Thoughts: Who is Jesus?

This question has dogged me for my entire memory. I always struggled with my beliefs and how they fit into common conception of religion. So, here goes (NO SOUND BITE WARNING: this will be long, so please try to get through it all)

Having been baptised a Methodist and raised a Catholic, the divinity of Jesus has been drilled into me almost from birth. Jesus is God and God is Jesus. Whereas this may be true, I found that the struggle I had with this obviously unanswerable question really kept me from understanding the true role of Jesus in history, in faith, and in the way we as people live our lives. People seem to focus on the things they cannot answer so much they overlook the things they actually can do something about.

Was Jesus God's Son? Well, we are all children of God, so I guess that answer is obvious. Jesus prayed to "our Father, who art in heaven", which kind of lumps him in with the rest of us. He was, however, much different from the rest of us. I believe he communicated with God in ways others could not. Like other Prophets, from Noah to Isaiah, from John the Baptist to the Apostles, and yes, possibly, from Muhammad to John Smith, God chose Jesus to carry a message to the world. Why?

We are all God's children, and like our own children, we must be taught in stages. You do not teach infants as you would teach adults, everyone is taught in stages depending on their development and abilities. God has done the same thing. From the beginning of life as we know it, we have been developing and growing. The Old Testament (or the Torah), taught humanity in it's infancy how to behave, and what God expected of us as we lived the gift of life. We were given a set of rules (the Ten Commandments) as well as other lessons from the Prophets that were designed to instruct us on how to live, how to worship, how to love, how to punish, and how to conduct ourselves daily as humans. If you think about it, the rules given to earlier versions of man made perfect sense. You were to honor God, your Creator, and to worship no other. You were not to kill. You were not to covet. You were not to commit adultery. You were not to steal. All of these are well within man's ability to honor and grasp. Yet, like children, we pushed the envelope. We violated "curfew". We worshiped idols. We killed. We stole, and we committed adultery. We did everything we were not supposed to do, and like children, we began to pretend the rules didn't pertain to us. Well, can anyone say "Time Out"?

The one thing God doesn't do is grab us and put us in the time out chair. He does, however, tell us that we will be punished for being bad, and, just like children, we don't believe Him until we finally get the belt across the butt. So, in around the year 6 BC, God sent Jesus to begin a new lesson. The life of Jesus wasn't lived to have us debate whether or not he was God on earth, but rather to give us an example of how to live our lives. Jesus didn't want to change any of the old rules, he just wanted to add a few rules to the set. People of that time period had lost their way, and God, just like any parent would, decided that He needed to set us straight before we really did ourselves harm. The world was full of people, like the Romans, who valued life little, who killed others for sport, and who ruled others with an iron hand and little mercy. Then you had the Jews, who had turned God's house into a money factory, and who had basically put the written letter of the law before the spirit of the law. So, He sent us Jesus, who was to set an example for us all to try to follow. There are many examples of Jesus challenging the interpretation of the law although never trying to change the law itself.

It is interesting to note that Jesus never took up arms against anyone, and he did things that religious leaders of his day thought wrong. He sat with tax collectors (hated during that time),
mingled with the sick, showed unparalleled tolerance and love, and preached only one message; to love God and each other unconditionally. He asked us to forgive our enemies (in contradiction of religious laws of the time). If you read chapters 5 and 6 of Matthew you will learn quite a lot about what Jesus was really all about. These chapters are excellent guides for life and are very relevant today. How many of us would ask forgiveness for those who bore false witness against us? How many would, if we had the power, allow the weak to beat us, spit in our face, torture us, and then kill us? Only someone with a unique perspective, a unique understanding, and a unique love could do all of those things.

In my personal belief system, Jesus was all human with divine providence. He was sent on a mission, not to just die for us, but to set an example for us all to try to adhere to. He explained that God did not expect us to be perfect, but He expect us to try and to be truly sorry for our transgressions (forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our trespassers). The great thing about the Jesus "story" is that you don't have to believe it in order to live it. You don't have to believe in Christ to live like him. You don't have to believe in his divinity in order to believe in his message. Some of the most Christian people I know are not Christian in the slightest, while some of the most non-Christian I can find in church every Sunday. Jesus was, and is, part of God and God part of him, and he lived as we all should, with love, tolerance, and an understanding of what is expected of us.

Peace.