Today as I was driving I, for some reason unknown to me, had this idea pop into my head:
If the Messiah were alive today, we would crucify him too.
I was thinking about whether this was true or not, of course I only thought about for about 5 minutes while I was waiting at a stop light, so they aren't too deep.
1. We live in an interesting time where we hear that 'postmodern' people are far more open to spirituality than many of those that have come before us. This kind of throws a kink in the idea of us crucifing him, at least initially in the argument, because you would expect people open to spirituality to cling to Jesus.
2. The argument against my last point is that Jesus wouldn't just be some spiritual guy walking around telling cool stories, his call was to repentence. Of course in Christianity today, especially within evangelical circles, we have all these layers involved in our language. Today, repentence means to turn from one's sin, which is a decent description (although I think that this definition only describes the word in part, it was a turning of everything toward's God, our mind, strength, and heart). I think our biggest mistake is our current definition of sin. It, for some reason, doesn't include not loving, or feeding the poor, or caring about people, or anything socially aware, and I think Jesus would be pissed, to say the least about this within the church...this would definetely get him crucified.
3. Jesus often had something to say to the rich, or at least about the rich. He told the man who asked him how to be good to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor...the thing is this, as an American who has a car, that means ANYONE WHO HAS A CAR, is automatically put into something like the top 2% of the richest people in the world, even if you were given the car, at least you can get to a place with clean water and a bathroom. I consider having a water toilet and fresh water to put us on the list of 'Rich Christians'. I think Jesus would have volumes to say about how materialistic our country is, and that would be so hard for people to follow. Chalk another Crucifixtion up for Jesus.
That does it, 2-1 Jesus would most likely be crucified. Whoops, I mean of course we wouldn't crucify him because we are so much more advanced in our thinking and the way that we kill people...we are SOOO much better than Rome was, after all, we are a Christian Nation.
PAIN...
Today in my Systematic Theology class we were talking about the question of a Good God and Evil (basically). We talked back on forth on the subject for a few minutes and then our professor stopped us to talk about pain. He read a story about a girl who couldn't feel pain because of a extremely rare condition. When she was at school she had to be watched at all times. When she was about to eat lunch, they had to check to see if it was too hot because she would eat anything, even something that was boiling hot, and wouldn't even know it was burning her insides. When she was a baby and was teething she would chew her fingers until they were bloody and missing chunks of skin because she had no idea. When she was a toddler she went outside and placed her hand on a hot engine (or something like that) and she came back into the house looking at her hand that was covered in blisters and all red and burnt. Her mother said at the end of the article that her only wish in life was that her daughter could feel pain.
This kind of gave me a kick in the stomach. It is amazing to think that maybe pain is a good thing because if we didn't have pain we would get hurt, or hurt ourselves, and would eventually kill ourselves. I am still wrestling with all of this and I haven't got to think this through at all, I just remember it and it has been in my head all day..you would think I would have thought about it, but I haven't for some reason. Any thoughts of your own?
If the Messiah were alive today, we would crucify him too.
I was thinking about whether this was true or not, of course I only thought about for about 5 minutes while I was waiting at a stop light, so they aren't too deep.
1. We live in an interesting time where we hear that 'postmodern' people are far more open to spirituality than many of those that have come before us. This kind of throws a kink in the idea of us crucifing him, at least initially in the argument, because you would expect people open to spirituality to cling to Jesus.
2. The argument against my last point is that Jesus wouldn't just be some spiritual guy walking around telling cool stories, his call was to repentence. Of course in Christianity today, especially within evangelical circles, we have all these layers involved in our language. Today, repentence means to turn from one's sin, which is a decent description (although I think that this definition only describes the word in part, it was a turning of everything toward's God, our mind, strength, and heart). I think our biggest mistake is our current definition of sin. It, for some reason, doesn't include not loving, or feeding the poor, or caring about people, or anything socially aware, and I think Jesus would be pissed, to say the least about this within the church...this would definetely get him crucified.
3. Jesus often had something to say to the rich, or at least about the rich. He told the man who asked him how to be good to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor...the thing is this, as an American who has a car, that means ANYONE WHO HAS A CAR, is automatically put into something like the top 2% of the richest people in the world, even if you were given the car, at least you can get to a place with clean water and a bathroom. I consider having a water toilet and fresh water to put us on the list of 'Rich Christians'. I think Jesus would have volumes to say about how materialistic our country is, and that would be so hard for people to follow. Chalk another Crucifixtion up for Jesus.
That does it, 2-1 Jesus would most likely be crucified. Whoops, I mean of course we wouldn't crucify him because we are so much more advanced in our thinking and the way that we kill people...we are SOOO much better than Rome was, after all, we are a Christian Nation.
PAIN...
Today in my Systematic Theology class we were talking about the question of a Good God and Evil (basically). We talked back on forth on the subject for a few minutes and then our professor stopped us to talk about pain. He read a story about a girl who couldn't feel pain because of a extremely rare condition. When she was at school she had to be watched at all times. When she was about to eat lunch, they had to check to see if it was too hot because she would eat anything, even something that was boiling hot, and wouldn't even know it was burning her insides. When she was a baby and was teething she would chew her fingers until they were bloody and missing chunks of skin because she had no idea. When she was a toddler she went outside and placed her hand on a hot engine (or something like that) and she came back into the house looking at her hand that was covered in blisters and all red and burnt. Her mother said at the end of the article that her only wish in life was that her daughter could feel pain.
This kind of gave me a kick in the stomach. It is amazing to think that maybe pain is a good thing because if we didn't have pain we would get hurt, or hurt ourselves, and would eventually kill ourselves. I am still wrestling with all of this and I haven't got to think this through at all, I just remember it and it has been in my head all day..you would think I would have thought about it, but I haven't for some reason. Any thoughts of your own?
1 Responses to “The Messiah's Return and Pain”
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nice thoughts
I have heard that pain analogy before. always liked it. it probably applies to a much larger portion of life than we'd even expect.
and I love your sarcastic take on today's spirituality (or lack there of)