There’s someone we know who keeps having to deal with rather nasty people. I know this is a bold description, but from their behaviour they don’t seem to be terribly kind, thoughtful, generous, or other-centred. The nastiness involves things like bosses clearly exploiting their employees, rude clients, and ‘friends’ scavenging off and even stealing from mates. It makes me so frustrated to hear about it. Why? Obviously because it’s downright awful and we hate seeing our friend go through it, but also because our friend isn’t a Christian. He doesn’t get to experience the blessing of relating with people (other than family members) who consistently seek to do him good and not evil.
So in my upset-ness for him last night as I was pondering the situation again, I wished he could meet some great Christian men. I so much want for him to meet some genuine Christian guys – faithful, solid, loyal, true in word and character, generous, loving, sacrificial.
And then it hit me (silly me) – all this describes Jesus.
It’s so much easier for us mere mortals to look for exemplary behaviour in other mere mortals. It might be our lack of familiarity with the four gospels, it might be that we emphasise Jesus’ transcendence to the detriment of his imminence, or his divinity to the detriment of his humanity. It might be that I’m female so I’m not practised at looking to Jesus for an example of what (hu)manhood should look like. Whatever it is, I’m slow to see Jesus as the perfect man, the perfect human. It’s like (I suppose – haven’t seen it!) watching Avatar without the 3D glasses – we know Jesus was incarnated so he could die and rise for our sins, but we don’t fully appreciate or savour the added dimension of his earthy human-ness – in all its raw, full perfection.
So I still hope and pray that our friend meets some great Christian guys, but now I realise I’ve got to attach that description more solidly to the man Jesus. I hope those Christian guys are ‘great’ because they know and copy Jesus really well, and I hope that makes our friend want to get to know Jesus himself – so he can see what an incredible man Jesus was – and come to know that life can be lived better – not least because of his exemplary humanity.
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