Sunday, April 1

Jesus was fully human too

When it comes to Jesus it can be very difficult (impossible?) to understand the dichotomy of fully God and fully man. This often leaves me imagining him as God trapped inside a human body. However, this isn't right. To be fully human he would have had to have limitations. Could it be that he even had limitations on his understanding? Ok, I can't find this verse right now so please correct me if I am mistaken but I believe the Bible says that we cannot see God because it would be so awesome and overwhelming that we would die right then and there. Our understanding of God is so limited by what can be processed and fathomed by our finite brains. Would Christ have fully understand God? Would he have really known the glory of heaven that he was to ascend back to and sit at the right hand of God or did he know only as much as God was able to reveal to him with his human brain? Don't get me wrong, I think he had a better understand than I do, or any of us really will but still, was it limited?

He must have had to trust God. Actually trust him that this was the best decision, that glory was waiting beyond death, that his death would bring salvation to the world. How does this relate to John 11, the death of Lazarus? Well, I did say loosely but we were discussing it in a Bible discussion group and came across the verse "Jesus wept" (John 11:35). the question, of course, is why? The easy and obvious answer is that he was sad that his friend died, duh. Granted. But my first reaction to that was still: isn't that weird? Why would he cry moments before seeing his friend's tomb if he knew that his friend would be raised from the dead in just a few minutes? He should be anxious to get it done and rejoicing if anything. But, instead, he weeps.

From a human perspective this makes sense. A human body and mind are bound by time. Even though Christ knew that Lazarus could be raised (and that it would happen) he still had to trust this (if you look he gives the glory to God and thanks God for doing what he asked, Christ could still only do it through the power of his father being limited by the human form) and at that moment his friend was dead. I have a feeling this is does not make a boatload of sense the way that it is written but the main point is that Christ was human. The fully human part is just as important as the fully God part. There was likely a time in his life that God was revealing his plan to him, times when he was afraid, times when he didn't really know what his future held but just that God had a plan of redemption and that he was part of it. It is hard for me to wrap my teeny brain around this. Challenge me if something seems blasphemous but this is hefty stuff (for me at least~!)

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