Pharisee

Oh, Jesus.

His name shouldn’t make people roll their eyes.

I wonder how he’d respond if he saw people rolling their eyes when asked if they know Him.

I wonder how he’d handle celebrity. Because everyone would know him. I wonder if we’d treat him like we treat other celebrities. He was a celebrity in his day. Crowds came, everyone knew him, and everyone wanted to see him. I wonder if people ever came to check him out and got bored and dismissed him as a nut. I’m sure some people did. I’m sure some people checked him out and thought he was a dangerous nut. They’re the ones who put him to death.

I wonder what kind of people would flock to him today and think he was a dangerous nut.

Sometimes I wonder how a lot of Christians would react if they heard what Jesus was teaching, if maybe the way they see him might somehow have strayed so far off course that if they actually sat down and listened to him that they might then be the ones that thought of him as a dangerous nut. Maybe there are Christians who would crucify him again.

Is that wrong of me to think that?

But, maybe he was such a caring, compassionate, loving being that you couldn’t help but like him and maybe you’d never think he was a nut. Unless of course, you were absolutely convinced you were right and he spoke something that disagreed with how right you were, then he’d be dangerous. That’s what the Pharisees did. They killed him.

Who would be a Pharisee today?

I wonder if I’d hear him speak and he might say something that is contrary to what I’d learned growing up in my house, in my school, in my church, and my pride would be insulted and I wouldn’t be able to like him anymore. Or maybe I just wouldn’t like how right he was, and how smart he was, and I’d get jealous because he’s smarter and righter than me. Maybe I would have talked to him once and he would have put me in my place, and I’d get mad. Maybe he’d be shorter than me, and kind of ugly, and I’d mutter things under my breath at him. And maybe one day while walking through town, I’d see him getting whipped and I’d join in the mockers and maybe throw a stone or two.

Maybe it’s not so hard to believe that they put him to death.

And the worst part about all of this is that he went willingly, and though my shriveled, sinful little heart enjoyed sending him to his grave then, he went because he loved me. Though I would have been there, jeering him, mocking him on the cross, cussing, power-tripping, laughing, he would still have hung there alone, in excruciating agony, with inconceivable compassion and unreasonable love, as the pain slowly ushered in his final breaths and at last he slumped his head a final time as thunder struck.

He would have died for me.

He died for me.

Becoming a man.

I work with a real man. His name is John, and he knows Kung Fu. He also knows a ton of stuff about the middle ages and has a suit of armor. He knows how to joust.

Sometimes John will come to work with injuries, and I’ll ask him about them. They’re never much more serious than a black eye or a finger splint. Whenever he says they’re from Kung Fu, I get jealous. Because if you get hurt doing Kung Fu, you’re not really getting hurt - You’re becoming more of a man. It’s like the wrestling team’s cheesy t-shirt said when I was in high school – “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” That’s true if you’re doing Kung Fu, or jousting somebody or beating up a would-be assailant or if some exotic beast bites you. But it’s not true if you slam your finger in a car door or cut yourself shaving. It’s not “weakness leaving the body” if you fall down some stairs because you’re an idiot.

I would like just once to get a nice, manly injury. Because, as yet, I haven’t really gotten any good scars or breaks. I cut my thumb open doing the dishes a long time ago. I got a cast once when I strained the tendons in my hand when I was trying something stupid on a sled. I would love to have a black eye and say, “Oh, it’s from Kung Fu,” because people would be impressed. I would be more of a man if it was from Kung Fu.

I have only gotten one concussion, and that was this past weekend. I was playing football. (I include that detail only because if you choose to tune out here, you’ll at least think I would have gotten a concussion playing football, and that wouldn’t be so bad.) We were running routes and throwing passes and stuff and I got wheezy, so I went to use my inhaler. I inhaled, started to count, and I blacked out. I woke up a few minutes later, lying on the ground and dreaming whatever it is the brain dreams when it ricochets off your skull when you hit your head on the ground. I spent the rest of the night staring at the wall and vomiting. (And thanks to John Youngs for waking me up every two hours.)

I didn’t mind getting a concussion, actually. It sucked for a few hours; especially when I vomited and it came out of my nose. Also, I probably have a wicked bruise beneath my hair, and it’s going to last a while. But I realized that when you have a concussion, everyone waits on you and no one expects anything from you. You have full reign to zone out, misunderstand, and disrespect.

You can bet that if John got a concussion, it would be from fending off a wild bear that came after his woman or something. And I bet that even after his concussion, he would have kung-fu’d the bear into a state of complete submission, and he would have taken it home as his pet.

Asthma-boy concussion isn’t nearly as good as bear-wrasslin’ man concussion.

Someday, I hope to collect some good injuries. Man-making injuries. Pain-cleansing injuries. Baby-saving injuries.