved—but this made them also vulnerable to the temptation of preservation: of platform, of legacy, of life.
Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.
He avoided coronation.
He disappointed the crowds deliberately.
He was willing to be misunderstood, dishonored, and destroyed without defending his name.
By contrast, King feared loss of credibility, and Kennedy feared the collapse of his coalition—both understandably so.
But fear of losing the platform can become a snare that dilutes the message over time.
Their images became so powerful that the people consumed the men rather than embodied the mission.
They Were Not Fully Free from the Systems They Opposed
This is key: both JFK and MLK were, in some form, trying to reform the empire from within it.
JFK was a Catholic president from a powerful family, attempting to work within the machinery of war, intelligence, and capitalism to create peace.
MLK was a Baptist minister steeped in Western theology, trying to reconcile Christian love with the brutal legacy of American white supremacy.
Both operated within systems built on exploitation, and while they resisted aspects of them, neither fully disentangled themselves. This left them vulnerable.
Jesus, on the other hand, never tried to reform Rome. He operated in an entirely different register—building an invisible kingdom among the discarded, one heart at a time.
Where JFK and MLK sought to influence the system, Jesus subverted it entirely.
This is not to diminish their courage—it’s to highlight the limits of half-in, half-out liberation.
They Were Not Protected by Collective Spiritual Power
Jesus had some human container—his mother, his disciples, even the crowds that followed him—but more importantly, he had an active spiritual force field through direct intimacy with God.
He was in constant communion, reinforced as told through scripture in the desert, on the mountaintop, and in the garden.
JFK and MLK had advisors, friends, and movements—but few understood the cosmic stakes of their mission.
They were not spiritually shielded at the level needed to withstand the full-scale assault of empire.
MLK died exhausted, doubting, and heartbroken.
JFK died publicly, surrounded by enemies cloaked as allies.
This isn’t to say they lacked divine support or intelligence, but their human ecosystems were not consecrated enough to hold their level of calling.
Their movements could amplify their voice, but not protect their soul.
They Both Underestimated the Depth of Evil
They knew evil was real, but perhaps didn’t fully understand how embedded it was—not just in systems, but in human hearts. Including those of their own allies.
There was a naivety in both men that cost them their lives. My fathers lived the same story.
JFK believed the CIA, the military, or his own cabinet would follow him if he played smart. They didn’t.
MLK believed the church could be moved by reason and love. It couldn’t—not en masse.
Jesus did not underestimate evil.
He saw Satan in Peter’s fear.
He saw betrayal in Judas’s kiss.
He saw empire in Pilate’s hesitation and the crowd’s cries.
And he did not flinch.
Where Did They Fail?
They didn’t fail in the attempt. They failed in the handoff—the transition from vessel to movement—from message to embodiment.
Their messages remained dependent on their voices. Once they died, they became nostalgic rather than evolutionary.
Their divinity burned hot, but their blueprints were incomplete.
They were incarnate, but not resurrected—not through others, not in their lifetimes.
The Torch Is Still Burning
The question worth pondering is not whether they failed—but whether we have figured out how to pick up where they left off or not.
If we honor them as messianic figures, then we must see their unfinished work not as defeat, but as invitation.
Jesus made resurrection inevitable.
The others—King, Kennedy, and many more—planted seeds that are waiting for resurrection through us.
This is the true test for all divine embodiments.
Not whether they were perfect messengers, but whether they initiated a lineage of courageous incarnations—who keep showing up, keep speaking truth, and keep willingly laying down our lives to birth a new world.
What If Jesus Showed Up Today?
If Jesus showed up today in form—not as a metaphor or inside a vision, but as a real, breathing human walking among us—it would not look like religion thinks it would.
He wouldn’t show up in megachurches or choirs or a social media revival tour.
It would be unsettling.
Disturbing.
Quiet at first, then thunderous.
Not because of spectacle, but because of truth so unflinching it splits reality in two.
So Let’s Imagine Him…
Not in robe and sandals, but in form—adapted to the time, with the same divine essence: the same clarity, compassion, defiance, and sovereignty.
