On Taking Refuge

"I take my refuge in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit."
      This is a play on an ancient Buddhist affirmation, but the principle of making God one's refuge is as old as the oldest of Scriptures, and is all over the pages of the Psalms. To take refuge in something is to seek safety in it, to hide yourself in it and behind its walls and barriers and allow these to protect you from the storms, enemies, or other dangers outside of that refuge.
      He is a refuge when all others fail, and yet to be honest, at first He can look far more dangerous than those things you seek shelter from. To take refuge in Him demands that you admit and let go of the illusions of safety you saw in other things. These other things might be individuals you trusted, institutions, organizations, literal and metaphorical structures, or even your own abilities on some level. They might be ideas, beliefs, philosophies, or theological constructs to which you held dear. To take refuge in Him means to leave the illusion of safety in all of these other things behind.
      And that looks and feels dangerous. It can be absolutely terrifying in point of fact. It can be terrifying because it means leaving the familiar behind, the things which, while not perfect, were comforting and always seemed to be what you could fall back on and rely on... until you couldn't, and until they failed you once, twice, and every time you came back to rely on them. They proved themselves an illusion. Smoke and mirrors which, when you leaned on them, when it really mattered, disappeared and left you hanging in mid-air with nothing solid to grasp at.
      God Himself is no illusion. He is solid. He is the foundation of all existence, and nothing can or does exist except it relies on His Being for its own. But the human senses do not register this. The human mind goes first to what it can see, hear, touch and so on. It goes first to what the brain can process immediately without effort, what it perceives as 'real," even if it isn't.
      To enter God's refuge means to acknowledge the illusory nature of all other things in which you sought shelter, and this itself is threatening to the human psyche. It means to acknowledge that all human beings, try as they might, are fallible and in error in some way. It means to acknowledge that all systems and institutions which depend on the decisions of these human beings are also fallible, and capable of catastrophic failure. It means also to acknowledge that those beliefs and ideas to which you held religiously are potentially also in error because they were communicated by said fallible and erroneous human beings. To enter God's refuge is to let go of all of these things and set yourself adrift in what looks at first like a void, a "Holy Darkness" as one author put it because your physical senses are blind to it, and trust that He has you when you have let all else go.
      This is why the conditions of discipleship which Jesus laid down are essentially to let everything else go, whether it be relationships, possessions, or even your own psyche. To be a disciple is to take your refuge in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in nothing else; to throw yourself into that Holy Void, that place where your physical senses no longer function and are screaming at you to turn back because they can detect nothing. It is to follow the Teacher when your mind is screaming at you that it is madness to do so. It is to surrender to the Spirit of Christ when your brain and body are screaming at you to act to protect yourself and survive.
      As someone who struggles with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, or at least its ways of thinking and modes of operation, this has been an especially difficult journey of understanding for me, and one which feels as though it has taken lifetimes. The Autistic mind is one which relies on structures, literalism, routines, and so on. To take refuge in God requires all of this to be disengaged from, let go, and even exploded if need be.
The only way forward is through. You cannot go backwards in order to make progress. You cannot run to the familiar in order to grow and mature. The only way to the Light is through the Holy Void which is the refuge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

A Ramble about the Red Pill, the Blue Pill, and Knowing God

    I’ve been feeling like I need to write something for the last couple of days, but nothing would come. The first thing which did come to me was that, while I may seem to be a progressive theologian to some, I have never considered myself one. Yet, I can’t really consider myself a conservative theologian either. These labels, progressive and conservative, while dubiously appropriate for politics, should never be appropriate descriptions when applied to theology.

    Theology used to be known as the “queen of sciences” before the 20^th century. It is literally the study of the Divine, the study of God, in a similar vein to the study of physics, mathematics, the planet’s environment, or the human mind. You interact with the subject of your study, you make observations, you form hypotheses and, where you can, you test them and record the data. Our understanding of God, a living, sentient, and ever present Being should never be limited to someone else’s experiences with Him. You can read every book about a person, check the wikipedia, watch documentaries on them, even stalk them, but until you actually introduce yourself and form a two way relationship with that person, you will never truly know them. You can know all about someone. That doesn’t mean you know them.

    My theology today is not what it was 25 years ago. I think it’s fair to say that it’s not what it was even five years ago. But this reflects the evolution of a relationship rather than the shifting of academic stances as I have gotten to know Him better, and He has helped me to understand and know myself better.

