The birth of Jesus, and often his death as well, are called "miracles" and "blessings" and other such by many; it is somehow apparently wonderful and awesome in some humbling and merciful way that this entity known as Jesus Christ would be born and die for us.
I call bull.
I'm going to try and approach this issue from as many angles as I can think of; and if you've got more angles or counter-arguments leave them in the comments below.
Is it miraculous because this God would actually do so much as to gift us his Son (whatever that means); to we who are a (inherently or not) sinful, ignorant, and stubborn people?
What the fuck else was he going to do? There's like an entire book of a deity attempting or offering to bring humans into heaven or into prosperity or into power; he's flooded the world, brought plagues and destruction, spoke to outcasts and prophets and kings and laypeople, shown up as fire and pillars of wind; and yet we, by his variable criterion, continue to sin. Clearly, although he might have other godly things to be doing, he seems to show a persistence with at least increasing the population of heaven or (I dunno, what WAS the fruit of faithfulness in the OT? Some economic prosperity or not getting the flaming end of YHWH's justice?). This is somewhat to be expected, as humans are, in these stories, God's children or most "personal" creation. Sure, he's a crappy parent (kids out of control? Drown them), but he's persistent. I could make the sending of Jesus some act of desperation (comm'on, kid, get more of them humans up here; we've got like 10 and Satan has billions), but that would make God much more human-like.
While that might fit the the god of the OT, the god of pop culture Christianity is oftentimes depicted as a deity of infinite patience and kindness. Lemme repeat those words.
INFINITE patience and kindness. Everybody throws around that term a lot, but do we even know that we're saying? God, in that capacity, does not get desperate, ever. He does not tire. Repeated attempts to keep us on some sort of out-dated moral track does not become an issue of frustration or stress or burden.
Is it miraculous, not that God would do something to "save" us, but that he would do something so drastic and touching and humble? I mean, having yourself born in a stable, spending ~25 years in anonymity, and having yourself killed on a cross in order to defeat death for humankind?
Except that he wasn't really killed; not in the humans conceive of it. Being a demi-deity and "defeating" death, he spent maybe three days incapacitated, though I understand that some sources have him preaching in hell--WTF? Did he even suffer at all? Sure there was the whipping and cross-bearing and nails though the limbs, but what was the time span on all that? They even him took him down from the cross sooner than they normally would have. How does this even compare to the trials of, say, having severe and/or multiple diseases while serving an entire country as president, or being 10 years old having spent 60% of life in a hospital, or being locked in a basement for years with rape being the closest thing to social interaction during that time? Of being chained to a rock for a bird to eat your intestines every morning, as punishment for giving mankind fire? Or being taken from your home, placed in a camp with constant threat of death in experiments or acid showers, nearly starved and worked half-to-death, for years, and all for nothing--because you're Jewish, and if God is the God of Jesus, you don't get to enter the pearly gates, because you've decided or been taught that this Nazarene wasn't the Messiah.
You know what?
The story of Jesus makes much more sense if he's human the whole time; and is not the Son of God, but the Chosen of God. Ironically, the more powerful/omnipresent you make God/Jesus, perhaps with the intent of increasing the miraculous-ness with the gap between us and him, you actually make it less miraculous, because the act becomes less and less of significance or burden to God. Bringing in God only cheapens it.
Is it a miracle because he came so humbly--electing to be born of a virgin in a muddy stable with no others in attendance aside from some shepherds and livestock?
Not amazing for two reasons: One, he's tried quite a number of other tacks by this point; maybe this one would succeed where the others had failed; after all, he'd tried variations on the high and mighty theme--worked for a while, maybe, but not for long. And let's not force human expectations of pride on a divine being.
Two, what if Jesus, with his own brand of theology/philosophy, had been a king or consul or something other than a carpenter prophet? Two answers, depending on what God was intending to accomplish with Jesus, other than/beyond the defeating of death. Either something other than a carpenter prophet would have worked better, thus making God less than he seems, or the carpenter-prophet incarnation was the only way to achieve what he wanted to achieve; thus, it's not a miracle; it's the only option.
(Side-note: following the "only option" tack, it is claimed a miracle that he would die for us, but that presumes some other methods of removing the penalties of sin and death from us--AFAWK, if he cares at least enough to remove that penalty, then sending a portion of himself to die is the only way to do it. Not a miracle, just business. Besides, how is three days of "death" really a hardship on God? Three days, or even the thirty-odd years, isn't even an eyeblink in the life-span of n eternal being)
"God is so powerful; it's so wonderful that he should case about little sinful us"
"But, AFAWK, God only not created us, but has no-one else but us. I'll repeat--what the fuck else would God be doing or caring about? Furthermore, if you accept the idea that God is or can be omnipresent and omnipotent, then it doesn't even matter if he has other things to do or other people/species to care about--he can do them all AT THE SAME TIME.
Actually, why should God care about us? It's often perceived as a miracle or blessing or somesuch that even though we are stubborn and stupid, sinful, denying, hateful, etc..., God is willing to "die" for us. But isn't that only miraculous, in a sense, if God is a force of objective Good (and Law)? We fall short of his (often un-achievable) standards, and he forgives us, and so we are amazed. But who ever said that his standards were the best? Or proper? Or even good?
All these claims of miraculouness depend on God having some human-like traits--it's a miracle if he resisted the temptations of pride and vanity and wrath; if God is YHWH whose name is Jealousy, it'd be a little more miraculous; but even the OT deity has his times of siding with the humble and meek--shepherds and outcasts and such.
But especially with the pop-culture God, whose patience and love and such are infinite (INFINITE), whose very nature does not (as we depict it) include the deadly sins, then it's actually no fucking miracle at all if he resisted the things, because he's literally incapable of doing so.
Actually, and also, things seem to become even more miraculous and meaningful if we remove almost all divinity from Jesus. Think about it. The suffering and death on the cross become stronger if not only Jesus but the disciples and the reader (of the Bible) is uncertain if Jesus will in fact be able to conquer death. It makes more sense with the popular "why have you abandoned me?" line. Even John 3:16 makes more sense: A wiki search on the verse suggests that literal translation would not be "only Son" but "unique son".
If Jesus was fully human, but closest to divine/moral perfection; then chosen/blessed by God, then he would be the unique, not only, son--a human who rose above humanity. And in order to give a chance with the rest of humanity, God would allow this one near-perfect/perfect human to suffer and face Death, instead of allowing an otherwise long life to spread the teachings of goodness. Ooh, and this gets better as I think about it--back to the "why have you abandoned me?"--In order to break the bondage of death and build the bridge over sin to reconnect the divine and the mortal, God couldn't just will it to be so--a human, one perfect enough, had to be willing to die, and had to defeat Death on his own, with only the power of humanity behind him. If even one (fully) human can do this, then shows the potential within humanity as a whole for this liberation, and so the bridge is made.
Standard storybook plot, I know.
Edit: One more miracle. The famous John 3:16.
You'll find a text picture dismissing this "miracle" in my previous post, but I'll go over it here. The verse says that God gave his only (begotten) Son. But God is God. He can, and has, created multiple people and other things in the past. Why is he somehow limited to begetting only one son?
And "give" is a strong term here. It was really more a lending, don't you think? Again, Jesus was really only here for ~30 years, and was only "dead" for a few days; that's not sacrifice of any kind.
Apologies for the gruff language; I've been watching a number of heavy-handed performers and speakers in the last few weeks.
So, I know it's past, but tell me:
What is Christmas all about?
No comments:
Post a Comment