Who do you love?
Girl I see through, through your love.
Who do you love?
Me or the thought of me?
Me or the thought of me?
- John Mayer, “I don’t trust myself (with loving you)”, Continuum
This lyric caught me when first listening through the album, because it directly addresses our tendency to idealize on some level the people we love, or more generally to see what we want or expect them to be instead of what they are. For that matter, it’s not even limited to the people we love. We do this with a wide variety of pretty much everybody. Our perception of a person is largely based on our own expectations, desires, and feelings regarding that person.
If we do this with people we physically see and interact with daily or weekly or monthly, how much more likely are we to do it with Jesus? Anthony Bradley at Resurgence condemns a mural that portrayed Jesus a feminine dude in a pink ‘dress,’ and then questions (far less strongly) the image of the black Jesus portrayed in an African-American megachurch.
Mark Driscoll frequently berates what he he sees as a humble hippie Jesus, or marginalized Galilean peasant Jesus, as not being tough enough or bad (ironically) enough to earn the respect of masculine men. Understand that I love Mark Driscoll’s preaching and what I know of what he is doing in Seattle. But that doesn’t mean I agree with him on everything, and we can take pretty much anything too far. In an effort to find a different Jesus, Mark turns to revelation, where he finds what frequently refers to as ‘ultimate fighter Jesus’:
“Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” (Relevant Magazine, 2007)
So who’s right? The big question is not how Jesus really looked or dressed. We should acknowledge that the imagery in quotes like Driscoll’s above is really meant to communicate what kind of person the speaker thinks Jesus was and/or is. Old hymns talk about Jesus as lowly, meek, or mild. Some people do speak of him as a marginalized Galilean peasant. Then you can come back to Driscoll.
The problem with Ultimate Fighter Jesus is that the image is at least as heavily culturally influenced as meek and mild Jesus. How can we hear Mark or read the quote above and not wonder if this picture of Jesus doesn’t come from projecting the images of Braveheart, Gladiator, UFC, and the entire Highlander series onto the book of Revelation? Even in that book, which contains the most aggressive imagery describing Jesus, he is portrayed as coming to dispense justice, not to gratuitously create a bloodbath. In addition, Mark reasons that we should think of Jesus this way because this is how he’s coming back to earth in victory.
The truth is the Bible presents a multi-faceted Jesus. He was compassionate towards sinners and rejects, condemning of self-righteous religionists, but open to anyone from any clique or club who came to him honestly, humbly, and trustingly. He cried when his friend Lazarus died and was apparently quite angry when he found crooks selling crap in the temple. He called people names (vipers! whitewashed tombs!) and wouldn’t allow a woman to be stoned to death for adultery.
In addition, the problem with saying ‘we only worship the victorious fighter Jesus’ is that Jesus’ victory over death and sin and the devil was won during his time on earth as … well … a marginalized galilean peasant. The second coming follows through on that victory, it fulfills it, but it was won through death and resurrection, accomplished at the end of his life on earth as a complex, inspiring, loving, condemning, blessing, sad, joyful prophet/teacher/human/God.
What we cannot do is reduce Jesus to a caricature. We can’t simply put our faith in rebel Jesus or UFC Jesus or simple happy Jesus or liberation theology Jesus or American flag-waving Jesus or, God forbid, zombie Jesus.. Instead, we need to start learning about and trying to live like the Jesus of the Bible. That’s at least a good beginning.
8 responses so far ↓
Scott Childress // March 18, 2008 at 12:51 pm |
all of us have some tendency to place our own personalities on Jesus. its hard not to – but i think we need to at least admit that we each have done that at some point.
it seems as if some of us want to put Jesus in a role where he can stump for our personal agenda…
i’ll just be honest and say that he frustrates me. it seems that the only people in the scriptures who really knew who he even was happened to be the demons.
but in a nod to the driscoll quote (and a betrayal of the box I want to put Jesus in) i would have to say that it saddens me that the image of Jesus that i grew up with seemed to suggest that – “yes, Jesus was meek and mild the first time…but when he comes back….he’s kickin some ass”
Jesus on the cross, suffering pain and humiliation softly mumbles, “you wait till i come back….”
oh wait – he didnt say that did he?
“father forgive them”
forgive us.
Ben // March 18, 2008 at 10:14 pm |
Just wanted to say, I thought this was a very insightful post. I think Driscoll’s methods really are necessary sometimes, because it’s possible that our baggage can be so heavy on occasion that nothing but a violent demolition job is sufficient. But yes, we must remember at the same time that the “meek and mild” caricature may not be the whole story… but it’s certainly part of the multi-faceted story. And I think, to be fair, Driscoll does acknowledge that in the larger body of his preaching. Just not while he’s in the middle of manning the bulldozer.
callmelyd // March 19, 2008 at 12:21 am |
Ricky Bobby: “Dear tiny infant Jesus…”
Carley Bobby: “Hey, um… you know sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don’t always have to call him baby. It’s a bit odd and off puttin’ to pray to a baby.”
Ricky Bobby: “Well look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I’m sayin’ grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grown up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whoever you want. ” (from Talladega Nights)
I thought of this almost instantly when I was reading. we talk about this in Young Life a lot (in fact, last summer they played that clip at camp) — the way different people see Jesus and how it really holds up to scripture. essentially, I think you’re right — he was multi-faceted. ignore or deny that, and you’re shaping your own god. which reminds me of the Newsboys lyric — “to fabricate a God like this, no doubt/we’d end up worshiping a Christ of our own design/but Jesus doesn’t fit that profile/his ways aren’t mine.”
for all the “emerging” that’s happening, with statements like this Mark Driscoll does exactly what’s been done in many churches for many years — he attempts to put God into a nice little box that he’s comfortable with, one that makes sense to him. God, of course, is bigger than that.
Jared // March 19, 2008 at 10:58 am |
Of course, Mark Driscoll is by no means the only one who does this. And let me reiterate: I love the guy’s preaching and his commitment to the gospel. It’s just that he’s so reactionary on this … it’s not coincidence that the son of a union drywaller who worked until he broke his back to support his family, as Mark has mentioned many times, plugs a manly man Jesus.
Scott likes that Ricky Bobby quote too. It presents a beautiful snapshot of how we assign a certain image to Jesus because of its appeal to us.
fearingfearitself // March 22, 2008 at 6:53 pm |
This made me think of this girl who comes to Starbucks with whom I’m in love. And I was 4 months before I learned her name. One of my coworkers asked me why I didn’t just talk to her. I said that she couldn’t live up to my expectations.
I think in a way anytime that we approach a person with pre-conceived notions abut who they are (or should be) we’re going to be disappointed.
Even if that person is Jesus, he’s never what we expect. He’s always different. And, in the worlds of Linus Torvalds, “Better is worse if it’s different.”
Josh Tilford // December 12, 2008 at 1:54 pm |
Hey! I just bumped into your blog.. At first I thought this post would annoy me, or was a joke because some people mock Jesus. But as I got into it, I realized you give amazing insight! Thanks for sharing, and this topic was a really interesting, as well as humorous at times (i.e. Zombie Jesus haha)..
aariyan sinha // May 1, 2009 at 12:10 pm |
hi
aariyan sinha // May 1, 2009 at 12:11 pm |
very said story of IESUS