    In “Matrix: Resurrections,” Bugs offers Morpheus both the red pill, which allows him to disconnect from the Matrix and pursue the Truth, and the blue pill, which allows him to remain right where he is, as a choice. To this Morpheus responds, “You call that a choice?” After a quick explanation of her own philosophical struggles, she responds, “Choice is an illusion. You know what you have to do.”

    For me, the pursuit of getting to know God through that relationship is like the choice between taking the blue pill and the red pill. The blue pill represents the safety of old ways of thinking about Him and myself. It represents a return to the doctrines and dogmas of the churches and organizations that I had tried to desperately to stay a part of. The red pill represents the continuously unfolding and maturing knowledge of Him gained from the day to day interactions of relationship and back and forth. In my mind, these things always present as a choice, and an intense fight akin to bloodsport because they frequently conflict.

    Like Trinity pointed out in the original Matrix, I’ve been down the road of the blue pill before. I know what’s there. And as safe as it looks in my mind, that safety is an illusion. There’s a reason why I’m no longer a part of those organizations or churches, and why I couldn’t return no matter how hard I fought to, or no matter how much I toed the line. But the red pill is frightening because it exposes the illusion for what it is and reveals reality for what it is, nothing more and nothing less. And between the illusion and the reality, for me, choice itself becomes an illusion.

    I know what I have to do, regardless of the costs. To “take the blue pill” now would be to turn my back on the light and walk in darkness while telling everyone “I’ve seen the light!” It would be lying, and not walking in the Truth. Worse than this, it would be calling God Himself a liar. To take the red pill is to pursue that relationship of knowing Him even if what it reveals contradicts who people imagine Him to be, and even if it contradicts what other people have said reality is supposed to look like.

    Jesus Himself was a walking, talking red pill. Those who fought against him the most and had Him crucified were those hell bent on preserving traditional theology and Scriptural interpretations. To the Pharisees, He was a raging New Age cult leader. To the Sadducees, He was a political threat. He absolutely refused to play by their rules. These “Sola Scripturalists” and “Judean theocrats” were the ones He rebuked constantly for their hypocrisy, pettiness, and twisted interpretations. Notice He never rebuked the Romans, the Greeks, the pagans, or really anyone else in the Gospels. Notice also how many churches and pastors today tend to insinuate the Pharisees and their ideals as godly and misunderstood in all but name.

    Jesus Christ at all costs. Truth at all costs. The love of God within and without at all costs. How can there really be a choice in this, knowing that the other option is to knowingly lie to myself, to others, and even to God? How great would the darkness be in choosing the illusion of safety, knowing that it is, in fact, an illusion? That would be willingly shutting my eyes and creating the darkness which blinds me.

    But the blue pill is ridiculously tempting. Just like with Cypher who tried to have himself inserted back into the Matrix. He knew it was all an illusion, and yet he wanted to go back and be ignorant of the Truth because of how hard the Truth was to live within. The lie of safety was so enticing that he became desperate; so desperate that he was willing to sacrifice anyone he needed to be plugged back in. Like Trinity said, I’ve been down that road before, too, and it wreaked damage to those closest to me as well. And this is the powerful lure of the illusion, and why it is so difficult to win against.

    I’m not a “Progressive Theologian.” I’m not a conservative one either. I don’t read books by popular modern pastors, nor do I jump on the bandwagon of this or that theological trend because it’s popular. I read the Scriptures in their original languages. I spend time with God throughout the day, and He with me. I read about the natural world, medicine, and the various sciences as well as other ancient texts. I weigh data and evidence He brings into my path. Either He gives me insights and confirms them, or He doesn’t. If folks don’t agree, or argue against because it conflicts with their interpretations, I can’t help that. I still have to pursue what is real, not what is comfortable or convenient. I am not dealing in myths which can be retold to suit one’s personal preferences. I am dealing in the reality which we understatingly call “God.”

