A PIZZAONIAN PERSPECTIVE
Part one:
Any reflection of Christianity can only start at one place – the man called Jesus. So let me begin.
Who is this man called Jesus? There is the Jesus of the Bible. There is the Jesus of the Church. And somewhere in all of this there is Jesus, the man.
Today it seems whatever is written about Jesus gets attention, particularly if it is critical or controversial. He remains one of the most well-known, famous individuals in all of human history.
The Jesus that has always attracted us here in Pizzaonia is Jesus the man. We are told that he was both “true God, and true man.” If so, the human being, this “true man,” who walked the earth more than 2000 years ago remains the most human among us, then and now.
There have been countless books written on the historical Jesus. Each one leaves us unsatisfied. For one, they are all speculations as to how the writer chooses to interpret the historical references to Jesus’s physical life. Clearly, the more we attempt to describe and label him the more elusive he becomes.
Sometimes we miss the obvious. I would like to leave all the vague, interpretive, explanations of Jesus out of the equation for now and focus on the words “true man.” This suggests that he was not only completely human, but uniquely so.
Many who cannot accept Jesus as Savior or the Messiah have found in the events of his earthly life true respect for him as a man. I would like to think that for Jesus, each moment of his life was an awakening. From his boyhood on as he began to sense that he was special, feelings of both joy and confusion may well have been part of his experience. Just consider how you would feel if the same spiritual revelations came to you.
What was the boy Jesus like? We know nothing of his childhood until he shows up for the first time in Luke’s account of his visit to the temple. Here we get a glimpse of what he was beginning to realize about what he was being asked to be. He becomes so absorbed with what was happening, he forgets to tell his parents where he was.
So many accounts of Jesus suggest he knew from the beginning who he was and what his life was meant to fulfill. However, what if the opposite were true - what if he was often confused, especially in the beginning about the strange calling he felt compelled to follow. For me this would be the fully human Jesus – a Jesus like us having to work out what his Father was calling him to be.
This becomes the flesh and blood, the human Jesus, and the longer you see him from this perspective the more you can appreciate what he accomplished. To add to his humanity, consider that he also had an actual choice. What if after fully realizing what he was being asked to do he had said, “are you kidding, you want me to do what.”
When we start emotionally feeling what he felt as the strange odyssey of his life began unfolding before him, we start appreciating fully the impact of his humanity – and we begin to know the man, Jesus
Continued:
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