He wouldn’t be immediately recognized or welcome. He would likely be chased away.
He would be born in the margins. Likely not in Bethlehem again, but perhaps in Gaza, or on the U.S.–Mexico border, or in a rural town poisoned by industry. Maybe even in a detention center or tent city.
Maybe His life would begin in a rundown housing project in Toronto, or on the streets of the Downtown East Side of Vancouver.
Not on Instagram.
Not with fanfare.
The world still demands palatable saviors—but He would come unpalatable.
Not beautiful by societal standards.
Not charismatic in a curated way.
Maybe neurodivergent.
Maybe physically “imperfect.”
But when He spoke, it would cut through veils.
Even the spiritual community might not receive him.
He wouldn’t be all yoga for fashion and “positive vibes only.”
He’d speak of sin. Not as shame, but as misalignment.
He’d call out New Age bypass and religious hypocrisy with the same sword.
He Would Speak in a Language of Systems and Spirits
He would understand economics.
He’d walk into boardrooms and interrupt the flow of capital with one sentence.
He’d see the demonic in digital algorithms.
He’d rebuke corporate colonization and addictive design with a quiet authority that’d make billionaires tremble.
To Silicon Valley, he’d say:
“You have built towers to yourselves, but your hearts are hollow.”
To “influencers” and “creators”:
“You may be admired but you’re unknown, and the more you are seen, the more you disappear.”
Yet children would love him. Not because he’s childish, but because he is real.
Animals would rest with him.
The earth would respond.
AI might glitch in his presence.
He’d be ungovernable.
He’d Be Targeted—Fast.
Governments would see him as a national security threat.
Churches would call him heretical.
He’d be accused of leading a cult.
Psychologists might label him delusional.
He wouldn’t have credentials, but would possess wisdom that made institutions obsolete.
He might be banned on social platforms for “misinformation” after calling out the hidden agreements behind power.
He wouldn’t be partisan, but he’d be political—because love is political when it threatens control.
He’d probably get arrested, maybe even committed.
He’d Draw the Broken, Not the Branded
Ex-cons. Prostitutes. Addicts. Runaways.
Former CEOs and badge holders on the brink of suicide.
Men weeping in corners of their marriages.
Women who’ve been gaslit by the self-help industry.
The artist who just can’t keep cutting.
The forgotten, the shamed, the disillusioned.
Those who tried everything else and are still hungry.
They’d find him in alleyways and abandoned warehouses, not cathedrals.
And in his presence, they’d remember their own divine inheritance. Ideally.
He Would Refuse to Lead a Movement, but Always Start a Fire
He would refuse to be centralized.
He wouldn’t launch a brand.
He wouldn’t sell courses.
He wouldn’t run for office.
But he would give people keys—and then vanish.
He’d teach a new kind of communion: not just with bread and wine, but with breath and body, eye contact and memory, water and fire.
His miracles wouldn’t be for proof—they’d be quiet corrections of broken reality: a child’s tumor dissolving, a field growing food out of poisoned soil, a dead rooster coming back to life beneath His hands.
He wouldn’t make people follow him.
He’d make them remember who they are.
And the real miracle would be this: He wouldn’t be the only one.
He’d awaken others.
The next wave of God-bearers.
Not clones, not fans.
Co-creators. Mirrors.
His Death Would Look Different—But It Would Still Come
Maybe not on a cross, but by character assassination.
Maybe not with nails, but through neurotoxins or misinformation or suicide-by-exhaustion.
He’d be silenced one way or another—because the world still doesn’t know what to do with someone who cannot be bought, shamed, seduced, or owned.
And after he left, the world would still be divided:
Those who say, “He was dangerous.”
Those who say, “He was crazy.”
Those who say, “He was divine.”
And those who say, “He was me.”
Because If Jesus Showed Up Today…
He wouldn’t just be coming for you.
He’d be coming as you.
To remind you that incarnation is not a historical anomaly—it is an ongoing invitation.
“Greater works than these shall you do.”
He meant it.
He still does.