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A Modern Dialogue Between Jesus and Young Scholars at a University
The first skeptical student steps up and asks, "If you're real, why don't you prove it? Why not write your name in the sky or something?"
Jesus answers, "You already trust the sky without seeing the One who holds it in place. You trust the air you breathe without knowing where it begins. Why demand more proof for me than for the things you stake your life on every day? Besides, if my name blazed across the heavens, you would call it a trick, or a glitch, or a hallucination shared by millions. And even if you believed for a moment, you would soon forget—as you did in the beginning—and return to skepticism born of pride. I will not coerce you. Love does not force belief. I only ask you to use the freedom I gave you to choose what is true."
Then skeptic number two asks, "But the world is full of suffering. If you're good, why don't you stop it?"
Jesus answers, "You ask me to end suffering while refusing the love that heals it. You want me to silence evil while keeping the freedom that allows you to choose it. You want a world without pain but not a world without pride. You want the fruit of goodness without the root of surrender."
Skeptic number three jumps up and shouts, "Religion divides people. Why should anyone follow you?"
Jesus calmly replies, "Many speak in my name who have never walked in my way. Do not judge the medicine by those who refuse to take it. The truth is, I did not come to start a club, form a tribe, or become only a bumper sticker. I came to seek the lost and to make the broken whole. Even if there are many, a few, or just one of you left, that is the rock on which I build my Church."
Skeptic number one rises again and declares, "You talk about 'truth,' but everyone has their own truth now."
And again, Jesus answers him, "If everyone has their own truth, then no one has a truth worth living for. A compass that points in every direction points nowhere. I am not one truth among many. I am the truth that reveals all others."
Skeptic number two mockingly asks, "You say you're the way to God. Isn't that narrow-minded?"
Jesus quietly says, "A bridge is narrow, yet it is strong enough to carry the whole world. A path is narrow, yet it leads the traveler home. The way is narrow because it is true, not because it is small."
Skeptic number three laughs and asks, "If we followed you, what would change?"
Jesus winks and says, "Your fear would lose its throne. Your shame would lose its chains. Your loneliness would lose its voice. And your life — the one you keep trying to repair with your own effort and distraction — would finally find its center."
Skeptic number one cynically asks, "Just what do you want from us?"
Jesus gently answers, "Not your performance. Not your perfection. Not even your certainty. Only your trust."
Skeptic number two sharply quips, "And just what do we receive in return?"
Jesus turns to him with a knowing look and replies, "Life—not the life you have built, but the life you were made for."
