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Monday 28 October 2013

The Most Human of All

So sorry I haven't posted in a long time. A really. Really. Long. Time.
So much stuff has been going on and it's hard to find time to even think of something to write about. This time though, if I can get all my confusing thoughts down on 'paper', I think you'll find this interesting.

Has anyone ever thought about how Jesus can be both God and man? How He can be fully human, yet God's own Son?
I think that those are hard questions with confusing, unclear, mysterious answers. But maybe there's a way that we can view Jesus' humanity in a light that we can understand.

Inside a cave somewhere deep in a Middle Eastern desert, a man bent over a stack of papers, examining each one carefully. These were blueprints, different blueprints written on several pieces of paper, patters that the man would need in order to build what was required on him. Through the security camera, terrorists watched his movements closely. They wanted a bomb, a super bomb. And this man, Tony Stark, was going to build it for them.
But they couldn't see what he was seeing, they couldn't see the whole picture.
Tony Stark was outwitting them, and they didn't know it. He had drawn out the blueprints carefully and cleverly, in order that, when they were all pressed together, a larger blueprint came together and suddenly the whole picture of what Tony was creating was revealed. It wasn't the bomb the terrorists were expecting, it was his escape plan.

I think this is a good illustration about how it is with us and God. Our tiny minds can't press together all of God's personalities and characteristics to see all of Him in all His Glory, because we're looking through a "mirror", as the Bible puts it. We can't see what the spiritual beings see, because we're looking through a 'security camera'. Or we can only lift one page at a time and peer at it, we can only see the 'blueprint' we receive in that moment of need, either that or that's the way God chooses to show Himself to us.
As Jennie Dangers said to us once, "It's almost like God puts a spotlight on the characteristic we most need at that present moment. When we need a father, he is our Father. When we need a husband He's our Husband (guys, sorry if that sounds strange, if it's easier to think about, the church is Jesus' bride, even though individually we are all part of the church), we need a brother He's our Brother. When we need a doctor, He's our Healer."
Sometimes maybe God is portrayed as many things at once- we're beaten up spiritually, emotionally, and maybe physically. God shows Himself (not becomes, because He already is) our Comforter, Healer, Avenger... (sure, think of Thor if you need to, but at least thousands of times powerful ;)

When Jesus became human, He couldn't see God with his physical eyes either. His eyes had become human eyes, just as ours had. His body became a human body, he felt pain, he cried, he probably squashed his finger a number of times with a hammer, because he was most likely a carpenter during his early life. He probably sprained his ankle, fell out of a tree... He had enemies, he knew how it felt to have someone hate you, he knew what it was to have someone you love turn against you, ignore you, reject you. And through all this he was more human than we are. He is the most human of humanity.

Why do I say this?

Well, think. God created the first humans, they were the way humans were supposed  to be. Then sin came and twisted our humanity into something evil.
So when Jesus came, he was perfect. He had no sin. He was the perfect human. Something we should all strive to be, yet accept that we will never be the perfect human. Because there is only one Son of God.

I guess what I'm getting at is we shouldn't ever claim that God can't understand our pain. Actually, I think He understands it better than most of us! Because Jesus went through almost everything we've gone through. Besides the fact that God sees everything about us anyway.
But don't push Him away, because it's the fact that He was human, He understands, He offers us grace we could never even hope to deserve.

But that's the whole point, isn't it?

Grace.

Grace and thankfulness.

Eucharisteo.