There
is this amazing set of devotions in Reflections for Ragamuffins that
speaks directly to the way Jesus dealt with anxiety and fear while he
lived here. It feels strangely heretical to think of him as
resisting fear and anxiety. But he was tempted in the desert with
power, security, and sensation. The garden of Gethsemane
demonstrated his resistance to anxiety and fear, and the strong hold
he kept on his identity as Son-Servant-Beloved of his Father in the
face of agonizing temptation.
I
write that off, Lord forgive me. I write that off. He is God. How
can he understand temptation the way a mere mortal does? But the
writer of Hebrews says he is touched with the feeling of our
infirmities.
(Interesting
that it says he is touched with the feeling of our
infirmities and not just that he understands them. He feels them.
He sits inside them with us. He doesn't stand outside and say, “Wow,
that's bad. You should... At least... Band-aid?” He absorbs them,
he lives them with us. He lives with us in our messy, chaotic stuff
that is bigger than some people's stuff and smaller than other
people's stuff. He sits in there with us and GETS it. He's the
ultimate empathizer.)
And
Hebrews says the reason he knows our desert and garden temptations is
because he had his own. He was tempted just as we are, yet without
sin. When I get to this part, I always think, “Okay, yes. But He
was God. That's different.”
Hebrews
says it's not different. I can't fathom it, but somehow he is 100%
human as well as 100% God. He did have temptations. He could have
given in. But he didn't.
(That
is amazing when you think of the enormity of his mission and the
smallness of his physical goods and obscurity of his person. What
poor, obscure, plain person wouldn't have jumped at the chance to
have all worldly power, especially when his mission was to save
humanity from itself and from the powers of evil in the world?
Boromir demonstrated the seduction of this temptation when he
succumbed to it in LoTR.)
It
took gargantuan trust in the Father to stay true to his identity and
not fall into the trap of worldly power, sensation, security. He
identified with God and the topsy-turvy plan they made before the
world began, and stayed with the downtrodden and discouraged-- the
anxious and fearful people. He stayed true to his Self and his
mission here on earth.
He
spoke such gentle words to Martha, who was troubled about many
things. He endorsed Mary's unusual, even counter-cultural choice to
sit at his feet and soak in the supernatural comfort of his spirit
and word-- even if that meant less physical ease for himself and
others in the house. He allowed virtue and energy to go from himself
to others in need. He depleted himself. In his humanity, he took
intervals to refresh himself. He needed those intervals because he
was 100% human.
100%
human and 100% God. Is there a mathematical formula to explain this?
That Jesus is all human, completely all human, suffered as a human
being here on Earth (He suffered on the cross more than any other
human being) and yet is all God, 100% God, fully God.
He
gave up His divinity and took on flesh and blood. He could not have
saved us without that component. I don't know why. Why did it have to
be that way, Lord? Why couldn't You have just demanded Death give up
its hold on us? There is some formula here. You followed some
mysterious equation-- C.S. Lewis called it magic from before the dawn
of time. There is some set of rules that needs be satisfied in order
for us to righteously live with him in complete fellowship, and we
are terrible at obedience. We couldn't do it. Jesus fulfilled it when
he came as a man, lived as a man in the messy, beautiful, chaotic,
ugly, fallen world, resisted so many agonizing temptations-- HE KEPT
THE RULES when we wouldn't and couldn't-- and finally gave his life
in the ultimate sacrifice of Self for those who did not deserve it.
Oh
Lord. Oh Lord. What a Savior. How did he do that? And how can I
dismiss his humanity because of his divinity? The Bible states
clearly that he was tempted in all points just as we are. Somehow he
experienced full humanity, including the anxiety and fear that comes
with not knowing whether things will be okay, although he was at the
same time God and knew the end from the beginning. How in the world
did that work? I don't know. I trust it is true, but if I get an
opportunity to ask him some things in Heaven, I hope I remember to
ask him that question.
