We don’t even want to accept that about ourselves. We’re not supposed to talk about things like this. We don’t want to admit that we are going to suffer greatly, be rejected, and die. We don’t want to talk about the fact that the very best people in the world, the ones who recite all the right answers, wear the right phylactery and do the right deeds where you can see them, might turn out to the be the worst people and commit the worst abuses. We don’t want to consider what will happen when our bodies have turned into putrefying meat and we’ve been underground for three days. These things must not exist. They cannot exist. To speak about them is blasphemy, because it’s hard. We want things to be easy. Go back to giving us answers to recite, and we’ll do it, but we won’t think about that.
To say that these terrible things can happen to Christ is worse.
To say that the Christ, the Son of the Living God, already knows everything that we suffer– that He is completely aware that the best people in the world are the ones who abuse the innocent– is a horror. To say that He is going to suffer all of those things with us, because we are going to suffer them, is beyond consideration. To proclaim that everybody suffers; that everyone is the victim of injustice; that everybody dies; that a mystery called Ressurrection exists but you have to suffer and die to get there– that not even being the Son of the Living God could exempt you from this– that’s beyond consideration. You can’t say that. We can’t bear to know that. We can say “Jesus is the Christ,” but we can’t stand to know what it means to be Christ.
How could we stand to say “Jesus is the Christ,” to follow Christ, to become a Christian who is a little Christ, if we knew what it cost? How could we go on being correct if we understood? We like to be correct because it feels good, but understanding does not feel good.
But Jesus doesn’t want us to be parrots reciting facts. He wants us to be Christians.
He turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
He wants us to think as He does. He wants us to realize that to be a human in this fallen state is to suffer and die– but to be a Christian is to suffer and die with Christ and rise with His resurrection. To be a human is to lose your own life– but to be a Christian is to lose it for the sake of Christ, and in doing so to find it again made new. To be a human is to suffer and watch others suffering– but to be a Christian is to have your own suffering redeemed, to see Christ in others’ suffering, and to imitate Christ in your efforts to heal and ease one another’s suffering. To be human is to be betrayed by the very best people who ever lived, but to be a Christian is to find that Christ is being betrayed with you, taking your part and not your abuser’s. To be a Christian is not to avoid what naturally befalls human beings. To be a Christian is to find that, in living your human life with all its failure and tragedy, you yourself are a little Christ. And Christ rises again on the third day.
Reciting an answer is easy, feels good, and costs nothing. Not everyone who says to Him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Being a Christian is hard.
Knowing what Christ is, we can proclaim “Jesus is the Christ” and do no harm. But there’s nothing more damaging than a person who teaches Jesus is the Christ, without understanding these things that Christ is– or worse, someone who teaches that Jesus is the Christ and then rebukes people who are honest about suffering and abuse.
To say who He is is easy. To be a Christian is another matter.
(image via Pixabay)
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