By Steve Cornell
Since his crucifixion, the world has never ceased to be interested in Jesus. In recent times, the interest has only increased. Easter and Christmas seasons consistently generate cover stories about Jesus on national magazines. Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ put Jesus on the big screen. Dan Brown stirred up more worldwide "Jesus controversy" through his Da Vinci Code novel. Most recently, James Cameron's developing documentary about the supposed bones of Jesus has gained international attention. Amazing! Two thousand years after His birth, the seemingly obscure carpenter from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Nazareth continues to be a focal point of the world. But why? To what should we attribute this?  
Does Jesus remain with us by the power of tradition? Is religion the source of His legacy? Or, is there more to Jesus than tradition and religion? I believe there is more– much more! And those who know Him, understand that the enduring legacy of Jesus is based on something more powerful than tradition or religion.
One has suggested that, "Jesus of Nazareth remains the most important individual who has ever lived. Nobody else has had comparable influence over so many nations for so long. Nobody else has so affected art and literature, music and drama. Nobody else can remotely match his record in the liberation, the healing and the education of mankind. Nobody else has attracted such a multitude not only of followers but of worshippers. Our claim, then, is not just that Jesus was one of the great spiritual leaders of the world. It would be hopelessly incongruous to refer to him as 'Jesus the Great,' comparable to Alexander the Great, Charles the Great, or Napoleon the Great. Jesus is not 'the Great,' he is the only. He has no peers, no rivals and no successors" (John Stott, The Contemporary Christian). 
Think about it: "If he had not grown up to become the Jesus Christ of the New Testament, we would never even have heard of the story of Christmas, despite its beauty, simplicity, and wonder. But something began at the Nativity which has never ended. The infant would change history, wrench the world's chronology so that its years would pivot about his birth, and touch countries, cultures, civilizations, and untold millions of lives. Yet the supreme paradox must be this: The person behind this achievement taught publicly for only three and one-half years. He wrote no book. He had no powerful religious or political machine behind him–indeed, the ranking spiritual and governmental authorities opposed him–and yet he became the central figure in human history. The Book about him now has well over a billion copies in print more than a thousand languages, and yet no one even wrote his biography in our sense of the term, since the four accounts of him given in the Gospels offer detail only on the two extremities of his life: his birth and his last three years. Of the some thirty intervening years, we know next to nothing" (John Stott).      
The point is clear. The key to Jesus' legacy is His identity. It is not what the Church believed or continues to believe about him. Tradition has not defined Jesus. And religion has repeatedly proven to be empty, hypocritical and powerless. The legacy of Jesus is found in the fact that, "Jesus of Nazareth was not a man in whom God distinctly manifested himself–He was God become God-Man" (Carl F. H. Henry).  
A final thought for those confused about Jesus: "The biblical presentation of Jesus refuses to remain nicely confined to any of our containers. One picture after another of Jesus in this long line of nontraditional portraits fails before one question dear to the hearts of all faithful Christians: 'What about the Cross?' Why would anyone crucify the reasonable Jesus of the Enlightenment? Why would anyone crucify the dreamy poet of Romanticism? Why would anyone crucify the Law-abiding, mild-mannered rabbi of revisionist Jewish scholarship? Why would anyone crucify the witty, enigmatic, and marginal figure of the Jesus Seminar?" A Jewish scholar says, "'Theologians produced the figure they could admire most at the least cost.' But the Cross stands amidst each such easy path, each attempt to avoid the heart of the matter and the cost of discipleship. The Cross remains a stumbling block for all who encounter this Jesus. He is perhaps not the person we want, but he is surely the person we still–desperately–need" (Allen).  
The unending legacy of Jesus is simply and profoundly based on who Jesus is. Yes, I used the present tense "is" for Jesus because unlike other religious leaders, Jesus is not "dead and gone; finished and fossilized." He declared, "I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever" (Revelation 1:18).  And, those who know Him–understand who Jesus is and why his legacy will never be erased!          
Steve Cornell