Fully Human
Jesus wept. (John 11:35, NIV translation)
“What is your earliest memory of encountering Scripture?”
It is a question I invited a group of women in a one-day study together to answer. The group was made up of women from several churches. Asking that question in such an environment often creates a rich space for developing new relationships. Usually someone shares a Vacation Bible School story. I usually get one who references John 3:16. Some people share stories of how the Bible was used against them. And usually peppering the conversation are recitations of specific passages, even among Methodists who have a reputation for not knowing their Bible.
And in the midst of that space, one woman said, “Jesus wept.”
What she couldn’t see was the woman two rows behind her who started waving her hands, pointing in a way that signaled affirmation. The front row woman just continued on. “That was the first verse I remember. But what I remember was that I kept thinking they were saying ‘Jesus welped.’ I didn’t know what that meant.”
I clued the front row woman into the back row woman’s experience. The back row woman then piped in, “That was mine! That was mine, too! And I didn’t understand it either.”
Front row added, “I think the reason it is hard to hear right is because it is such a human moment for Jesus. It showed us that he is really human. Had pain. Hurt and lost. But we don’t expect that as kids. So it is hard for us to hear and understand what is being said.”
I don’t think it is just hard for children to hear and understand. I think it is also hard for adults to hear and understand. I say that because the next exercise we did was to interact with the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. In that passage (we were specifically looking at the telling in Mark), Jesus is tired and has escaped into a house to rest. This woman whose daughter is possessed by a demon just makes her way into the house though and asks Jesus to heal her daughter. Mind you, her daughter is not even with her. So Jesus tells her it is not right to give the children’s food to the dogs.
Ouch.
Jesus just cut that woman down. He compared her and her daughter (who were Gentiles) to dogs, which is a derogatory thing to do, especially from a Jewish perspective, as dogs are scavengers and unclean.
Anyway, as we interacted with that passage, the women in the room wanted to brush past Jesus’ impolite and degrading response and go right to the fact that Jesus healed this woman’s daughter (which he does after she retorts back to him and basically calls him to his senses). They want to brush past because the idea that Jesus could be tired and, you know, say something he didn’t really mean, bothers us. But why?
Christianity has long affirmed that Jesus was both fully divine AND fully human. But the fully human side sometimes makes us uncomfortable. We want a “perfect” savior. Well, that’s what we say we want. But do we really want that?
I think I would rather have a savior who understands the full reality of what it means to try to navigate life in this body that gets tired and leaks from time to time, whether it is convenient or not. A savior who sometimes flips out and flips tables. Part of what is compelling to me about following Christ is that he did experience the pain we do. He did get irritated with people. He got hangry (see the fig tree incident in Mark). And he felt abandoned, and said so from the cross.
I want a savior who knows what life in this human body is really like. And honestly, I think that is the messiah we all need and want. So we shouldn’t run from that Jesus. No. We should lean in. And lean on. Because he knows how that feels, and the risk it involves. He knows what it means to draw close to the ones you love and show them who you really are. He knows what that is like, and so he can be trusted with all that we are and all that we could be.
Fully exhausted. Fully hurt. Fully lost. Fully incarnated into a body. Fully, completely, utterly human. That’s our Jesus. That’s our God. Amen.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
