Jonathots Daily Blog
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No One Likes Them
Years ago in my Junior High Sunday School class, I remember telling the church deacon, who was teaching us young ones, that I believed Jesus was not perfect.
My statement sucked the air out of the room.
I continued. “Jesus disobeyed his parents when he was twelve, yelled at a whole lot of people, whipped some folks in the Temple, and broke all sorts of Jewish Sabbath rules. But because he hung around and worked on his life instead of getting angry and defensive, he grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man.”
My teacher was at a loss for words. So like most people who find themselves wordless, he insisted that the last thing he said was absolutely right.
“Jesus was perfect,” he bellowed, “and in our church we declare him to be.”
To this day, I do not know why we want Jesus to be perfect.
He lived a human life.
The Good Book says he was tempted like we are, touched with our infirmities, and he was a “son of man.”
In other words, just one of us.
What I clearly need to know is, what did Jesus do when he looked at his life and felt the need to change?
The Gospels teach me that he went off by himself in the wilderness to work out his temptations.
He also chose to be baptized, like everyone else. (Please don’t tell me that he was baptized as a mere symbol, or for a pretense. Isn’t that just annoying, if not sacrilegious?)
Jesus knew that to be human he had to repent like we do, and perfect his life instead of insisting he was already perfect.
Now, that’s a dude I can follow.
Perfect people are almost always brats.
It’s mainly because they think they’re perfect.
And we know, for a fact, that they are not.
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