Read the introduction and part 1 of this series here.
Who is Jesus?
(Ahem). Today (through Kierkegaard) I am going to answer the question, solve the debates, and issue an authoritative statement in response to this question.
I was completely joking when I typed that, in fair form, as many bloggers who discuss "the universe," "love," "the American political system," ... in a single blog post. But, I think it is possible to know who Jesus is (or was, is/was) -isn't that where the discussion begins?
I have long thought that I know who Jesus is. The Easter season in the church is riddled with explanations. When I was a child, growing up in the Catholic Church, Jesus' figure on the cross was a backdrop as I wavered between a decision to give up soda or candy for lent. Weekly, I participated in the somber reflection on Jesus' life leading to the cross (through a family viewing of Jesus of Nazareth weekly). I chose a new frilly Easter dress, anticipated the Easter Bunny, colored eggs, and candy. What a conglomeration of symbols and mixed messages! I don't need to pick on any of these traditions; they served their purpose: fun when it was appropriate, somber and repentant at other times, silly and anticipated, disciplined and longing, creative and celebratory. I had a wonderful childhood.
The challenge has been growing up, because now I have to decide what to do with all of the fragments. I have a hard time doing anything for the sake of tradition, and I want to know why we do what we do, who Jesus was, what the act on the cross meant, why the Jesus character in the film rarely smiled, how to conjure renewed emotion year after year... anyone else resonate?
I have since attended a protestant church and the plot thickens... why do they skip to Sunday's resurrection and chant "Minister: He is risen, People: He is risen indeed!" What are they celebrating, if there is little-to-no acknowledgment of death on Friday? And the manner of fanfare, auditoriums, venues, rhythmic interpretive dancing, painting, flyers. I have no idea.
The gospel accounts, essentially Jesus' life and resurrection are highlighted, explicated, historicized, dramatized, and indoctrinated as THE events that shaped Christendom. But what do these stories mean exactly? (They are a form of translated narrative and my learned profession requires me to analytically and critically access texts for theoretical, symbolic, and real fragments. I'm just supposed to read them and accept that one day God was born...and then he died, and my sin is forgiven?) The God/man paradigm never made “sense” to me, and I knew that in my mind I was missing the point, an abased and simple point.
Along came Kierkegaard.
The version from which I read and quote
What has happened in 2012 years since Christ (or 1800 if you are S.K.)? Without explaining every way that the church has represented Christ (though I'm surprised that he didn't attempt this. An S.K. joke... ) Kierkegaard simply says that "history" has represented Christ into a knowable and known being. Jesus has been cloaked with an identity so that nearly everyone in a Western society, secular or Christian, knows that Jesus claimed and was expressed as being God, who came to earth in human form, lived a life that history proves was defined by miraculous events, that he was crucified under the Roman command, but because the people demanded it. Here, Christian history splinters to say that he rose from the dead and went to heaven to be with God. This is a simplified account of the claims about Jesus, and does not include religious doctrine or practice resulting from the implication of Christ's divinity, the historicization of his life on earth, or various other teachings and interpretations of these known events.
Read:
Kierkegaard posits that Christ is misrepresented by a history of Christendom that robes Jesus in his divinity prematurely. A key passage to note above is "...it is also untrue, and the words that he said become untrue . . . if I make him essentially different from what he was when he said them." Returning to the question asked at the beginning of this post, who is Jesus, we know that "it pleased God" to come as a "lowly servant," in appearances, "just like any other human being." This is who Jesus was, very simply, Jesus was human. When he was on earth he came, not as God, but as a man.
Read those quotes carefully to see that S.K. is not making a speculative claim. He does not make a claim about Jesus' divinity or his God/man nature at all because that removes Jesus from the context in which He came to the world. He was not known as God. His miracles, his kindness, his compassion, gentleness, grace, fortitude, selfless acts and miracles were expressed, and are recorded in the bible as Jesus speaking, the humble son of Joseph and Mary from Galilee, in human form. It is only space, the "intervening period" of 2,000 years that has cloaked these words with supernatural, divine, God-instead-of-man weight. What of his humanity that spoke with full knowledge of human emotion, of social pressure and stereotype, of the temptation to fear, or the vulnerability to spiritual opposition, and the difficulty of saying yes to pain, death, shame, ridicule, pride, the absence of God, and the weight of sin? This is the "abased" Jesus Christ who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, not his own divinity, was empowered to perform miracles and to represent the truth and wisdom of God.
S.K. goes so far as to say that to think of Jesus as God, to read his words as if it were God speaking them is blasphemy because the truth recorded in the scripture is that he was the son of man, born into the world: "When He who holds all possibilities in his hand takes upon himself the form of a lowly servant . . . he surely must know well enough what he is doing and why he wills it."
* To clarify, this does not posit that Jesus is not God. That is coming. Philosophy pokes at small ideas, forgetting momentarily the larger view, and then hones the ideas thoroughly into a larger, theoretical concept. That is why people often label philosophy "dense," and exacerbated, wonder "what's is the point?" The point is always present, just thoroughly examined.
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