One of the groups studying Asphalt Jesus asked the following question: “Would love your response to the first discussion question for chapter 7, “Who is Jesus for you?” We’re curious about the part of the question that asks us to think about whether we respond to the Jesus of history or the Christ of present experience….and the suggestion that we consider both perspectives. Can you share your thoughts?”

Like the Rev. Jene Miller in Arnett, Oklahoma (from Ch. 7 of Asphalt Jesus), the question to me is not “Is Jesus God?” but “Is God like Jesus?”  To me, the answer is, “Amen, yes!”  Everything else one has to say about Jesus or any other aspect of Christian theology is small potatoes next to this affirmation.  But I’m happy to put some meat (or at least sour cream and chives) on this big potato.

Let’s start with the most basic:

Jesus is a person of history.  His history not only includes his own life on earth, but he has become a part of the lives of a great many people – those who lived in his day and those who would come after.  He is a part of my history.   His story is embedded in mine.  He is not simply a person of the ancient past, therefore, but of the present.  My present.  If the word “Christ” refers to an aspect of Jesus that continues to live on beyond his mortal death, I can wholeheartedly affirm that Jesus is Christ even on this most basic of levels, for his story has become central in my story.

Why has Jesus become central?  Because I meet God in Jesus.  I’ve had both personal and communal experiences that suggest (and sometimes even insist) that there really is a God, a God who is actually aware of you and me, and who interacts internally with us, spirit to spirit, loving us beyond our wildest imagination.  These experiences “look like” the Jesus I regularly encounter in the gospels.  This fact has led me to conclude that Jesus is one who was “full of God.”  Or in the apostle Paul’s words, “God was in Christ.”

Based on this conclusion, I have also been able to work the flow the other way.  That is, I not only can find the tenor and tone of my God-experiences in the Jesus of scripture, but I can count on this same Jesus to regularly steer me in the direction of future God-experiences where I have not expected to find them.  For instance, the Jesus of scripture, who hangs out with the tax collectors, prostitutes, and “sinners,” including “sinners” known as scribes and Pharisees, regularly leads me into experiencing God in and through people I might ordinarily have written off.  In this respect, I meet my neighbor through Jesus - that part of my neighbor that bears God’s mark even amidst all the other marks that may be upon them.  I hear God whispering in the struggles of drug addicts and derelicts, of adulterers and anarchists.  I also can find God whispering at times in the angry voices of legalistic fundamentalists (And I can use Jesus’ voice to help me discern when the “word of the Lord” is not to be found in these voices as well!).  To allude to our weekly blessing at the conclusion of worship, in Jesus, God has often pushed me into places I would not necessarily go myself.  So I pay attention to Jesus.  Close attention.

Another reason I pay attention is because Jesus exhibits a generosity of spirit that leads me out of my stinginess; a graciousness that moves me beyond my judgmentalism; a depth and breadth of creative engagement with life that takes hold of me and pulls me beyond rigidity and narrowness; a courageousness that raises me from timidity; a humility that takes the hot air out of my pride.  These qualities and many more have led me to conclude that I meet myself Jesus – my truest self. It’s the part of me that seeks to move beyond my Pinocchio woodenness and know what flesh-and-blood existence is really meant to be.  Jesus helps me become more fully human even as he points me to the divine.

So, is this person in whom I regularly meet my God, my neighbor, and myself, “the Jesus of history” or “the Christ of faith”?  My answer, of course, is “yes” regardless of what is essential nature may be (i.e., his essence – whether fully God, fully human, or both).  What I’ve stated above is equally true whether Jesus was a mortal human like you and me or the second member of the Trinity who existed before the beginning of all things and will be forevermore.

During Countryside’s “Theology on Tap” sessions this past year, I have have been asked, in a number of different ways, not simply what I believe about Jesus but what any Christian “should” believe about Jesus.  I have stated that it really doesn’t matter to me what someone believes about Jesus with respect to whether he was mortal, divine, or both.  What I care about is finding folks who seek a fuller understanding and experience of God, neighbor, and self, in and through Jesus regardless of the conclusions they draw with respect to his nature, and even regardless of how comfortable they feel with the label “Christian.”  If they’re willing to throw their hat in with Jesus on this level, they’re worth banding together with to form a community of spirit and faith.