Christmas, so recently celebrated, is when Emmanuel (God with us) becomes not only a spiritual reality, but physical as well. What was believed in faith about the gift of God, the Messiah, became someone: we have seen . . . we have touched . . . we have heard. (1 John 1:1) From that period until the present, sincere believers and variant scholars have sought the historical Jesus. That is they are trying to find out all they can about who Jesus was in his flesh, his thirty three years of earthly sojourn. Theories conflict with each other, with many becoming forays in unsupported assertions. Some have this teacher of marital fidelity and Mary Magdalene entering intimate physical relationship. One theory holds that Jesus, in his twenties, went to the Far East, adapting Buddhist ideas applied openly but without source credits after he returned to Palestine. These theorists believe they must find human sources for his great ideas. They make him into something of a super-informed, righteous Nostradamus. Stories are many, some true and some fanciful inventions, about Jesus, the man. Some reviews are quite irreverent and offensive.
Much of what we hear from biblical teachers and preachers about Jesus focuses on his earthly life, teachings, miracles and general conduct, especially in the way he treated those with whom he spoke. My readings suggest that the majority number of writers relate most easily to the historical Jesus. These may help in informing persons about what is the human meaning of the Christian experience in salvation. From these we are taught, with some limited theology, to behave lovingly with each other each day, and expect much from the course of life.
The emphasis is partly misdirected. A careful reading of both Bible Testaments ending with The Revelation, backgrounds the deity of Jesus, the one who not only inspires right living, but the one who is God, worthy of worship. We are here dealing with the eternal Christ. His temporary subjection to the Father, lasting for a third of a century, is secondary when we consider who Jesus is, was, and will be – before he was birthed in Bethlehem, and who he is since the resurrection. I doubt that believers are gaining all they should gain in their Christian faith. We need to see Jesus, not primarily as the prophet/preacher, even the Divine prophet/preacher, from Nazareth, but the eternal God. Living, he will never again be the man of thirty three years and a thousand days of ministry. He will never again have to sleep, or groom himself for the day, or do what human beings have to do to navigate daily life. He need not open doors, or overhear conversations, or find conveyances to get from one place to the other. He will not grow a beard, or wear sandals. He need not eat. And since he chooses to eat with those he has invited to the feast of the marriage supper of the Lamb, the food will not be for body nourishment. It will not be for sustenance. It will not need digestion. It is some heavenly ambrosia that has other meaning than serving living cells. I hope the divine point is made. We need deeper perceptions of our eternal Lord than are generally communicated, who he is, and the meaning all this has for self, worship, immortality, perfection, joy, meaning and heaven. May God forgive our oversights, amendments and redactions. The historical (earth sojourner) Jesus is not enough of him. Given many of the views of the historical Jesus, I hope he has a sense of humor in the great reunion of the future between God and Christians so to conclude our experience with dignity and forgive the violations of biographers rejecting or skewing what we have in Scripture. Jesus, unable to deny himself, took on flesh in its essence, but never denying his divinity. Lord, forgive. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020