Flesh-and-Blood Jesus, Second Edition

Learning to Be Fully Human from the Son of Man

Russ

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781621895541
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Christians are prone to so focus on the realities of Jesus' divinity that we minimize or ignore the realities of his humanity. That he called himself the Son of Man more than any other title emphasizes that Jesus lived humanly in our fallen world, facing our temptations and living out the tensions of being human in the flow of life. He was just like us, human in a sinful world, yet he did not sin.So what can we learn from Jesus' glorious life about the meaning of our own humanity, about the tensions of being human in a sinful world and the difference between being a sinner and being a finite, flesh-and-blood human being? With this book as a helpful and trustworthy guide, you will begin to see how we can learn from Jesus how to:• live gracefully in our bodies, even our wounded and dying bodies• live with integrity as finite human beings who are created to enjoy limits• love our family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and enemies• enjoy being alone without being lonely• enjoy the good things of life• wear our scars with hope and dignity• learn to dieAs Dr. Russ shows, it is by truly encountering, understanding, and learning from Jesus' humanity that we can become more fully and truly human.

1

Manger Wetter

Coming to Terms with Our Neediness

Wrinkled, Crinkled

Red-skinned Squirmer

Famished Squealer,

Manger Wetter.

Gabriel salutes you!

Michael bows!

We here in Bethlehem

Bed you with cows.

We here in Bethlehem

Bed you with cows.

—Stephen Mahan1

When we reflect on the humanity of Jesus, our minds most easily leap to Jesus the mature man. This leap is understandable, since most of the four Gospels focus on the adult ministry, teachings, miracles, relationships, suffering, death, and resurrection of the Lord. Only Matthew and Luke record accounts of his birth and a glimpse of his childhood.

What does it mean that Jesus began dwelling among us as baby flesh? This question troubled many of the early church fathers, some of whom tried to deny that Jesus was truly God and truly human. Some were particularly repelled at the idea and the image of the Second Person of the Trinity entering the world through a woman’s womb. But this ancient heresy, sometimes attributed to Nestorius, is not merely ancient, as I discovered some years ago. As the headmaster of a Christian school, I sent out a yearly Christmas card. One year the poem on the card was “Manger Wetter,” the text of which opens this chapter. While most responses I received were very positive and polite, to my surprise I received a few stinging letters of rebuke, all from older, biblically literate, ostensibly mature Christian leaders. The general sentiment was that the poet, a friend and Lutheran pastor, and I had committed sacrilege by suggesting that the Lord Jesus Christ was a “manger wetter.” I was stunned to realize how these pious Christians were repulsed by the truth that Jesus “was made man,” beginning like all humanity as a baby. They could not imagine that he had truly entered humanity, and, I suspect, they were repulsed in the depths of their hearts by the realities of their own humanity.

What is it that repulses us about God being a manger wetter? Some of us were taught not to discuss, better yet not to think about, the fact that human beings pass some of the food and drink they consume. We are taught that to discuss such topics is vulgar and dirty. Therefore, we infer that the realities themselves are vulgar and dirty. Nor do people who talk openly about such things help much, since so many of them speak of passing food, water, and gas as something hilariously dirty. Finally, the idea that any of us, much less God, should wet the bed means we are not in control, and who can imagine God not being in control of everything?

He’ll Wear Flesh

Over the centuries, Christian artists have probably more readily embraced the mystery of God becoming baby flesh than have many Christian theologians. The very paradox that puzzles or repels some pietistic Christian thinkers intrigues and attracts Christian artists. For example, John Donne is one of many Christian poets who embrace the mystery of God as infant and never more powerfully than in the second poem of his seven-sonnet cycle entitled “Annunciation”

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is all everywhere,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie

In prison, in thy womb; and though He there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear,

Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created, thou

Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;

Whom thou conceives’t, conceiv’d; yea thou art now

Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother;

Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room,

Immensity cloister’d in thy dear womb.2

The poem captures the absurdity of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and holy God condescending into Mary’s womb, choosing her to become her “Maker’s maker” and her “Father’s mother.” Rather than moving beyond the literal facts of his incarnation, the poem contemplates the meaning of God as fetus, as flesh, as finite.

