Finding Jesus Thru Steve Jobs

“To some people, this is like Elvis Presley or John Lennon. It’s a change in our times. It’s the end of an era. It’s like the end of innovators” the Associated Press quoted regarding the passing of Steve Jobs.

I must admit, to me, that is a good use of words. Steve Jobs has arguably changed the world more in the last 20 years than any other. Like him or not, few would disagree. I was just relating to someone yesterday (before the news of his passing) that in early 2002 I discovered iTunes and put all my CD’s on my Apple Powerbook before I left on a six month trip to Australia. I thought it was so amazing that I could carry around my laptop and listen to music whenever I wanted. That was just nine years ago. Now, after iPod, iPhone and iPad; Apple’s innovations led by Steve Jobs have changed the way we listen to music, read a book, get our news, go to school, find directions or rent a movie. Mr. Jobs has changed the world in amazing ways, but he hasn’t changed it in the ultimate way… The way Jesus did, that is. The following was taken from a sermon James A. Francis in 1926.

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He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty.

Then, for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
He never had a family or owned a home.
He never set foot inside a big city.

He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born.
He never held an office or did any of the things that usually accompany greatness.
While He was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him.
His friends deserted Him.

He was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had-His coat.
When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.

Two thousand years have come and gone, and today He is the central figure for much of the human race. All the armies that ever marched and all the navies that ever sailed and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as this “One Solitary Life.”

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Steve Jobs changed humanity more than most anyone in our day, but he is not its ultimate change agent.  Perhaps as we mourn the death of Steve Jobs we can sense, be it ever so slightly, the feeling of the early disciples when they lost Jesus, the one who, through his resurrection, truly placed an insurmountable dent throughout the universe.