What if Jesus did die to save you, after all?
To believe Christianity, I only had to be convinced of one thing, that men do not rule, they are ruled
What if he’s alive right now, and really waiting for you to respond to his love? You would assume it’s just impossible to not want to think about that at all, but the most extraordinary thing I’ve noticed about human nature is our capacity to just ignore things we don’t like. Even if these are so UN-ignorable as to imply the very meaning of life, we can rationalize literally anything away, especially the gravity of human life. It’s absurd. Our failure as a species to own the smallest speck of integrity about our ignorance is stunning.
This is the premise upon which I ask life’s most important questions, starting with “if.” There is no assurance or confidence in brushing off meaning for the cold comfort of ignorance. To me, it’s tacit proof that our entire bent as a species is to imagine away truth that’s inconvenient. And that, to the point that we imagine taking as mundane the very gift of life so much, we actually don’t even mind when it’s taken away from the most innocent and obviously vulnerable, making these lives — incomprehensibly — inconvenient in our imagination so as to justify their being marginalized, derided, abused, and extinguished.
Do you hold any to account? Then, hold to account the enemies of children’s innocence. Who are you if not the defender of the helpless?
What does it say about you when you will not even entertain a thought that would compromise your self-validating, baseless claim to toss lives that aren’t your own into the trash heap of history, for convenience? No, you say, it’s established science. Yet, that is precisely the opposite of what science is, if it is ever to be applied as a tool for guiding choices. Science guides choice only by amoral benefit. Even if it could be called “established,” it provides no grounds for ejecting a moral sense toward fellow human beings. So, the obvious answer for many is to “scientifically” dehumanize these, much as has been the choice before all human atrocities ever perpetrated throughout history. You’d think this might be even a remote consideration of a rational being before committing to slaughtering millions of innocents indiscriminately.
So, what about an inconvenient life like the life of Jesus? The way it’s so easy to give him the brush off is all the grounds most need to go on living their life in blissful ignorance. Let’s side step this minefield for a less daunting mental exercise, though, for a moment. Who is it that doesn’t assign meaning to their very own life? We’d probably say that person is not well mentally, spiritually, or some way that most would agree indicates normalcy. Such a person would immediately concede they first of all have no will to preserve their wants, needs, or their very life, if it so much as causes someone else an inconvenience. Notably, this type of dialogue is common in victim posture, (1.) which is a stance employed by mental abusers to use the threat of self harm and/or self depreciation to garner sympathy or compliance from their target.
Now apply this to what we consider to be rational thought. Rational thinking implies that the exact opposite stance from above would be taken, that you would take a stand, as a matter of course, that all life should be given at least the benefit of the doubt as to its intrinsic value. Yet, our characteristic tendency is not to assign value to the lives and needs of others if there is rather an advantage to be obtained from demoralizing/dehumanizing them. How does this relate to whether you give any thought to the person of Jesus? Well, to do so, in his words, (2.) implies a de facto acknowledgment of that very inconvenient truth about humans, that we are not justified in our actions when we marginalize any human lives at all, in any way. Why bring Jesus into this at all, though? Can’t we talk about the value of human life without regard to a man we can’t prove or disprove ever said or did anything he’s supposed to have said or done?
At the very least, I chose the life of Jesus as a standard for what humans hold in dispute, despite what should by all rights be considered, in the very least, conversation-worthy. So, why do we tend to avoid, scoff at, even assign indignation to even the thought of his story, or any story like his that suggests we give time to at least look at its implications for the value of life? Of any given story, it’s the story of Jesus’ death as payment for our lives that confers profound value on human life, if anything does at all. So, why are we at all dismissive of such a discussion? Why is talking about the value of human life uncomfortable at all? Isn’t it because of our desperate need to leave room for getting what we want, living a convenient life, and maintaining our right to ignore that which we can, justifiably, rationalize away as too “unscientific” for our oh-so-enlightened, highly-evolved intellect?
The question is not whether there’s a Creator, it’s whether He’s a person, or not…
Take any “story,” a word I’ve obviously chosen here for effect, in fact, and ask how exactly science has even the foggiest relation to questions such as whether a man could die and rise again, if he’s actually God, or whether a fetus might actually be a person. It doesn’t have to be a verse in any Bible telling us whether we should give a moment of consideration to such thoughts, but rather, it implies the very twisted bent of our need for convenience, and the narcissism of our insinuated self-sufficiency, when we choose to ignore any question that life, every life, might indeed carry the value that is confirmed by Jesus’ sacrificial death to save us. And that goes even as far as to say it doesn’t even have to mean that you believe a word of it, but that a refusal to even give it any time, stance, or room for discussion essentially negates all implied integrity around this declaration of impossibility, inscrutability, or indignation as a defense.
So the question on the floor remains. What if the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ truly has implications for your life, and the way that you view all value of human life? To what extent can you bring yourself to have this discussion, or is it convenient to relegate the supernatural to the dust heap of things too absurd for your dazzling intellect to entertain, much less give your time. Because the implication here is that a created being would have the capacity to perform a dance of logic such that it might out-think its own Creator. I don’t know what your opinion is of the AI tech we’ve developed so far, but I really doubt it’s ever going to look back at us and say, “You don’t exist.” I believe such a system might sooner take seriously the idea of unicorns.
- The Importance of Shedding the “Victim Posture,” site: https://prescottwomanmagazine.com/the-importance-of-shedding-the-victim-posture/, captured 24 September 2022
- Bible Gateway, Matt. 5:38–48, site:https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=ESV, captured 24 September 2022
I’m writing to inspire thought about God, his Son, Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit. If you can support my quest join me here on Medium, https://jusayin-topix.medium.com/membership