In rendering and reflecting on the concrete reality of Jesus’ infant humanity, artists like Donne carry on the bold tradition of biblical writers. Isaiah, in what Christians take to be a messianic prophecy, describes a world in desperate need of a savior who can redeem the people from the clutches of bloody tyrants:

The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light,

on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned . . . .

Every warrior’s boot used in battle

and every garment rolled in blood

will be destined for burning,

will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,

to us a Son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

(Isa 9:2, 5–6)

How shocking to follow the images of warriors’ boots and garments rolled in blood with “For to us a child is born”! One expects that following such striking images of bloody warfare the prophet would give us the image of Messiah as righteous warrior, as judge, an Achilles or Ben Hur. But instead he describes the hope of Israel as first a child, a son. And old Simeon continues with this prophetic imagination when the Gospel of Luke describes this old flesh taking this young infant into his arms, looking the baby in the eye and, instead of cooing, declaring, “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (2:30–32). He then turns to Mary and Joseph, who marvel at his words, and says, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel” (2:34). As this exchange is carried on among them, Jesus, we can imagine, is sleeping or looking about him, or even crying. But this does not prevent these adult Jews from seeing in this infant the hope of Israel and the entire world.

By contrast, other stories of miraculous births that were thick in the air when Jesus walked the earth tend toward the miracle child either being born an adult or being born a baby with miraculous powers. An example of the first is the story of the birth of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. She is born from the forehead of her father, Zeus, full of wisdom and divinity. A variation of the birth of a miracle-working child is found in the Mwindo Epic, a story of the Nyanga people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mwindo, whose name means “the little one just born he walks,” is the child of a tribal chief, Shemwindo. The chief has sworn that he will not let a male child live, because that child would be his successor and remind him of his mortality. So the gods give Mwindo special powers, even in the womb, to escape his father’s attempts to kill him and to defeat his father in battle. While this is a unique expression of heroic literature, it is a typical description of a child born as a demigod or with miraculous gifts from the gods.3 Such miracle babies are almost never described as normal babies, as was Jesus. I suspect this is because most religions and myths cannot comprehend true divinity becoming true humanity or because they have such disdain for “the human condition” that they prefer their heroes to be all-powerful from the start. Jesus, by contrast, entered helpless humanity helpless, as real babies really do.

Weak and Needy

So what does the helpless infant humanity of Jesus imply about our humanity?

First, Jesus, especially in infancy but not only as an infant, was weak and needy. He had to rely on Mary and Joseph, as well as other adults in his extended family, to feed, wipe, and hold him, and until a certain age he could only communicate that need by crying. To be weak and needy, powerless to manage some of life’s problems and challenges in one’s own strength, is to be human—not a sin. We will discuss later some other incidents when Jesus was weak and needy—after fasting in the desert, when seeking solitude to pray, and in the Garden of Gethsemane, to name a few. For now, let it suffice to say that our Lord was weak and needy, yet without sin, which raises the question of how we can be the same.

Accepting weakness and need is perhaps more difficult for modern Americans than for most people in the history of the world. While all human beings wrestle with pride—thinking more highly of themselves than they ought—we Americans place a very high value on being “self-made,” independent, and not reliant on or a burden to anyone. While this is not necessarily the freedom described by the founding fathers (for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are all perfectly possible for people who know they are weak and needy), early in the American story we envisioned freedom as autonomy. Founders such as Benjamin Franklin, novelists such as James Fenimore Cooper, poets such as Walt Whitman, along with a wide array of folk heroes and industrial giants, wove into the American myth that freedom and the pursuit of happiness meant making one’s way in the world without asking anyone for anything. Indeed, to be weak and needy in our...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Manger Wetter
• Chapter 2: Longing to Belong
• Chapter 3: Mother’s Guilt
• Chapter 4: The Problem of Authority
• Chapter 5: The Failures of Jesus
• Chapter 6: In Need of Friends
• Chapter 7: The Dysfunctions of Jesus’ Family
• Chapter 8: Jesus and Sex
• Chapter 9: Jesus and Money
• Chapter 10: Good and Angry
• Chapter 11: When Jesus Questioned the Father
• Chapter 12: Passionate Jesus
• Chapter 13: How Should Christians Die?
• Chapter 14: Scarred for Life
• Chapter 15: Feasting with Jesus
• Bibliography