HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 8, 2024 – One way to tell the approximate filming date of a movie is by the font used in its title and credits. Another way is the hair styles and clothing worn by the actors, including in films set in the future. The technology used in a movie, especially the phones and computers, is also a dead giveaway for when it was filmed. The funny thing is – most movies adopt fonts and hairstyles and clothing and technology that are considered “cool” and cutting edge at the time, though in hindsight they all just look dated, in some cases hilariously so.

This blog (especially the fact that it is a blog) dates itself, too, even without your seeing my hairstyle or clothing or the type of keyboard I’m pounding it out on. If these words outlive me, whoever reads them will know approximately when they were written without having to glance at the date byline. The tone, word choice, and writing style will give them away.

From the above, we see that things date themselves simply by existing, and although it may seem that the phenomenon of fashion is an inescapable fact of time and space, there is one glaring exception to this rule, and that one exception is Jesus.

Jesus is never dated. Sure, we know approximately when he was born and when he went Home, but those dates don’t affect his immediacy. He is still right here with us now, as he promised he would be, just as his presence in the Gospels is likewise timeless. We know he wore a tunic and a prayer shawl and sandals, and that he likely also had a beard and long hair, but these details still don’t date Jesus. It’s more like they originated with him and had their defining moment on him and remain perpetually timeless because of him, so that whenever we see someone with long hair and a beard wearing a tunic and a prayer shawl and sandals, we think: “That person looks like Jesus”. We don’t think: “That person looks like someone from 2000 years ago”. No, we think that someone who dresses and looks like that, looks like Jesus. Current vernacular would say that Jesus “owns” this look, and so he does. At least until the end of time.

The timelessness of the “Jesus look” is based on who Jesus is, which itself is based on the fulness of God’s Spirit that inhabited Jesus during his time on Earth in human form. Someone who has that much of God’s Spirit in them is going to make a far different impression than someone who either doesn’t have God’s Spirit or has only a portion of it. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow – he never changes – and so his Spirit likewise never changes and therefore comes to us the same today as it did to people 2000 years ago. Being perfect, God’s Spirit has no built-in obsolescence like everything else on Earth, which is why Jesus is as cool and relevant today as he always was, even to those who don’t believe in him.

I was such a person who didn’t believe in Jesus, up until my rebirth 25 years ago. Six months before I was born-again, I went to the library in the notorious red-light district of Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia, where I was staying at the time. I intended to borrow a book by Jean Rhys, but instead of Good Morning, Midnight, the book that caught my attention on the “Je” shelf was about “historical Jesus”. It wasn’t about Jesus the son of God or Jesus the son of man (I wouldn’t have borrowed it if it were) – it was about Jesus the champion of the underdog. Destitute and living at the time in a squalid cockroach-infested room across the street from a safe injection site, I felt very much the underdog, and the story featuring historical Jesus spoke to me. Even as an unbeliever, I thought Jesus was a cool guy. I didn’t become a believer by reading the book, but I did get a sense of Jesus’ timeless relevance and his genuine cool factor. I did get a sense that Jesus could see through people’s BS and that he wasn’t afraid to point out what was wrong and stand up for what was right.

Decades later and now a believer, I understand that God is the source of what makes Jesus so effortlessly cool and relevant. Scripture says Jesus spoke with an authority that people had never encountered before and that they gladly listened to him – even the officers sent to arrest Jesus at a religious feast were so awestruck by the power of his presence that they abandoned their mission, leaving Jesus a free man. The timelessness and force of Jesus, whether as a character in a history book or as a very present Messiah, is thanks to the massive amount of God in him. This translates supernaturally from age to age, so that Jesus’ words – which are God’s words – remain eternally fresh and vital, no matter the year or the language.

We serve a living God, not a dead one or a trendy one whose hair style we’ll snicker at in 30 years. Jesus is here with us now because God is here with us. He’s here in Spirit, enlivening these words and driving home the ones that matter. So if any of my words stick, it’s because they come from God and have been put here just for you.