Jesus is in the news again!
I don’t know. Is there some kind of record of how frequently people get media attention? He has to be among “The Most Frequently Regarded as Newsworthy”!
This time, though, it’s a rather dubious attention. A media personality, during a recent Celebrity “Roast,” “invoked a vile deed” on devotees of the religion that bears His name. She then invoked that “vile deed” on an icon that purportedly resembles Him. Finally, she invoked it on Jesus personally. “F_ _ _! Jesus,” she said.
The furor is building and is quickly becoming a full-scale media event. The person has been suspended. She’s apologized. She’s even expressed hope that she will be “forgiven.”
Sarcasm?
Could be.
How are the “faithful” responding?
Some are comparing degrees of censure. Slander this politically coddled group or that religion presently on the speech police’s “endangered species” list, they say, and you’re “canned and banned.” Slander Jesus and you get suspended … “a paid vacation.” Others are demanding she be “canned and banned.”
Is there a truly Christian response to the verbal desecration of our Lord Jesus?
Yes there is. You can find it in, of all places, the life and practices of Jesus Himself. He was slandered frequently. Always he took his detractors on. He insisted on His personal integrity. He refused to temper His claims. Repeatedly He faced those who attempted to discredit Him by repeating the very truth claim they challenged and defending it with the top legal arguments of His day, His actions and His witnesses.
Modern “defenders of the faith” Jesus founded, and personally practiced to perfection, routinely do the same things. They insist that Jesus is both “Son of God,” and “Son of Man.” “He is,” they say, “Divine and Human.” They insist that He is the only way to God and the one and only source of Truth. He is the answer to all questions about life and personal meaning. He is so because He is the Creator of life and, in living it Himself, He “makes sense of human existence.” “He is,” they declare, “Humankind’s Emancipator and Immortalizer!” Their detractors react venomously with outcries of “Evangelistic excess,” “proselytizing”! Of course Jesus' detractors said He was “demon possessed.” The moderns who follow Him find reassurance in this. Hostilities they face are no worse than those their Leader met. He didn’t waver. They won’t waver either.
For Centuries it’s been this way for Christ’s followers. Some bend and break under the relentless barrage of criticism and outright persecution. Others are not intimidated by it. They recognize and accept the truth Jesus taught them that, “In this world hard times will be a way of life.” A few look for a New World where the truth and gracious ways of Jesus can be adopted and freely practiced.
Actually, some who sought such a New World were influential in the formation of this extraordinary Nation we live in today. Almost 1800 years after Jesus' resurrection they fashioned documents to guide the governing of this Land that stated, among other things, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Men profoundly influenced by Jesus insisted that they must be free to “evangelize,” and “proselytize.” At the same time they recognized the right of others, with differing opinions and points of view, to make their declarations and hold their marches and sit-ins. They saw how God Himself gave people the right to speak against Him and blatantly reject Him. They would not be party to National Principles that presumed to take from the people freedoms their Creator had given them. They did not have to. They believed, firmly that Truth – what is right and good – will prevail.
Jesus believed that Truth – what is right and good – will prevail. At a time in His life when He was subjected to the ultimate verbal desecration He did not waver. He was facing a Roman political figure who was little more than a marionette on a matrix of strings manipulated by an Emperor who thought he was God. This “governor” said to Jesus, “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or crucify you?” Jesus responded, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” He had already been beaten to within a whip’s stroke of death. He’d been crowned with thorns. He’d been forced to carry a weed as His scepter. He’d been spit on numerous times. Yet He quietly holds to a tenet of the faith He’s forging in this His darkest hour. “God is my vindicator. The truth will prevail.” Nothing that would yet happen that day, perniciously atrocious as it would become, could deter Him from the higher purpose for which He lived and was now dieing. If there is any doubt about that purpose it’s dispelled in His words from the cross, at the height of his agony, “Father forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing!” He prayed for Pilate, the cowardly governor, then. He prayed for the religious power brokers who schemed to get Him crucified. He prayed for the jeering crowd who mocked Him in His humiliation. He prayed for all humankind that day offering an immeasurable mercy – “Amazing Grace!”. Then He died. His dieing was so dramatically unlike any death ever witnessed before that, when the Roman Officer in charge of the execution saw “how He died,” he declared, “Surely this man was a Son of God.” Jesus walked into the face of His ultimate desecration with complete confidence and inner strength. He knew that truth would prevail. He was unflinching in His certainty that, no matter the force of the indignity, God would vindicate Him.
With that scene vividly before them Christ’s Followers pray, often daily, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who in any way offend us.” This is a take it or leave it matter. God, as Jesus demonstrated that terrible day, will forgive anything. But we will only experience His forgiveness if we, then, give it away!
So, as the media merry-go-round picks up speed, we, who believe Jesus really is the source of life; that by His resurrection He provides new, forever Life to all who will “receive” Him; that “He is who He claims to be;” have a plan. It is the plan He followed meticulously. We will condemn vociferously this verbal desecration of Him. We will not relent. Truth and justice must be defended. We will not be intimidated by those who seek to undermine our freedom to protest in the name of a tolerance that cannot, itself, be tolerant. Nor will we be intimidated by the shrill clamor of popular but deceitful voices seducing a society in the name of enlightenment. At the same time we will learn, as He shows us in personal practice, how to separate the damnable deed from the pardonable person. And we will extend the forgiveness the current offender asked for no matter how strongly we may doubt the sincerity of her asking.
“We will,” He insisted, “know the truth. And the truth will make us free.”
