{"id":2452240,"date":"2019-12-14T20:24:01","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T03:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/glenn-k-beaton-heres-what-i-know-jesus-christ-is-not-our-mom\/"},"modified":"2019-12-14T20:24:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T03:24:01","slug":"glenn-k-beaton-heres-what-i-know-jesus-christ-is-not-our-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/glenn-k-beaton-heres-what-i-know-jesus-christ-is-not-our-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenn K. Beaton: Here\u2019s what I know, Jesus Christ is not our mom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Two thousand years ago, a Jewish carpenter lived a conventional life for 30 years in a tiny village in the Middle East. Then he became as they might say today, \u201cradicalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historians agree that Jesus did exist \u2013 there are reliable ancient records of him. But most of what we know about him is limited to opaque and contradictory accounts written decades after his death in what we now call the Gospel of the New Testament.<\/p>\n

In one sense, those Gospel accounts are profoundly simple. They say Jesus was the Messiah prophesized in the Hebrew Bible. As such, he performed miracles to save those needing saving. He came back from the dead. That\u2019s the word.<\/p>\n

But in a personal sense, the Gospels present a more complicated and contradictory man than the one presented in Sunday School or even adult church services.<\/p>\n

Read the Gospels yourself. You\u2019ll read that in his three years of preaching, Jesus railed against the powerful religious establishment that charged tolls on the road to heaven, as religions often do. And he had no use for the occupying Roman pagans. But he regarded neither as the real enemy.<\/p>\n

With compassion, he cured the sinners and detritus who were shunned by his ancient society including prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors, the crippled and the blind. But he often implied that their condition was not medical or circumstantial. Rather, it was spiritual \u2014 a lack of faith.<\/p>\n

He sometimes judged people, even as he admonished them not to judge others. He came to serve, not to be served, but he instructed those he served to serve his father.<\/p>\n

He took no payment for his work, but demanded something harder than payment: \u201cSin no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

His patience was superhuman, except with his rag-tag band of friends who often exasperated him. He all but muttered, \u201cGeez, I\u2019m surrounded by idiots!\u201d<\/p>\n

But at other times he trusted those friends to be the rock on which he and they might build a world-changing faith. Most of them did not disappoint.<\/p>\n

He taught kindness and forgiveness but had a temper. Enraged that merchants at the temple traded on God, he trashed the place. He had a wry sense of humor and was occasionally sarcastic.<\/p>\n

He and his friends drank a lot of wine. When they ran out, he made more.<\/p>\n

He was tempted and occasionally afraid. He was coy about who and what he was, to the point that a reader of the Gospels is left wondering if he himself wasn\u2019t sure till the end. He seldom called himself the son of God, but often called himself the son of man.<\/p>\n

He preached that this earth doesn\u2019t really matter so much as the kingdom to come. For that, some thought he might be insane.<\/p>\n

But he was strong. He willingly went to Jerusalem for his trial and death. There the people betrayed him, as he knew they would, scourged him to the bone and mocked him.<\/p>\n

He dragged through the streets the massive timbers of his impending torture and execution as a rebel and blasphemer.<\/p>\n

He did so willingly. Just because.<\/p>\n

In his final hours, he endured agonizing pain inflicted by those he came to save. With his last breath he cried out, \u201cLord, why have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know which word of that question was emphasized, which makes all the difference in its meaning.<\/p>\n

He was fully a man, and more. I\u2019d give anything to have a beer with him.<\/p>\n

Humanity\u2019s view of Christ changed in the two millennia after the Gospels. This most masculine of men became feminized. The medieval church seeking to domesticate the masses portrayed him as a pacifist and a weakling \u2014 a soother and a smoother \u2014 perhaps because that\u2019s what they wanted from their customers.<\/p>\n

While plump priests and popes were bedecked in crowns and satin robes, Christ is shown as a doleful, skinny, humorless, hippie vegan with long hair parted in the middle, sometimes holding a lamb.<\/p>\n

But men in the time of Christ did not have long woman\u2019s hair and did not carry around lambs. Carpenters then and now are not skinny, but brawny. They don\u2019t cuddle cute pets; their muscular arms wield hammers.<\/p>\n

Christ\u2019s unpredictability and contradictions confuse me, and the church\u2019s creepy stylization is even more perplexing. It\u2019s well worth trying to understand him but I still don\u2019t fully and probably never will, at least not in this world. I have a hunch he wants it that way.<\/p>\n

But I do know this. He\u2019s not my mom. He\u2019s not there to dry my tears or tell me I\u2019m special or ward off things that go bump in the night. The lion of Judah fights fiercer foes.<\/p>\n

Correspond and subscribe at theAspenbeat@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two thousand years ago, a Jewish carpenter lived a conventional life for 30 years in a tiny village in the Middle East. Then he became as they might say today, \u201cradicalized.\u201d Historians agree that Jesus did exist \u2013 there are reliable ancient records of him. But most of what we know about him is limited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 02:13:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}