Truly God, Truly Human?

Why my king wanted to go this far for me? He must have seen something in me that He vowed to win me back. Throughout His journey on earth, He was(is) truly God and He was truly a human.

When I see Him in heaven, I will ask Him to teach me how to walk on water and how to create rainbows. Though there is one question that I will surely ask - "How was it like to be a human when you walked on this earth, climbed up Calvary, and chose the cross?" ~

"He claimed to be the Son of God, and yet he ate and drank like other men, and even got tired and lonely. What kind of creature was he?

In some ways Jesus seemed to feel "at home" here, and in other ways he felt unequivocally "not at home." I think of the single scene preserved from his adolescence, when he disappeared in Jerusalem and go scolded by his mother… "Son, why have you treated us like this?"… Jesus replied, "Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?"…

Living on a planet of free will and rebellion, Jesus often must have felt "not at home." At such times he went aside and prayed, as if to breathe pure air from a life-support system that would give him the strength to continue living on a polluted planet… In Gethsemane he prayed at first that the cup of suffering be taken from him, but of course it was not. That scene in the garden shows a man desperately "not at home," yet resisting all temptation toward supernatural rescue.

For me, one scene in the Gospels brings together the "at home" and "not at home" nature of Jesus. A storm blew up on the Sea of Galilee, nearly capsizing the boat in which Jesus lay sleeping. He stood up and yelled into the wind and spray, "Quiet! Be still!" The disciples shrank back in terror. What kind of person could shout to the weather as if correct an unruly child?

The display of power in the midst of a storm helped convince the disciples that Jesus was unlike any other man. Yet it also hints at the depths of Incarnation. "God is vulnerable," said the philosopher Jacques Maritain. Jesus had, after all, fallen asleep from sheer fatigue. Moreover, the Son of God was, but for this one instance of miracle, one of its victims: the creator of rain clouds was rained on, the maker of stars go hot and sweaty under the Palestine sun. Jesus subjected himself to natural laws even when, at some level, they went against his desires "If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me"). He would live, and die, by the rules of earth."

- Yancey