mistaken identity

Since today was warm and sunny, I wanted to spend at least a little time outdoors in deference to this skin condition I have, caused by vitamin D starvation. And so after my sisters left here to go home in the mid-afternoon (I took them to the movies to celebrate their birthdays -- "Avatar" again), I walked east a block and then five blocks north, to a corner where a prosperous church on one side of the street owns and operates a large school on the other side. There are also a couple of house-sized buildings that make up part of this impressive complex, a Catholic institution called Christ the King, subtitled "El Christo Rey," as it apparently serves an Hispanic community of worshipers.

Who is this Jesus Christ, the figure at the center of these peoples' devotions? According to the creed they recite at every meeting of the ritual sacrifice, he is "Jesus Christ, (God the Father's) only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;"

"He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."

That, I think, is what today most critics would call an incoherent narrative, and seems to have come to us from another planet, which, of course, it did. The world of centuries past was not the same planet as the one we live on today. Knowing what we know of this world and it's deeply physical problems, of the various possible fates of both the planet and the human race, the persistence of this idea of a God who sent a son to redeem us by shedding sacrificial blood for the sake of our sins seems bizarre and out of place. It has nothing to do with the circumstances we find ourselves in.

This is not to say there was no such person as Jesus, or rather as Yeshu ben Yusuf, an itinerant rabbi who lived 21 centuries ago. My experience of this person -- and it's not hard to learn who he actually was and what we know of his teaching with a reasonable degree of certainty -- my experience of him is that he made the most rigorous demands on whomever might listen to him of any philosopher I've ever encountered, from any age or or any land.

"Im telling you," he said, "love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even tax collectors love those who love them, do they not?"

Have you ever actually tried loving your enemies, or the people who have done you great harm? Even just trying to do so requires a tremendous act of will, and yields surprising results.

This Yeshu ben Yusuf, here and in other instances as well, was demanding of us that we overcome the base nature of our animal instincts. It's a tall order. And he told the temple authorities, who were always so careful about what they ate and what they ate it it from, "It's not what goes into your mouth that makes you unclean, but what comes out of it." No wonder they didn't like him and wanted to do him harm.

My belief is that Yeshu was a very unusual person, and very far removed from Christ the King.

All Jesus quotes are from Burton Mack, "The Lost Gospel Q," Harper San Francisco, 1993, pps. 73-74.