Go much for religious humor? – Theological jokes can be interesting in the way they play with cherished presuppositions or treat lightly otherwise serious matters of religious doctrine. Some are good for a laugh. Some aren’t “funny,” per se, but make you think. Perhaps those are the best kind?
Let’s take a look at this little gem, a crisp one-liner:
“Every time I find myself thinking I should try to live more Christ-like, I think: Jesus! look what they did to Him!”
Of course, if one has to explain a joke, one risks losing the humor. But this one isn’t just a joke. It is designed to provoke thought and, with luck, some constructive conversation. So it is worth taking time to unpack it.
The life of Jesus Christ is, for obvious reasons, held up as an absolute model – of virtue, of righteousness, of strength, and of integrity. He is, was and shall abide in perfection. Christians around the world are urged to model their lives on this example of perfection. That is, to not only believe this man was the Christ but to live – as far as possible – as He would live in the world today.
As a consequence, thoughtful Christians find themselves grappling with this challenge again and again. No one thinks it is easy. Nor, at the same time, does anyone argue whether or not it is desirable. It is a given: Christ was impeccable and we should strive to live like Him!
Back to the joke…
So let’s get back to the joke. I find myself thinking that I should try to live more Christ-like. THEN I pause to consider His fate. – Hold on. Hold everything just a few moments!
It is a matter of doctrine that Christ “died for our sins.” Sure, there may be permutations of this but you can’t be a confirmed Christian without (at least in principle) believing the following. That Christ’s being arrested, suffering under Pontius Pilate, His being brutalized by the authorities, then publicly executed, like a common criminal, was God’s precise plan for Him. He did not suffer so because He was a criminal. He wasn’t brutalized because He had it coming, legally or morally. He was perfect after all, we’ve established that. These things happened to Him because we are criminals and have it coming to us, either legally or morally. He was sacrificed on our behalf. Because of this, we need not sacrifice ourselves in such a way.
That would suggest that we could strive to live more Christ-like without fear of suffering a similar fate.
But extreme adversity was no mere punchline in the life of Christ. It was the common thread throughout. Consider this. His parent’s had to flee for their lives – following His birth – because a timorous politician would rather slaughter every boy child within reach than risk the maturation of a rival king. Later, members of the community Jesus grew up in rejected His teaching and conspired to murder Him when He began speaking His truth. Religious authorities, though at times they wooed Him, took every opportunity they could to undermine His growing notoriety. They did so by questioning His adherence to Torah Law and attempting to trap Him in convoluted theological arguments.
Still further – and this is easy to forget – to the contemporaries of Jesus, it was by no means obvious that He was the paragon of virtue that we take for granted. In His time it was John the Baptist that people considered to be impeccable. But that mattered not at all. To their detractors, and those were the majority in their social milieu, John was denounced as a devil and Jesus was dismissed as a glutton and friend to undesirables like tax collectors and prostitutes.
Both men were a significant threat to the status quo. And that was unacceptable!
A Different Narrative
But this is not our narrative. The people that knew Jesus as a child and young man, who assumed he would become a carpenter like His father, they are not us. We would, of course, recognize the Christ among us and not aim to toss Him over a cliff for His supposed blasphemy. We would not speak ill of Him when we saw Him reveling late into the nights, in the company of harlots. If we saw Jesus expel a demon from a man, we would not conclude that He must himself be a demon and therefore should be killed. If it was our kiosk He overturned at the synagogue market, we would immediately acknowledge the error of our ways and not petition for His arrest.
We would not feel threatened by the perfect man. The Son of Man would find a place to rest His head in our world. – Or would He? Are we in fact so different from Christ’s contemporaries? Can we explain away all the evidence that living by Christ’s example is radical, and dangerous as hell?
“Every time I find myself thinking I should try to live more Christ-like, I think: Jesus! look what they did to Him!”
That is funny! Not funny, “Ha, ha!” – but… pretty darn funny.
What do you think? Let us know!
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