I started a new feature on this weblog a few weeks ago called “Good Question!” I’ll post a question I’ve been asked, and my stab at an answer. Agree or disagree at the Facebook fan page for Get Anchored, and drop me a line with your own questions.
I’m glad to get another one from Amy, whose in-depth examination of the Gospel of Luke in Community Bible Study has provoked a lot of great thinking. She writes:
Jesus prayed often privately and in front of his disciples/followers as well. Did He do this out of necessity because He, as wholly man, needed to commune with and worship God the Father in that manner? Since He is God Himself, was prayer an actual necessity for Him? Or is it possible that He prayed so often both privately and publicly because it was an active example to the disciples of how their relationship with God the Father - and in the future, with Christ Himself - would need to be nurtured: daily in quiet prayer, scripture reading and contemplation on their own and also on a regular basis with other followers of Christ?
In short: Was his prayer for his need or for our example? In short: Yes.
In fact, his prayers could not have been for our example had they not truly been for his need.
Joan Osborne sang, “What if God was one of us?” The earliest Christians were captivated by the truth that God was one of us. If we’re faithful to the Spirit-inspired Scriptures they left behind, we’ll conclude with the biblical writers that Jesus is everything it means to be divine and everything it means to be human at the same time.
I’ve found, though, that we have a harder time appreciating his humanity than we do understanding his divinity. We look at his purity, his faithfulness, his perfect response to every situation—and then we say, “Well, of course he behaved that way. He was God Incarnate, after all.” I submit to you that the way he lived was not because he was superhuman, but rather fully human. He is the picture of everything God intended women and men to be. We’re the ones who fall short of what it means to be human.
I wrote about this in my book, The Anchor Course: Exploring Christianity Together. An excerpt:
Jesus was human physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Physically: Jesus said to his enemies, “Now you seek to kill be, a man who has told you the truth” (John 8:40). Simon Peter referred to him as “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs” (Acts 2:22). Paul used the phrase, “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). He grew up like any boy of his day, learning his lessons and developing through puberty and adolescence into manhood (Luke 2:52). Until he began his teaching ministry at the age of 30, he worked in the carpenter’s trade of his adoptive father, Joseph. No doubt, when he hit his thumb with a hammer, it would throb and a black bruise would rise. His feet blistered when he walked, he sneezed at pollen, and his stomach grumbled at dinnertime. When he was beaten and tortured, he suffered and died like any other human would under the same circumstances.
Emotionally: The Bible says Jesus lived “enjoying life,” his enemies accused him of going to too many parties, and he enjoyed the pleasant surprise of being “amazed” at times (Matthew 11:19 Ph; Luke 7:9 NLT). In addition to the more pleasant aspects of human experience, though, he also knew the gloomier side of earthly life. In the Bible we read about moments when he was bitterly disappointed with people (Mark 3:5), “irate” at his own followers (Mark 10:14 Msg), and “filled with anguish and deep distress” at the thought of suffering an agonizing death (Matthew 26:37 NLT). He knew loneliness: The night before he was crucified, he urged his closest followers to remain awake and stay with him (Mark 14:32-42). The next day he moaned from utter loneliness on the cross, asking, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) As Isaiah predicted, hundreds of years earlier, Jesus would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3 NASB).
Spiritually: More remarkable than his connection with our physical and emotional experiences, he identified with our spiritual experiences. He sought strength and wisdom from his Father in his times of prayer, moments that sometimes lasted long into the night. Scripture also lets us know that he experienced temptation to rebel against his Father, just as we do. The Bible repeats over and over that Christ “committed no sin” (for example, 1 Peter 2:22), but it equally emphasizes the man’s struggle to stay aligned with God’s will (for example, Matthew 4:1-11). Amazingly, the Bible says he was “at all points tempted, yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Imagine someone experiencing “all points” of human temptation. We have a hard time imagining someone who successfully resists all temptation as being really human, but doesn’t that tell us more about our spiritual failure than about Christ’s spiritual success?
Not to say that the humanity of Jesus wraps up all we confess about the Lord Jesus Christ. He is everything it means to be God as well as everything it means to be human. (I have a chapter on that in my book as well.) Still, I think Amy’s question comes from our understandable struggle to appreciate that Jesus answered Joan Osborne’s question: God was one of us.