A Ramble about Guilt and Torment

     Over the last several days, I've been having to work through some stuff. I went out on Friday morning to start working at the barn again, and I just began to feel like I had been hit by a truck. I would have thought I was physically sick, except I wasn't. I hadn't really been feeling 100% emotionally right a couple of days prior, since my last chiropractor adjustment on Wednesday, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it and it just really came to a head on Friday morning as I had to stop what I was doing and return to the house. I spent the next three hours feeling like crap in bed, and those hours afterwards not much better.
    This is going to sound really strange, but I had gotten from the Lord that I was supposed to watch the final season of Lucifer just after my Chiropractic adjustment. It wasn't my first choice of shows. I'd never really watched it before except for the occasional clip on Youtube because of its main premise and protagonist. But, I went ahead and ordered it, and it arrived on Friday just after I had needed to head back into the house. I didn't know why I needed to watch it, but I've found that there is always a reason for things like this, and it eventually makes sense once I've obeyed. So, I started watching Friday night, and finished it on Saturday (it was only ten episodes).
    By the second or third episode in, I was beginning to understand. In it, there was a lot of talk about a person being caught in a "hell loop" because of unresolved guilt which they hadn't dealt with or hadn't let go of. This played out with several of the characters. And for me, this was part of the message I needed to see and hear. I have done things in my past which I am not particularly proud of. But more than this, I tended to take responsibility for things happening which, if I was to be honest, were out of my control. And there was something which happened a very long time ago, which I do not wish to elaborate on, which hurt people I loved and for which I blamed myself. I was not the cause of their pain, but in the chain of events, it was my idea which led to the circumstances of it. And I had never forgiven myself for it, just like I hadn't forgiven myself for a host of other things which my ideas, words, or actions had led to.
    Here's the thing, at the time, I was trying to do what I thought to be the right thing as far as I knew. I think, for most of my life, that is what I have tried to do. Most people do. I know of very few people who intentionally try to do the wrong thing, and just about everyone has a justification for why they act the way they do, believing themselves to be right at the time even when the results end up hurting others and themselves. This is the very nature of hamartia, trying to do the right thing and ending up doing the wrong.
And this accumulation of subconscious guilt was physically hurting me, tormenting me, and keeping me from functioning. It wasn't God who wasn't forgiving me, it was me as though I was somehow more "righteous" than God by holding onto all of my own mistakes and erroneous behaviors.
    By the end of the series I watched, the main protagonist realizes his true calling is helping others to work through their guilt and problems so that they too can find redemption. But in order to be that person, he has to do something which he swore he'd never do because if he doesn't, he won't become the person he's supposed to be. And this was the second thing the Lord wanted to get across to me. I myself wouldn't be who I am now without having made those mistakes, and gone through what I have. I look back at my own existence, and there are many, many things I would go back and make different decisions if I could. But, if I were capable of doing that, I would no longer be this person. Who I am now would be destroyed, and those people who have benefited from who I am now would also no longer be who they are, and so on, and so on. It would be cataclysmic for not only myself, but those I love and those I don't even know. And I would only be doing it to selfishly keep myself from the pain of the guilt I now hold.
    So, after I watched the last episode of Lucifer, ironically feeling the Lord's presence next to me saying, "This is what I've been trying to tell you." I went for a walk on the property here. And as I sat down next to the edge of the lake in the back, I began to sob and let the guilt I had been holding onto out.
The thing I am learning is that, it's not really God's forgiveness that is most important. If we turn around from what we're doing, He's only too happy to forgive and set us on the right path. But the far more damning thing is our own guilt and unforgiveness of ourselves. It is our own guilt and unforgiveness of our past selves which keeps us bound and in chains. It is our own guilt and unforgiveness of ourselves which makes us feel that we aren't worthy, and causes us to feel like He's won't forgive us. Because if I wouldn't forgive myself, why would He forgive me? At least this is the logic used. And if we feel that He wouldn't forgive, we don't believe He would no matter how much blood is spilled in sacrifice or how much we might try to do to make restitution, even if He has already said He will.
    I'm doing better today, but I know I've still got a ways to go as well in terms of letting go. Subconsciously, our worst and most damning judge can be ourselves.

