On Not Pitying Jesus

On Not Pitying Jesus--May 27, 2019

[Jesus said:] "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father." [John 10:17-18]

We have a problem with pitying Jesus.

I don't think we want to admit it, or maybe we don't even recognize that we do it to him. 

But still an awful lot of Respectable Religious people I know seem to treat Jesus' whole cross-directed, "love-your-enemies" way of life as a naïve and unrealistic philosophy.  "Just look what loving your enemies gets you--that's letting people walk all over you like a doormat!  You have to stand your ground in this life, or else you get nailed to a cross!"  Some version of that is how the thinking goes.  And that's basically a way of saying you pity Jesus for being gullible, or irrational, or for just not knowing how the world "really" works.

Some variation on this theme almost invariably gets offered any time someone dares to suggest that Jesus' way of life is not compatible with a "Me-and-My-Group-First!" mentality. Without fail, the objection gets raised that you can't build a way of life out of looking out for the good of all people, because there's only so much to go around, and you have to get as much for your own people, your own tribe, as you can.  Someone always seems to have to object that each of us has to look out for Number One in this life, and that if you don't, you are a sucker who is going to get taken advantage of, or worse, you'll get hurt or lose your life.  

Nobody wants to connect the dots to say the conclusion out loud, but if we are going to be honest, that means pitying Jesus for being the sucker who got killed because he practiced enemy-love rather than standing his ground.  Respectable Religious folk don't want to have to admit that's what they're saying (they kind of want to make Jesus into their poster boy for being a certain kind of "tough" and "strong," so they don't want to pull at this thread), but that's the logical conclusion of this train of thought.  

If you're going to insist on a "Me and My Group First" mentality for life, you are going to run in to real trouble holding that together with the actual words, actions, teachings, and cross of Jesus.  And then you're in the difficult bind of having to pick one. And whether you admit it or not, what a lot of Respectable Religious people end up doing is secretly pitying Jesus for being foolish enough to get killed by his enemies instead of striking them dead first.

What's curious to me is that Jesus himself never seems to think he is pitiable.  In fact, Jesus doesn't accept the premise in the first place.  Jesus doesn't see himself as a helpless victim, someone "fooled" into the supposed weakness of love only to be met with the brutal force of his enemies who crucified him. Jesus doesn't see himself as a sucker who gets duped into letting his guard down, nor a fool who thinks everyone will be nice to him if he is nice first.  Jesus is not so naïve as to think the world will live by the same terms he lives by.  But for Jesus, that's not the point--he will live his life (and lay that life down) in his own way, regardless of how anybody else treats him or responds.  That is exactly how Jesus defeats the powers of evil--by refusing to play the game by their rules.

Did you catch that in this passage from John's gospel?  Jesus is adamant--he isn't losing his life, not in the sense that anybody can take his life away from him without his consent.  Jesus lays his life down.  He willingly gives his life away, with the understanding, as he puts it, that he can "take it up again" when he chooses.  This isn't the talk of a naïve victim who thought the world would go easy on him; this is the clear-eyed perspective of someone who knows the costs for living his way of life, and who chooses to give his life up while retaining the power to take it back.  Jesus is never out of control, in other words--he goes to Good Friday knowing he has the power and authority to step out of the grave come Sunday.  That means the resurrection is NOT about Jesus getting control of his life back--but rather revealing that Jesus never really lost control of his life in the first place.

I'm reminded of a line of Walter Wink's that has stayed with me over the years. He is writing more broadly about martyrs throughout history, but there is a clear connection to the way Jesus speaks here in John. Wink writes: "To have to suffer is different from choosing to suffer.... Martyrs are not victims, overtaken by evil, but hunters who stalk evil into the open by offering as bait their own bodies." 

That's what Jesus says here, too--he is not duped or fooled or hoodwinked into dying at the cross. No! Jesus has been in control all along, and he lays his life down of his own choosing just as surely as he rises to life again by his own authority.  This is what Jesus' way of life looks like--a love that is willing to give itself away to death, and which also rises triumphant over the powers of evil.  There is no need to pity this Jesus--he is nobody's fool.

If we are going to confess our faith in the risen Jesus, it will also mean recognizing that the Jesus who is forever alive now is also the same Jesus who chose to lay down his life and who also chose to take it back up again.  It will mean realizing that the Jesus who walked out of the tomb is the same Jesus who taught his followers to walk the second mile willingly, even if they think it makes you look weak to do it.  It will mean realizing that the same Christ whom we confess to be Lord and God is the same Christ who did not put his own comforts or interests first, but laid it all down for our sake.  

Today, let's be done with pitying Jesus, whether overtly or unintentionally.  Let's allow Jesus to tell us in his own terms that he has laid down his life and taken it back up by his own authority.  

You don't need to pity such a Christ, only praise.

Praise to you, O Christ, for your power to lay down your life and your power to take it back up again.