But why should that matter? I find three reasons to appreciate Jesus’ humanity: Jesus has become our example, our encourager, and our perfect expiation.
Example: Simon Peter said, “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Again, from The Anchor Course:
The way Jesus handled mistreatment is the way we ought to act when we’re mistreated. The patience and refusal to retaliate, the forgiveness, the trust in Father God—all that Jesus did when he suffered is how we ought to act….He was compassionate and attentive to others, especially to those whom others overlooked. His relationships with others were not complicated with jealousy, insecurity, and sexual tensions. Through prayer, he expressed his need of the Father’s help and wisdom. He loved people but did not let their opinions of him determine his course of action, and this was his attitude toward his own earthly family as well. Life’s experiences left him troubled at times but never hopeless, and he maintained clarity in his life’s mission. These are just a few of the ways that Jesus lived a life worth imitating.
When we fail, our typical excuse is, “Hey, I’m only human.” We seem to equate weakness, inconsistency, and lack of self-control with what it means to be human. Since Jesus is everything it means to be human, it should force us to reconsider that line of thought. In response to moral failure we should not say, “I’m only human,” but rather, “I’m less than human, I’m not everything a human should be, because I’m not everything Jesus was.” Though he was divine, his perfection wasn’t so much a sign of his divinity as it was a sign of his completely obedient humanity. The way he lived does not make him superhuman, but rather fully human. He is the picture of everything God intended women and men to be. We’re the ones who fall short of what it means to be human. Our humanity has been corrupted by our rebellion, and our aim should be to follow the example of Jesus in order to get back to being the men and women God intended us to be. That is what it means to be a “disciple” of Jesus: it means to be an imitator of him.
Encourager: The fact that Jesus is our example could be intimidating if he was not also our encourager. One more time from my book:
The Bible says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). Sometimes we want to pray, “Lord, I’m tempted” or “Jesus, I’m struggling down here,” or “Lord, life just hasn’t been fair to me recently.” It’s good to know that we can bring those things to a Lord who can say, “I know what you mean. Follow my example and hang in there.”
Expiation: Scripture teaches that Jesus died “for our sins.” On the cross he was an innocent sufferer, not only in terms of an earthly court but in terms of a heavenly court. In other words, when Pilate said, “I find no basis for a charge against this man,” there was more to that sentence than at first meets the eye. But “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Now, how does all this apply to Amy’s question about why Jesus prayed? Well, Jesus wasn’t praying merely to artfully model for us something that we need but he didn’t need. In fact, the reality is much, much better than that! His praying is a perfect model for us precisely because it was so necessary for him! So, track the subject of prayer through the threefold “example-encourager-expiation” matrix I explained above:
As our example of perfect humanity, he shows us how to pray, why to pray, when to pray, and for what to pray. As our encourager, he comes alongside us in our efforts to pray. And, as our expiation, he takes away the sin of our faithless failure to pray, and he gives us access to the Father when we become mindful of our need to pray.
How we desperately need more reflection on Christ’s humanity as well as his deity! And Amy’s question has given us the chance to do that.
Lo, the conflict of the ages
Is upon us today,
And the forces of rebellion
Are in total array.
The humanity of Jesus
Now the saints must possess,
His true image and dominion
On the earth to express.
Chorus: Let us stand up in Jesus
In His full human life,
Human virtues prevailing
'Gainst corruption so rife;
In this wickedness concerted,
In this age perverse, perverted,
The humanity of Jesus
Must the church now display.
Lo, how Satan came to damage
Human life on the earth;
But the Lord in all this ruin
Raised a man full of worth!
From the seed of the woman
God incarnate became
The man Jesus—the last Adam—
To destroy Satan's aim!It's by calling, drinking, eating
The man Jesus today,
His humanity enjoying
Bruises Satan each day.
To the Lord we must be turning,
All our soul life deny,
To destroy all Satan's working
And the new man supply.See the ruin of a nation
Going downward in sin;
All humanity is fallen
And corrupted within.
But as children of the kingdom
We are salting the earth;
His humanity preserves us
In the midst of such dearth.
Thanks for the question, Amy! Everyone: Agree or disagree at the Facebook fan page for Get Anchored, and submit your own question. It can be a question on Bible interpretation, theology, church practice—anything!
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