A Ramble about Dogs, Goats, and the Love of God

    God showed me something today, and really over the last little while, but it really just drove home to me this morning. It's about how He feels about both attacker and the one being attacked.
I love every animal on this farm. I don't really have any favorites. We've raised every one of them from infants, and I've hugged, played with, and cuddled every one of them: dogs, cats, rabbits, goats, and chickens alike. Every one of them I consider my "babies," and they know it and come to me when I approach wanting attention and affection.
    Over the last several months, our German Shepherd Yasi developed a bad "habit" of attacking Raina, our Scotch Collie, at night before bed, and doing so pretty viciously. I love both dogs, and seeing Raina being hurt, and then having to do what I have to to train and discipline Yasi including putting her on the ground and using the shock setting on her collar just breaks my heart because I know both are scared and in pain, even if for different reasons. I hate the situation and Yasi's hormonal problems which are causing it, even as I absolutely love both animals.
    Another situation is with our female goats. Again, all of them are my "babies." We've even bottle fed three of the females. They know me, trust me, and come to me for affection and attention. But two of the goats, Tauriel and Galadriel, pick on their "sister" (really their cousin), Arwen, mercilessly, especially if she gets her horns caught in something. They'll ram her sides continuously until we can get to her and free her. It breaks my heart to see, especially since Arwen is the most gentle of them all. I know they're being goats and establishing dominance, but it just gets vicious at times, and this morning we found Arwen caught in a fence with blood on her ear and walking with a limp because of it. I hate seeing what they're doing to her, and I have a feeling part of it is their age and hormones too, but I love and care for Tauri and Galad just as much as I do for Arwen. The actions make me angry even as I know it's a part of their nature as she-goats.
    I love all of the animals, but I hate seeing them hurt one another regardless of the reason. I can't always separate them without having worse consequences, and I know they have to settle it in their own way or else I will constantly be refereeing and won't be getting anything done. They won't really mature if I do that any more than if I was constantly refereeing for my own children into their adulthood. Eventually, they have to learn to work it out on their terms.
    And this is the analogy God showed me this morning about us. He hates when we harm one another, but loves each one of us dearly. He hates what we do to each other because He loves each one of us, and each one of us are His "babies." He hates what causes us to harm one another, but doesn't hate any one of us. He just wants us to stop hurting each other just like I just want our animals to stop going after each other. And it hurts Him every time one of us is hurt by another, just like it hurts me every time one of the animals is hurt by another. I care for, feed, provide for, and watch every single one of them. So does He with us. I am invested with every one of them. So is He with us.

A Ramble about the Threat of Punishment

 

    I have seen now a couple of times on Facebook a meme which declares, "If you need the threat of eternal punishment in order to be a good person, than you were never a good person to begin with." Or something to this effect.

    While there's a number of issues to be explored with this statement, the one which strikes me most is the assumption that some human beings are just "good." Human beings in general are, as I have said many times before, malfunctioning. We as a species are deranged and unstable. One needs look no farther than the morning news to confirm this, and a more prolonged observation of human behavior over long stretches of time will drive the nail into the coffin as to any notion of human beings being anything other than a neurologically ill species.

    The threat of punishment is used to coerce positive behavior from deranged subjects. If human beings were without a malfunction, there would be no need for rules to follow or consequences if those rules are broken. We would all just be willing to look out for everyone else's best interests as much as our own. But we're not, are we? If we were, there would be no need for penal codes or a justice system. We have these things because we recognize that human beings will act selfishly and in a deranged fashion if left to their own devices.

    This is why part of the New Covenant as written in Jeremiah explicitly states "I will write My laws on their hearts and minds..." The inherent and inherited malfunction of human beings has to be bypassed in order to produce right behaviors. We cannot rely on our own brains to tell us what right and wrong is. The human brain will always screw it up because of a malfunctioning and over sensitive threat/survival system which hoards whatever it deems "good" and tries to destroy whatever it deems "bad."

For this reason, Jesus Christ came to join us to Himself so that we would have another mechanism or source of behaviors and decision making, that is, His own Spirit, life, or energy as long as we disengage from our own responses and behaviors and enslave ourselves to His. This is His laws being written on our hearts, and Jesus Christ acting and speaking through us because we can't trust our own brains to not screw it up and hurt ourselves or others.

    The threat of punishment for the violation of a rule is a training tool meant to keep the immature or deranged from hurting themselves or others. Is it inefficient? Yes, but it can be effective at least in the short term. The training tool is no longer necessary however if the person has come to maturity and no longer commits the actions which are harmful. All those who voluntarily submit (and He will not force this submission) to the Spirit of Christ with whom they are joined are those who have been brought to this maturity, because the Spirit of Christ within them will not produce those behaviors which will harm themselves or others.

    This is the biggest issue I have at times with some forms of "progressive" Christianity, because some of these systems seem to ignore or forget the evidence of their own eyes that human beings are not getting any better left to their own devices, but are destroying themselves, each other, other species, and this planet as a whole.

Walking the Middle Road

I had a conversation with someone here on Facebook last night and this morning, and its conclusion left me very sad. It's hard to express the way I'm feeling right now.

