“For something has crept into our assumptions about Jesus
that makes it almost impossible for us to relate to him…
It’s the notion that Jesus was really ‘pretending’
when he presented himself as a man.”– John Eldridge, Beautiful Outlaw
that makes it almost impossible for us to relate to him…
It’s the notion that Jesus was really ‘pretending’
when he presented himself as a man.”– John Eldridge, Beautiful Outlaw
Most people know that Jesus came to reveal the perfect heart of true divinity, but so few of us understand that he also came to restore something that was lost long ago: the uncorrupted mind of true humanity.
For two thousand years, Christians have lived – and many have died – for their conviction that the Creator of the universe subjected himself to the confines of human flesh and bones. When Jesus walked among us, he wasn’t merely cosplaying human existence; he was truly a man in every conceivable way.
Just like the rest of us, he was born a helpless infant, fully dependent on his mother for survival. When he was twelve, he wandered away from his parents and got lost in the city (Luke 2:41-51). No doubt his adolescence was rife with the same angsty confusion and hormone-driven temptations that teenagers have always endured. Luke’s gospel tells us that, like most young men, Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52).
Think about that: there once was a time when God grew up. Can you imagine how strange that must have been for Him? What must it have been like for Almighty God to feel hungry for the first time? In the Gospels, Jesus often took naps. What was it like for God to feel tired? For most of his life, Jesus worked in construction, which means the all-knowing Creator learned how it feels to run out of daylight, to throw out his back, and to smash his thumb with a hammer.
Have you ever wondered what Jesus looked like? We’ve all seen the paintings that portray him as handsome, pasty-white, and taller than his peers, with the slender build of your average Oxford academic.
But what do the Gospels actually say about Jesus’ physical appearance? Nothing. That’s interesting because, throughout the rest of the Bible, the physical features of main characters are typically announced: David, for example, was “glowing with health…fine appearance and healthy features”, Joseph was “well-built and handsome”, Moses was “fine”, Sarah was “beautiful”, Samson was “muscular”, and Goliath, of course, was “very tall”.
But the writers of the New Testament left no clues about the appearance of the most important man in history. Why?
The most obvious answer is that, physically speaking, Jesus looked like an average, unremarkable, first-century guy.
His profession might lend a few clues about his appearance. You’ve probably heard that, like his father before him, Jesus was a “carpenter”, but that’s not quite right. The gospels refer to Joseph and Jesus as tektons, a Greek title typically reserved for hard-working day-laborers in the construction business. By contrast, they were not called arki-tektons, the proper title for highly-trained, professional master-craftsmen.
Tektons like Jesus had to grind to scratch out a living. From the time he was twelve until around age thirty, Jesus most likely worked alongside his father and younger brothers, fulfilling his duty as Joseph’s firstborn son. Do you really think two decades of walking several miles round-trip to work, six days a week, while carrying his tools to a construction site where he lifted bricks and swung a hammer for twelve hours a day, left Jesus looking frail and pale? No way.
Whenever we think of Jesus’ appearance, we should probably imagine him less “blonde and puny” and more like a workhorse with a strong back who swung a hammer every day under the relentless Middle-Eastern sun.
In so many ways, Jesus was just like us. He had a personality and a sense of humor. He was heartbroken at times, and angry at others. He had close friends, but he also knew loneliness. He was without sin, but he also experienced temptation. He felt joy, but he was also well-acquainted with deep grief.
So what would have compelled the Lord of Creation to leave the comforts of Heaven and become one of us? The book of Hebrews gives us a clue:
For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
– Hebrews 2:17
– Hebrews 2:17
Elsewhere in Hebrews 2, the author says that Jesus became a man “to bring many sons and daughters to glory” (Heb. 2:10). In other words, he became like us to make us more like him. He chose to enter the human story of trauma and shame to show us the way through it.
No one has ever been more traumatized than Jesus. We’ve suffered, sure, but most of our suffering can be traced back to our own stupid choices or the selfish decisions of others. Jesus was the world’s only truly innocent man, yet he was subjected to the most humiliating, most agonizing punishment imaginable. One modern worship song captures the chilling reality of the cross:
On a hill you created, the Light of the world,
Abandoned in darkness to die.
Abandoned in darkness to die.
But his story didn’t end at the cross. The song continues:
And as you speak, a hundred billion failures disappear,
You lost your life so I could find it here,
If you left the grave behind you, so will I!
You lost your life so I could find it here,
If you left the grave behind you, so will I!
Jesus overcame the trauma and shame of the cross to show us how to overcome our trauma and shame. He became fully human to remind us that, despite all of our sins and regrets, we can be fully human, too.
Have you ever wondered why so many Christians continue to live in a state of shame and fear instead of embracing the freedom that Jesus came to give us? It’s because we’ve forgotten the full story of humanity.
When Christians set out to share the gospel with unbelievers, we usually begin with Original Sin or the Fall of Man found in Genesis 3. But the story of God and us doesn’t begin in Genesis 3; it starts at the beginning, where God made us in His image and called us “very good”! As the great Christian thinker Alan Hirsch wrote:
So often [evangelical Christianity] falls into the trap of starting its proclamation of the gospel in Genesis 3 (original sin) rather than in Genesis 1 (original blessing). When this happens, the good news simply becomes about how we get rid of all that guilt and all that sin. But…if we reduce the gospel by beginning with the problem, then the whole search for God becomes a negative, problem-solving journey. And to those who are desperately searching for something more, reducing the good news to problem-solving and moralism presents itself as an exercise in futility.
Our story is so much more than just a negative, problem-solving journey! Ours is the story of a perfect God who created every human being in His image, and even though we’ve rebelled against His perfect will for us, He will stop at nothing to rescue us from the consequences of our sin and to restore us to His image. That’s a good story, and it’s infinitely better than anything this world – including religion – has to offer.
In the last few years of his life on earth, Jesus applied his skills as a tekton to a ministry of building up people. Most people have accepted the idea that God wants to tear them down. But in Jesus we find the truth: He came to build you up!
