{"id":1033,"date":"2016-03-09T16:36:46","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T22:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2016-03-10T10:12:47","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T16:12:47","slug":"the-young-messiah-waking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/03\/the-young-messiah-waking-up\/","title":{"rendered":"The Young Messiah: Waking Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Young<\/a>
Adam Greaves-Neal as Jesus in The Young Messiah, photo courtesy Focus Features<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When do we become ourselves? When do we realize who we are?<\/p>\n

For most of us, the process of becoming us is a gradual one\u2014one so slow and easy that we don\u2019t even notice it. Oh sure, we\u2019re here<\/em>, in the world, the moment we\u2019re conceived. We have parents and some sort of place in the world the second we\u2019re born. But who are we, really? Do we already love bacon and hate peas even when we\u2019ve tasted neither? Are we already pre-programmed to like jazz music or cheesy sitcoms? We don\u2019t have a clue as to who we are when we\u2019re first born. We just \u2026 are<\/em>. Most of us don\u2019t even remember the first several years of our lives, even though that\u2019s when our lives were at their most formative. And even after that, it takes us a while to grasp the greater narrative beyond our own momentary wants and needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren \u2026 wake up and find themselves here, discover themselves to have been here along,\u201d essayist Annie Dillard writes in An American Childhood<\/em>. \u201cThey know the neighborhood, they can read and write English, they are old hands at the commonplace mysteries, and yet they feel themselves to have just stepped off the boat, just converged with their bodies, just flown down from a trance, to lodge in an eerily familiar life already well underway.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a profound unveiling, this process of waking up. The experience is as universal as anything can be in this life. But I never considered that it might\u2019ve happened to Jesus, too.<\/p>\n

The Young Messiah<\/em>, based on Anne Rice\u2019s novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt<\/em>, changed all that. The film, out this weekend, is a competent, likely controversial suggestion that Jesus, too, might\u2019ve \u201cwoken up,\u201d coming to understand His true nature by degrees.<\/p>\n

A Strange New World
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Adam<\/a>
Adam Greaves-Neal as Jesus in The Young Messiah, photo courtesy Focus Features<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jesus (Adam Greaves-Neal) is 7 years old when the movie opens\u2014several years before the Bible says he wowed a bunch of rabbis with his knowledge. He and his family are still living in Egypt at the moment and, in many respects, Jesus is a pretty average kid. He plays with toys. He tries to get along (not always successfully) with his older step-brother. He even gets bullied.<\/p>\n

But not every 7-year-old has the ability to seemingly kill, then resurrect, the bully.<\/p>\n

Jesus didn\u2019t actually kill the bully, of course. The older child hit his head on a rock, but that didn\u2019t stop some townsfolk from blaming the dreamy kid from Nazareth. And when Jesus tries to make things better by raising the kid from the dead (an ability Jesus only recently discovered and seems nearly as amazed by it as everyone else), he\u2019s accused of being an agent of the devil.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Jesus\u2019 parents, Mary and Joseph, were about ready to leave town anyway. King Herod recently kicked the bucket, which means that it\u2019s safe for them to head back to Nazareth.<\/p>\n

Or so they believe.<\/p>\n

\"Young<\/a>
Sean Bean as Severus in The Young Messiah, photo courtesy Focus Features<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alas, Judea is not out of Herods. As Jesus et al make their way into Palestine, the old King\u2019s son, Herod Archelaus, begins to hear rumors of a remarkable little boy. The new Herod knows that his dad killed pretty much every male toddler in Bethlehem several years ago in an effort to rid the world of a prophesied \u201cking,\u201d and he suspects this rumored child may be one who got away. And so Herod sends a soldier named Severus (Sean Bean) to finish his father\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time we\u2019ve seen a dutiful centurion try to track down Jesus this spring. Risen<\/em> gave us Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), a turn-of-the-millennia inspector tasked with tracking down an adult Jesus\u2019 mysteriously missing body.<\/p>\n

But while Clavius is a world-weary ladder-climber, Severus\u2014who participated in the original Bethlehem slaughter of innocents\u2014is deeply scarred. He does not want to kill yet another child, even as he relentlessly hunts for him. And when they finally meet, it makes for a memorable moment.<\/p>\n

Imaginative Fiction<\/strong>
\nThe Young Messiah<\/em> is a competent, sometimes beautiful movie that will surely be, for some Christians, controversial. This is a purely fictional story that takes place outside the biblical record, and for some Christians, that itself may be a non-starter. Plus, there\u2019s something that just feels weird<\/em> about Jesus not knowing who He truly is. He is, after all, wholly God, and God should know who He is, right?<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re also taught that Jesus was wholly human, too. And to be an omniscient 7-year-old would seem rather odd, too. Even the Bible itself tells us that \u201cJesus grew in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52),\u201d which suggests that He was learning.<\/p>\n

That, in itself, is a remarkable thought for me\u2014someone who\u2019d not given much time to such things: Jesus learning.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Young<\/a>
From The Young Messiah, photo courtesy Focus Features<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Director Cyrus Nowrasteh came at this project with a great deal of reverence springing from his own Christian faith. \u201cI seek to present a realistic fictional portrait of Jesus inspired by Scripture and rooted in history,\u201d he wrote for Fox News<\/a>. \u201cWe imagine one year in the boyhood of Jesus. Most important to us was that we present a child who is consistent with the character of Jesus as revealed in the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowrasteh seems to be aware of the controversy his movie may court and seeks to stave it off. He reminds readers that The Passion of the Christ<\/em>, Mel Gibson\u2019s bloody and much-revered depiction of Jesus\u2019 last mortal hours and crucifixion, wasn\u2019t technically based on the Bible, but a book written by a German nun. The Satan figure in the movie, complete with creepy baby, certainly wasn\u2019t scripturally accurate. And yet it was deeply resonant for many who saw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what artists often do\u2014we fill in the lines and add color and context-and film is a great canvas, trying to imagine moments that we can\u2019t know, yet doing our best to ensure they are consistent with the character and nature of our subjects,\u201d Nowrasteh writes.<\/p>\n

The moments in The Young Messiah<\/em> are moments that, of course, we can\u2019t know. But This movie got me thinking about the nature of Jesus in a way that I\u2019d not thought about before. And whenever you can say that a movie \u201cgot me thinking,\u201d that\u2019s a good thing. Movies, after all, should do more than give us a couple of hours of escape. At their best, they should engage our brain\u2014whether we agree with them or not. They should wake us up.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When do we become ourselves? When do we realize who we are? For most of us, the process of becoming us is a gradual one\u2014one so slow and easy that we don\u2019t even notice it. Oh sure, we\u2019re here, in the world, the moment we\u2019re conceived. We have parents and some sort of place in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":1034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35,52,53,91,51,320],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-christian-movies","tag-christianity","tag-controversy","tag-jesus","tag-literature","tag-young-messiah"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Young Messiah: Waking Up<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When do we become ourselves? When do we realize who we are? 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