THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Chapter Thirteen of One of Us is God...
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10, NIV
The incarnation of the Son of Man represents, then, the most important development in God’s long-term plan to bring human and divine life into union, but it is also something more. There is an important aspect of humanity for Jesus that goes beyond the simple question of his nature or identity: he embraces a fully human existence as a calling to a life of compassion. We use the term ‘humanity’ as an anthropological label for our species, but it can also denote character – ‘the qualities of human beings, especially in being kind or merciful.’ The Son of Man has not come simply to say ‘I am human’ – he has come to demonstrate and deliver the milk of human kindness.
If I were to ask you how we know what we know about the teaching and beliefs of Jesus, how would you answer? You’d say, ‘From the gospels’ no doubt, but what if we were to press a little deeper? There are episodes that fit the profile of what we would naturally call teaching or preaching – occasions on which Jesus addresses a crowd, or takes time to instruct his disciples. The Sermon on the Mount is perhaps the outstanding example. Then there are the parables: puzzling, entertaining stories, often with a kick in the tail. Here’s what’s interesting, though – a surprising proportion of our knowledge of the message of Jesus does not arise from teaching or preaching at all. It comes, instead, from face-to-face meetings with his fellow humans.
Jesus taught us his ways by adopting an open, compassionate, curious and committed approach to a colourful parade of human beings. The gospels give us the details of one-on-one conversations or exchanges with at least 46 different individuals. Rich and poor, men and women, highly educated and less so: Jesus never met a human being in whom he didn’t find something he could connect with – something worthy of attention and conversation. You would think each one, in that moment, is the only person in his whole world. When Jesus interacted with people – talking with Nicodemus late into the night; saving an allegedly adulterous woman from public humiliation and possible death; taking time out to speak with a woman who simply touched him in a crowd – they felt the presence of love. They were accepted and affirmed. There is nowhere you will see the humanity of Jesus more strikingly displayed than in these intimate, one-on-one conversations.
One episode that reveals the depth of Jesus’ humanity is an encounter in Jericho, with a tree-climbing tax collector. Who doesn’t love the story of Zacchaeus? A short, rich, unpopular figure, possibly the most hated man in town, Zacchaeus climbs a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus. We can assume he was expensively dressed, a touch pompous, maybe just a little overweight as only the rich, in Jesus’ day, could afford to be. Yet here he is, perched on a branch, throwing dignity to the winds because… well, because like the Greeks we met earlier, he wants to see Jesus.
In the event Jesus sees him first, looking up into the leaves and surprising everyone with his words:
When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. ‘Zacchaeus!’ he said. ‘Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.’ Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. ‘He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,’ they grumbled. Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!’ Jesus responded, ‘Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost’ (Luke 19:5-10, NLT).
It seems likely here that the crowd was expecting a different outcome. They saw that Jesus had spotted Zacchaeus. They watched him approach the tree. Maybe a little schadenfreude rose up in them – the rabbi is going to give the filthy tax collector some kind of telling-off. About time, he’s been ripping us off for years. Instead Jesus, with a knowing smile, invites himself to dinner. We’re not told what they talk about over lunch, and it’s not made clear in the passage how Jesus challenges Zacchaeus. Could it be that his mere presence, his overwhelming kindness in reaching out to the hated tax collector, was enough to trigger this change of life?
Zacchaeus is not ‘poor’ in the strictly social sense. Like Nicodemus, he is wealthy and has social power. Yet Jesus, gently and artfully, finds the poverty within the soul of each one, knowing that though rich, they are in truth ‘poor, blind, and naked’ (Rev. 3:17, ESV). The humble Jesus does not only minister to the poverty of society – he finds and heals the poverty in me. In the event, Jesus is thrilled. This is what salvation looks like. It’s not the religious getting more religion; it’s not the righteous gaining some new reward for their righteousness: it is broken people turning to the source of all healing.
Everyone is astounded by the outcome of this dinner party, including Zacchaeus. The only one who’s not surprised is Jesus. This is just the kind of encounter he’s here for. In a similar scene, this time at a crowded dinner party at the home of Matthew – also a tax collector – Jesus says to the Pharisees who are muttering behind his back, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Matt. 9:12-13, NIV).
These two declarations – in Luke ‘The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost’ (Luke 19:5-10, NLT) and in Matthew ‘I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Matt. 9:13, NIV) – are about as clear a statement of intent as Jesus ever gives. Can you envisage your church adopting the marketing strap-line, ‘We’re not here for the healthy’? The Pharisees were not angry with Jesus for calling sinners to repent, nor for challenging them to think differently. They were angry with him for eating with them. He was ‘the bosom- friend of the tax collector and the sinner’ (Matt. 11:19, J.B. Phillips). It was the friendship Jesus showed to unworthy people that the Pharisees so hated, the unguarded affection with which he met the poor and those the religious leaders tended to despise.