The conversation was over the existence of hell and its nature, having begun as a comment on a post which had been shared by a friend which declared that hell couldn't exist because a God who is love wouldn't torture people. I had responded to the effect that Torment (not being comfortable with the word "Hell" as this is more of a medieval concept and not a first century New Testament Greek concept) is not about God tormenting or torturing souls, but about those souls who refuse to come to Him finding themselves in the dark, lost and alone as a natural consequence of refusing to accept the God who is light, love, and completely omnipresent. If you shut your eyes and stop up your ears to what's surrounding you, of course you're going to be alone, blind, deaf, and suffering with your own internal demons.

The person who responded, who had, unknown to me until later, suffered a tragic loss repeatedly accused both me and my theology of being horrible and monstrous, and try as I might to clarify, insisted that I was teaching a God who tortures people, even though I was not nor would I. When the conversation ended this morning, I felt empty, misunderstood, and just very sad that this person had already made up their mind about both me and what I believe before we even began to discourse because I defended the existence of a state of Torment, regardless of the nature of that state, or its causes, or its outcomes.

This conversation reminded a lot of the theology arguments I would have in the theology group I was a part of, except then I would be getting hit from the other side of the spectrum, being called a liberal, a new ager, and other unsavory appellations. There I was frequently running up against Calvinists, traditionalists, people obsessed with Judaism and keeping the Mosaic Law, and so on.

The Scripture I am reminded of is when Jesus called the Pharisees "children in the agora calling out 'I played the lute and you didn't dance,' and 'I played a funeral dirge and you didn't weep.'"

Another thing this brings to mind is a line from the Analyst in Matrix: Resurrections where he says, "You people don't give a **** about facts! It's all about feelings!" And this was how the Analyst kept people under control in the new Matrix, by giving them just enough to fear losing while giving them just enough to hope for more.

What I have been in pursuit of for many years now are explanations which fit the datasets in question. No more and no less. Frequently though, these explanations either fly in the face of more conservative traditional theology, or, as in the case of the more left leaning person who was so vehement that my explanation was monstrous. It is an uncomfortable and very narrow middle road that sees attacks, insults, and rejection from both sides of the spectrum. One plays a joyful tune, one a funeral dirge, and both are upset that I am not joining either in rejection of the opposing side.

Do I believe God is love? Absolutely. Do I believe Torment exists? Absolutely. Can I honestly reconcile that? Yes, I can. Do I believe said Torment is forever? I think that's up to the individual tormenting themselves by rejecting Him. I don't think it has to be, and I think the timeless God whom I know is patient enough to wait for them to come around even if it takes what feels like forever.

My pursuit is for the reality of what is, not for what incites the emotions of either side.

 

From a Discussion about the Vulnerability of Jesus Christ

 

    It is difficult to empathize with or have compassion for someone with no vulnerabilities that we can see. We might respect them, idolize them, worship them even, but empathy and compassion never cross our minds with regards to them.

     There is an image which comes to our minds with the name "Jesus Christ" which implies total invulnerability and perfection, as a result, it can sometimes be difficult to imagine being able to empathize with Him, or for that matter Him being able to empathize with us.

    Jesus, Yeshua, was like everyone's big or little brother, and he had some health issues related to the circumstances of his birth, most notably a congenital heart condition. He engendered trust through not only His teaching, but also His own physical weakness. He had the appearance and "energy" of someone who was generally harmless. There were moments that "energy" from Him shifted into something of great power, but that had nothing to do with His physical disposition or condition. His disciples, who all became family to Him and to each other, sought to protect Him for a reason even as He sought to shield them. He taught them to love each other as well as Him, and they did, everyone seeking to care for one another because of each other's weaknesses, not in spite of them.

    Jesus, as "God with us," was also God made vulnerable, because it is weakness and vulnerability that we, as human beings, are more easily able to relate to, care for, and empathize with; and this facilitates the first and greatest commandment, to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your strength, and all of your mind.

* * *

    He, Jesus, was virgin born with only one set of XX chromosomes and DNA to work with. XX males frequently have congenital conditions. Also, there are clues in the Gospels that He had a condition such as tiring easily, haemotidrosis, and dying within hours instead of days on the cross from heart rupture.

    I’m not sure why this concept needs to be so threatening. It doesn't make Him any less who He is, fully God and fully human, and affirms His virgin birth. I can't see why it would be such a problem.

