where would you go?

"If you could go back to any time and place, where would you go?"

A friend asked me this question last night. I'm not one to have immediate answers to big questions, so I had to think a bit, but my first thought was, "Only somewhere with a modern bathroom!" Priorities.

Assuming that this place was somewhere I could hop into and out of at will (so the lack of modern hygiene would not be such a deterrent), the place and time I would most like to visit would be the place and time of Jesus.

How churchy of me, right? I was almost disappointed in myself.

But for real, that's where/when I'd go. I'd like to see this man I claim to follow. And not just the man, but the community around him. Would I experience some kind of magical charisma that turned the world on its head? Or would Jesus be quiet, subtle, subversive? Would I even like him? What were his friends really like? Were they all as clueless as Mark makes them seem? What about those disciples who don't speak up in the gospels, the introverted ones? Thaddeus, for instance...who was Thaddeus? And the women...particularly the women. How did Jesus interact with them? Were they full friends, or did they have a different place in the community?

I know I can guess about some of these things from reading the gospels, but that's all it is really...a guess.

One thing I'm pretty sure of, though: If I saw Jesus in his own time and place, he would be unexpected, different-than-I-imagined.

But that doesn't stop my imagining.

Maybe it's good that I can't go back in time to see him in the flesh. Maybe the years and culture separating us would make him seem so foreign, so strange, so unintelligible, that I would only be further confused about how to follow His Way.

Or maybe he would look me in the eye and say, "Come, follow me," and the confusion would fade away.