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Who Is This King of Glory?

Christmastime Memories

Back when I was little, my imagination was vivid. But maybe not so accurate.

I actually grew up thinking a manger, like the kind Mary and Joseph put baby Jesus in, was some sort of crib. I was fairly disappointed, and maybe a little appalled (as appalled as a fourth- or fifth-grader can be, anyway) when I realized that it's pretty much a trough — not the most suitable contraption for a baby (much less the Savior of the world) to spend any amount of time in. I remember wishing I hadn't been so enlightened. I wanted to maintain my idyllic image of the night of Jesus' birth. It was supposed to have been cozy and clean, not smelly and slobbery.

But honestly, it's a good thing that I became disillusioned with my childhood visualizations of the first Christmas. Believing in something fanciful and untrue just isn't becoming to someone who's been to college. (Sorry, people. It's time I break the news to you: Santa Clause is a hoax, as are his merry brood of toy-making elves. That piece of coal you got in your stocking last year? — your parents. It's their "naughty list" you're on.)

Divine Disillusionment

It seems I'm currently experiencing another case of disillusionment. But unlike my realizations about the manger scene (and your very recent coming-to-grips with the non-existence of St. Nick and his helpers), this new revolution in thinking is of graver consequence. And I'm not bemoaning its arrival.

I'm talking about how I view Jesus (not the swaddled one, but the grown-up Jesus).

Chief among my inaccurate imaginations of Him was my assumption that Jesus was feeble and androgynous — not someone after whom I really wanted to pattern my life as a man. Not that I haven’t always considered Him to be my Savior. I just didn't see Him as very manly. But I'm realizing that He was not some un-masculine, pale-faced, lamb-toting dude who liked to confuse some people and heal others.

Don't Confuse Me with the Facts

I'm not sure exactly how I arrived at these conclusions about Jesus, but I have my ideas. I'm guessing it was a combination of the culture I was brought up in and my own naïveté.

I think art had a lot to do with it. I was raised in a Christian home, and I was in church anytime the doors were open, so I was surrounded by a lot of religious art. What I saw were pictures of Jesus holding lambs and looking kind of like an ugly white woman with a facial hair problem. You know what I'm talking about. How was I to interpret these representations of Him? The only way my young mind knew how: I assumed that Jesus was kind of womanly and had a curious predilection for farm animals.

And to be completely honest, I think I misinterpreted the "turn the other cheek" verse in Matthew 6, and that had an adverse effect on my image of Jesus as a man. My application of that verse in my own life looked a lot like me letting others run all over me. I never really stood up for myself, so I was easily intimidated. I'm pretty sure I projected my timidity onto Christ — I was a pushover, so Jesus probably was too.

As you can imagine, having a faulty image of Jesus in my head caused me sufficient confusion whenever I read certain passages from the Gospels. Take, for instance, the time Jesus laid the smack down that one day in the temple, in the second chapter of John. In the past, whenever I would read about Him upending those tables and scattering coins, I would think to myself, "Whoa, Jesus. Aren't you supposed to be healing people and letting the little children come unto You? Let's hold off on the yelling and whip fashioning."

It was hard for me to imagine that Jesus really acted like that. I mean, I accepted that He did, because it was in the Bible. But up until now, I've just brushed over these passages. It's always been easier to assume that Jesus was un-masculine and apparently dualistic in His personality (only an imbalanced Jesus would get so angry) than it has been to try to understand who Jesus really was.

Catching a Glimpse of Jesus

So, as strange as it all sounds written out and displayed on a computer screen, these really are the sorts of things that I used to think about Jesus. I've always operated under the assumption that Jesus was nothing if not agreeable. And this caricature of Jesus, though my life looked a lot like it, was not a model that I aspired to.

And then recently I came across an interesting quote (and by "interesting" I mean "life-altering"). It's from Philip Yancey's book, The Jesus I Never Knew. And it's this: "How would telling people to be nice to one another get a man crucified?"¹

How indeed.

I've started to take another look at Scripture. I've gone back to those very same verses I used to avoid because they were so confusing to me.

And I'm beginning to catch a glimpse of who He really was.

Would the Real Jesus Christ Please Stand up?

I'm learning that Jesus was the prototypical man — that He had an undeniably masculine character.

He never shied away from conflict, especially not when He saw injustices being perpetrated in His Father's name. He often engaged with the religious establishment of the day. He questioned their pious traditions, as well as their legalism. To wit, He basically gave the Jewish leadership a piece of His mind in John 5, after they questioned His healing a man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. And we've already talked about the righteous indignation He showed that one day in the temple just before Passover.

Jesus also possessed a deep sense of compassion and feeling, one that we young men should not hesitate to emulate. He wept upon His arrival at Lazarus' house, empathizing deeply with Mary and Martha, his two sisters. And in John 8 He took compassion on the adulterous woman whom the Pharisees were wanting to stone.

And I don't want to make too much of this, but Jesus did spend 40 days in the desert, and fasted the entire time. I once fasted for a day and then went on a five-mile hike with a 30 pound pack, and that was enough for me. Clearly, Jesus could hold His own in the wilderness. And He didn't even have Gore-Tex®.

Most important of all, though, was the character He demonstrated by single-mindedly following His Father's plan for the salvation of humanity, all the way to His brutal death on the cross.

Can you imagine having that sort of compassion and devotion, that strength of will? That's who Jesus was. When we realize this — that we really can model ourselves after the man Jesus was — we're one step closer to becoming the men God made us to be.

Who Jesus Wasn't

Of course, in saying that Jesus was a man's man, I don't mean to attribute to Him characteristics our popular culture assumes of manly men. We need to be careful that we don't go too far and create another false image of Jesus, one that paints Him as a contrarian or some sort of rabblerouser.

Certainly, Jesus made waves. He was a revolutionary — the revolutionary, the most prominent figure in history. But He wasn't all about sounding His "barbaric YAWP" (to borrow from Walt Whitman and the movie Dead Poets Society); in other words, He wasn't out to prove Himself. He was manly, but He was a man of balance.

And I don't mean to imply that Jesus came to earth only so He could posthumously debunk any myths we would have about manhood here in the 21st century. Clearly, His primary reason for coming to earth was to be the propitiation for our sins, to afford us eternal union with God.

That being said, I still think we can look to Jesus as an example of what we should strive to be as men. Indeed, He was the prototypical man.

The Man He Wants You to Be

I'm very thankful that I’m finally cluing in to who Jesus really was. It's about time.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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How do you view Jesus?

Join the discussion!

And now that we're squarely in the Christmas season (and your mind is no longer consumed with your finals), I think it's a great time for you to think about who Jesus was and what His incarnation some 2000 years ago means for your life.

He wants to reveal more of Himself to you. And in the process, you'll find out more of who He wants you to become.