Move Over Dr. Who: Jesus Is “Time” Lord?

I was gobsmacked.

And then, I just smiled. Rather smugly, I admit.

Neil deGrasse Tyson had just put forth a fascinating hypothesis, on a Startalk episode dedicated to the science behind time travel. We had learned, from Tyson and guest Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics, that there were, in fact, legitimate scientific ways for man to Dr. Who both back in time and also to other parts of the universe.

Kaku gushed that it was a wonderful time to be a physicist, with discoveries that would allow us to “play God” by bending what had once been inviolable “rules” of physics. But Tyson was somewhat skeptical and even playfully derisive, chiding Kaku for wanting physics to allow us to slip away to other worlds in order to elude the consequences of our own earthly actions.

And then, he put forth that remarkable theory:

“Maybe time travel has already been invented somewhere in the future…and they are sending people back…as those who walk among us and end up transforming our world. Maybe these people who we write stories about, these people who were ahead of their time…these people who did something that no one understood…maybe they are the time travelers in our culture and we don’t even know it.

“And so, if you see someone making discoveries, give ‘em a hug. They’re trying to help us save us from ourselves…”

He offered examples of several possible “time lords,” including Albert Einstein, Picasso, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton—Jimi Hendrix also made the cut. But I added one more.

Jesus.

For those who require “scientific proof” of the divine, Tyson’s theory might indeed be the answer. If these time travelers can appear and disappear at will, stopping by to drop some knowledge before flitting off to some other solar system, then Jesus’ death and resurrection might not be a “fairy tale” ending after all.

Theologians attest that His resurrected body was something other than just human. The sentries at his tomb say Jesus’ “appearance was like lightning” (Matthew 28:3), as described so movingly in this clip from the film Risen:

Could that “flash” and Jesus’ later ascension “in a cloud” have had something to do with Tyson’s theory? Two cosmic “baby bangs” heralding the arrival and departure of one of the most famous time travelers of all?

I’m teasing you, of course. But there’s method to my madness.

The point I really want to make is far less convoluted. Or new. I’m just constantly amazed that if I offered up this theory to my friends, that Jimi Hendrix may have been a time traveler sent to make a quantum leap forward in musical history, they would not only accept it but perhaps whole heartedly and even eagerly embrace it.

The far more astounding life, ministry, miracles and resurrection of Jesus? Not so much. Unless I offered up that physics lesson as possible proof.

My years on the Hopi reservation, of which I’ve written a great deal recently, have taught me never to stop hoping science will catch up with “mythology” at some point. Hopi oral history and religion flew in the face of scientific “knowledge” for decades, by insisting that the Hopi people had arrived in the Americas from islands in the Pacific, not over the Bering Strait.

I first heard this Native American version of the migration story from a remarkable friend, the late Harvard-educated author, linguist and Hopi tribal historian Milo Kalectaca, who insisted that someday the truths behind the “myths” would be discovered.

And they were. We now have archeological and also DNA evidence that ancient bands of intrepid Asian explorers traveled to the Americas not having moved South along the coasts of East Asia, by boat to the islands off that coast and then, finally, to South and Central America, dispersing in all directions from there as Hopi “myths” have long attested. A discovery that rendered millions of text, history, archeology and anthropology books obsolete.

I do not truly expect science to eventually “explain” Jesus to the skeptics. I prefer Jesus not to become or even be likened to the “time lords” of popular culture.

But I do have to smile when the science espoused by the Tysons of the world comes tantalizingly close to a kind of theology. And I continue to wonder why many would easily accept Einstein as time traveling messenger from a world of the future but not the possibility that the Man from Nazareth might have bent the scientific “laws” as well.

Tis a puzzlement, as Yul Brynner’s King of Siam once said. But thank you Neil, for the chuckles. And the food for thought.

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