Ever since Jesus Christ began to manifest miracles in 26 AD, people, even those who saw those signs from God right before their eyes, have rejected him and refused to believe in him. Today, there are infinite opinions on who Jesus is (or was), especially among modern high school students, who have drastically different beliefs about him. Whether or not you believe Jesus is the embodiment of God, it’s still interesting how much of an impact he makes on people today.
At Doherty High School, it’s a popular belief that Jesus isn’t God’s son, but rather an idea that has brought comfort to people regarding our inevitable deaths. Freshman Amelia Jarzyk thinks,“He was made to give faith to those people (Christians) as a comfort to answer the question of what happens after death.” She also states, “He can act as a sort of savior to people who turn to him to improve themselves as human beings.”
She isn’t entirely wrong; even though Amelia is not religious herself, she still recognizes how people who have accepted Jesus improve themselves. A great example of this is freshman Elian Villa, who has grown up in a Christian household, but has still been helped by Jesus in his everyday life.
Elian used to be friends with a group of people who were separated from Jesus and “treated others like crap and acted as if they were the best, as if others were beneath them.” He has now distanced himself from them and believes, “Jesus brought me away from them or made me realize that I shouldn’t try to fit in with them since it’d just be self-destructive.”
When asked how he feels about people now being separated from Jesus, he stated, “It makes me feel sad. I don’t get mad at them, as they are given their own free will, as God intended. It makes me think that our generation will slowly become more and more accepting of sinful stuff.”
A former youth pastor at New Hope Fellowship in West Valley, Utah, has a unique perspective on our generation of high schoolers. Nic Spatafore’s role as a youth pastor was to educate teenagers in a group about the Bible, and Jesus’s teachings. Although this wasn’t necessarily his whole job, he felt that he was more of a guardian to his youth kids than just their pastor.
He loved his job very much and remarked, “I enjoyed the connections with the kids, especially since we had a lot of kids who came from broken homes, like I did.” However, his job was a lot more difficult than he realized. He recalls, “The hardest part was when you would have to pick them up from raves when they were drunk, high, or just out of it. Having to help them over the phone to prevent them from committing suicide due to all the pain they’ve gone through was extremely hard.”
He observes that “as the world continues to develop, the more separated kids become not only from themselves, but from God as a whole.” Nic thinks the image of God used to be very strong in our country, “America was founded as one nation under God, but we learn from history, that this hasn’t stayed true.”
All of that being said, there could be more than one way to find your moral compass. What is clear is that too many teens look to false comforts that only end them up in more pain than they were before. For me, all it comes down to is whether we accept Jesus or not. I have written about a few examples of who Jesus is to people in high school today. Whether you do or don’t believe in him is your own choice, and no one can make that decision but you. But we as a generation need to make sure that in whatever we decide to do in our lives, we find meaning in it that makes us feel whole.