* * *

    I think God has a different idea of what it means to be perfect than we do.

* * *

    You don't have to agree with my conclusions. The whole purpose of this particular research was to provide an answer as to how it could have happened for those who struggle with the idea of a miraculous virgin birth. There was one gal who had a dad who wouldn't accept the Christian faith because he kept getting hung up on the virgin birth. While she disagreed with my reasoning and conclusions, she showed my blog post to her dad. After reading it, he accepted the possibility and had no further objections to the faith. This is the person for whom this was studied and written.

* * *

    As a matter of fact, no. I have not. I have authored several blog posts, books chapters, and a YouTube video on the neurological nature of hamartia, but no, I have not authored anything more about any other miracle. There is no need. As to your objections, they are yours to have.

    In my view, that human parthenogenesis is physically possible, does not negate the sheer astronomical improbability of it occurring, much less producing a viable male offspring. This was a one in a trillion chance of happening. Does that, in and of itself, not qualify as a miracle? Does God have to bring a Y chromosome out of nothing for it to qualify as a miracle? From everything I've seen, God doesn't have to use what is "possible" in nature to accomplish anything, but that fact alone does not forbid Him from doing so when it suits Him.

    As to your other objection regarding physical perfection of a sacrifice, I think we can agree that Jesus was not a literal lamb, the offspring of a Ram and a Dame sheep. Is it not possible that the need for the sacrifice to be without defect also refer to something else other than physical perfection in His case? Such as being born without a "sin nature"? There is so much about Christ's sacrifice which parallels but does not hold verbatim to the prescription in Leviticus or Deuteronomy regarding sacrifices that there is room to interpret His sinlessness as the required "without defect." Just the fact that His sacrifice was a human sacrifice, something which was clearly frowned upon by God (see His disposition towards those who sacrificed their children to Molech), violates the Torah and could have been considered an abomination.

    For the record, I don't go around trying to find natural explanations for the miracles of Scripture (though I do find Simcha Jacobovici's theories connecting the eruption of Santorini and the Exodus plagues very compelling). I stumbled across the research papers undergirding my theory after I got a hunch about something. Regardless of the theological outrage I get for it, I still haven't heard any genuine evidence against what I wrote, and it has a lot of explanatory power regarding what we see in Scripture, at least in my opinion. About the only arguments I get are theological in nature, and not even Biblical, just theological, and militantly emotional at that.

    I don't believe that such a view of Jesus as an XX male with corresponding health issues denigrates or degrades Him at all. It doesn't change who He actually is in the slightest degree, fully God and fully human. To me, it brings His humanity into a richer and more relatable context, and as a consequence, that union between His humanity and the second person of the Trinity at His conception. It speaks to me of the humility of God, and His willingness to be made vulnerable so as to draw us to Himself. It is well nigh impossible for a human being to really relate to omnipotent perfection. God knows this, and took the form of a vulnerable human being in order to accomplish His goals.

* * *

    With regards to His driving the moneychangers out of the Temple, I envision that scene probably the way you do, except with Jesus being a lot more physically tired afterwards. The question then becomes, was it just Jesus doing it with His own physicality or strength, or was it the Holy Spirit empowering Him to do it in spite of His own strength?

    This is the other thing about this. The Way Jesus taught was to be like Him, to do and live as He did, and He lived in constant submission to the Father, not saying or doing anything which the Father didn't say or do through Him. He said this a couple of times in John, and then used similar language when saying that we couldn't do anything without Him either. The things He did, the Holy Spirit did through Him in the same way that we are to submit to the Holy Spirit acting through us.

    As Paul wrote, "you see your calling brothers, not many strong, not many wise, not many of noble birth, but God has chosen the weak things of this world to put to shame the things which are strong, and the foolish things of this world to put to shame the things which are weak..." Why wouldn't this apply to the human nature of Jesus Himself to make it clear that what was empowering Him was not His own physical strength or charisma?

    I think that by envisioning Jesus as a perfect physical specimen of humanity, we can seriously miss the whole point, and substitute "another Jesus" which is more agreeable to us than who He actually was and is. To "blaspheme" is to "speak evil of," and I don't believe that I am speaking evil of Him at all. From a certain point of view, insisting on the statuesque Adonis version of Jesus, metaphorically speaking, is itself a blasphemy, because it calls Jesus' real humanity evil or at the very least, insufficient.