The success of the streaming series The Chosen may well be a measure of the hunger in our day for such a Jesus. Jonathan Roumie’s portrayal is so earthy, so deeply one of us in its kindness and its humour. If your neighbours knew that this Jesus – human, approachable, often funny, always kind – has been enthroned as the King of the universe, might they have more courage in seeking to know God? Brad Jersak asks,
‘When did Jesus ever turn away from sinful humanity and say, “I am too holy and perfect to look on your sin?” Did Jesus ever do anything like that? No. The Pharisees did that. They were too holy and turned away. God is like Jesus, not like a Pharisee.
To commit to playing our part in the continuing earthly ministry of the Son of Man is to agree to walk in friendship with human beings whose lives do not yet display the fruits of his grace and righteousness. We have no choice because these are the only human beings available to us. The assumption so many of us make – that the Church is for the righteous, not the broken – is probably about as far away from the ministry of Jesus as we can get. The lines of demarcation we draw are always false, always arbitrary, and mostly based on our own fears and failings. Rare is a church that bars entry to those whose sins match up with those of the existing members – at least with the sins that aren’t locked away in secrecy. At the banquet Jesus is hosting, the only ID you have to show to gain entry is the evidence that you are human. This is a hard perspective to put into practice in the building of a faith community because rules and boundaries are so attractive to us. It takes intentionality and effort to resist their deadening allure.
The key to this act of resistance is a deeper contemplation of the humanity of Jesus. As we take his demeanour as our mould and model, we are empowered to respond to others as he did: to find some point of connection with every fellow human we encounter, from the richest and most powerful to the poorest and most vulnerable, including the most guilty and ashamed. Mother Theresa famously said that ‘The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.’ Our capacity to use our faith and creeds as a basis on which to divide demonstrates, perhaps, how poorly we have understood the message of the Son of Man.
This, then, is a pillar of the incarnation that is crying out to be recovered in our churches: the pressing need to enable people, in their humanity, to encounter the humanity of Jesus. Too many have fallen victim to a God of wrath and condemnation, the distant and dysfunctional stepfather who cares nothing for my wellbeing and won’t even look me in the eye until I clean up my act. As if it is our job to bridge the chasm between the human and the divine; to mend the breach in the relationship. We make ourselves falsely responsible for dealing with a rift Jesus has already dealt with, and we expect the same of others, but the message of the Son of Man is not ‘God will receive us if we go to him,’ it is ‘God has come to us.’ The breach is healed. The gap is closed.
To name Jesus as the Son of Man is to make two bold statements: that Jesus of Nazareth, a figure in our history, was fully and completely human – he was wholly and categorically one of us – and that the Jesus we now worship as the risen, exalted Son of God, remains fully and completely human. He is still one of us, enthroned in the heavens. This is the Son of Man who longs to meet us as we are, in the broken reality of our failed humanity. This Jesus says to each of us – up a tree; in a mess; on our knees – ‘I must be a guest in your home today’ (Luke 19:5, NLT).
In embracing our nature, the Son of Man has once and for all established the value of a life. To be human is to bear an identity that the eternal Son of God was not ashamed to inhabit. He hasn’t become incarnate as a temporary necessity, as if taking on a body was the only way to get to the cross. He has embraced humanity, fully and freely, and his embrace takes in the whole species. Jesus has entered into humanity for the sake of all humanity: not for a part or branch of the family; not to bless one or another racial group. The incarnation calls into being a new human family, with former distinctions of race, gender and status over-written by our sibling status in Christ (Gal. 3:28).
Nor is there is anything begrudging about Jesus’ decision to take on flesh. His whole coming is a celebration of humanity – an, enthusiastic, passionate confirmation of the Creator’s love for his creatures. He has embraced our human condition, in all its brokenness, rebellion and folly. Our value is now measured according to that of the risen Jesus. The worst we are or have been does not take us beyond the scope of his redemptive achievement. He has already come to ‘the far country.’ He has already plumbed the depths of our rebellion and brokenness. There is no pigsty we can hide in where he cannot come; no folly we could know that he doesn’t know already.
What’s more, Jesus has carried this humanity into the relational circle of the Trinity. No aspect of our experience is now alien to God. We are known, loved and accepted, and our Father understands our condition from the inside. This is the ongoing reality that theologians refer to as ‘the vicarious humanity of Christ.’ Ascended as the fully human Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man continues to intercede for us, representing us before the Father just as he represents the Father to us. Nothing you think or do is foreign to your Maker, and your humanity – your down-to-earth, flesh-and-blood, here-and-now life – has been redeemed.
Incredible as these affirmations are, they are not all there is to say about the Son of Man. In his use of this title, Jesus says, ‘I am human,’ and declares to us, ‘I am humble.’ He embraces the human condition in all its humility and weakness – but there is more. The New Testament witness insists that Jesus has not simply come to meet us at the level of our human nature – he has come to indwell that nature. He has become one of us to represent all of us so that each of us can be reconciled to his Father. Jesus hasn’t just come to us: in a real sense he has come as us, to change forever our relationship with our Creator.