Jesus the Human.
I am a healer. By healing others, I will heal myself.
And when I heal myself, I will contribute to healing the world.
I describe the archetype of the wounded healer.
Because I am aligned with my future healing practice, I interact with other wounded healers.
I have a family full of wounded healers. I choose partners that are wounded healers.
Most importantly and most inspiring to me, my Savior, Jesus Christ, is also a wounded healer.
He was never a sinner.
All my life I have heard about Jesus' divinity while he was human-- that he was just like us but did not sin. That he was tempted and tried by Satan, but he prevailed.
He was not even tempted to be tempted. The lesson was that because we are human, like Jesus once was, we can withstand evil too.
These messages were inspiring at that time, but then children grow older;
our bodies change, and we realize that temptation initiates a destination of pleasure and the desire for such pleasure. It appears good, then distorts what is good.
We then turn carnal and animalistic, and then the inspiring lesson about Jesus's divinity while human becomes complicated.
We fail and give into this cycle of redemption and repentance
And the contemporary church condemns and preaches about our filthy flesh.
We do not receive lessons about perseverance as Jesus had through these trials,
neither do we get a "job well done" to the Christ-follower who actually lived his or her life right that week.
We leave feeling more unworthy and dirty than we already felt coming in.
We realize that we aren't good enough to resist temptation.
Contemporary churches tell us that we do not have to be perfect, yet expects us to be.
So this has irked me lately.
I listen to contemporary gospel music, and I have been getting irritated with all the songs talking about Jesus's divinity while human.
The old lesson was getting dull for me, and it was being beaten into the ground.
Yeah he was human and he did not give in, but he is the Son of God. We are definitely not.
Then one day I asked Jesus to show me how he was human.
I asked him to show me how he struggled in the human body. If he were human, he had to have struggled. How would a young man, or even boy for that matter, deal with knowing a brutal death awaited him? How did he deal with this struggle?
I asked Jesus and the universe to show me his humanness.
They answered loud and clear.
I was guided to read a book in the Bible called Hebrews during this time. The book immediately began talking about how Jesus was born into the seed of Abraham. He came to Earth in God's specific form as a child. At this point, he was neither angel nor human-- just in between divine and human.
So, as a human, he was given the gift of free will.
This is why Jesus had to practice obedience:
he lived on this earth, had feelings, and went through natural life cycles of adolescence, puberty, young adulthood as well as birth and death.
So how did Jesus deal with the knowledge of his inevitable fate?
God pointed me to Hebrews 4:7 where this passage talks of Jesus offering prayers and "strong crying" to God, his Father, who was the "Only One" able to save him. I interpreted this recording to have happened when Jesus was younger.
I understood this as he was fearful and anxious, which are very human feelings and emotions.
When he did not understand, he cried out to God, and to cope, Jesus listened.
He obeyed his father's divine command, and he learned the lessons God was able to teach him because he was willing.
He was willing to suffer, as Hebrews 13:12 tells us, "without the gate."
Whereas previous ways of cleansing sin dealt with sacrificing animals, Jesus was told to sacrifice himself. And he did.
If animals once were good enough to offer repentance, why would not the son of God be worthy for the rest of time?
Animals had to be kept behind a gate. They were unwillingly captured before they could reach the freedom that was beyond the gate. They were forced to die as a sacrifice.
But Jesus had no gate. There was no force to make him choose to die.
His humanness was his choice to live his life according to God's plan. He used his free will in the best interest of all humanity. He saw the bigger picture and his inevitable brutal murder, but he chose day by day to live in the moment, as a human, and perform his miracles, teachings, and mercy.
Jesus did have the choice to be selfish and refuse to endure the pain like his persecutors taunted him to do.
But he did not. He endured brutality in his time on this earth so that he could receive his blessing in Heaven and to save us all, if we would accept.
Finally, the lesson that I forgot was that Jesus felt the pain of his death. He had pain receptors and nerve endings, and he felt every blow. He felt every wound.
For us, he chose these things.
He knew what he had to offer and what he had to do for this world, so he endured. He was willing for us.
He had a choice, and he chose us. What a wonderful Savior indeed.
And when I heal myself, I will contribute to healing the world.
I describe the archetype of the wounded healer.
Because I am aligned with my future healing practice, I interact with other wounded healers.
I have a family full of wounded healers. I choose partners that are wounded healers.
Most importantly and most inspiring to me, my Savior, Jesus Christ, is also a wounded healer.
He was never a sinner.
All my life I have heard about Jesus' divinity while he was human-- that he was just like us but did not sin. That he was tempted and tried by Satan, but he prevailed.
He was not even tempted to be tempted. The lesson was that because we are human, like Jesus once was, we can withstand evil too.
These messages were inspiring at that time, but then children grow older;
our bodies change, and we realize that temptation initiates a destination of pleasure and the desire for such pleasure. It appears good, then distorts what is good.
We then turn carnal and animalistic, and then the inspiring lesson about Jesus's divinity while human becomes complicated.
We fail and give into this cycle of redemption and repentance
And the contemporary church condemns and preaches about our filthy flesh.
We do not receive lessons about perseverance as Jesus had through these trials,
neither do we get a "job well done" to the Christ-follower who actually lived his or her life right that week.
We leave feeling more unworthy and dirty than we already felt coming in.
We realize that we aren't good enough to resist temptation.
Contemporary churches tell us that we do not have to be perfect, yet expects us to be.
So this has irked me lately.
I listen to contemporary gospel music, and I have been getting irritated with all the songs talking about Jesus's divinity while human.
The old lesson was getting dull for me, and it was being beaten into the ground.
Yeah he was human and he did not give in, but he is the Son of God. We are definitely not.
Then one day I asked Jesus to show me how he was human.
I asked him to show me how he struggled in the human body. If he were human, he had to have struggled. How would a young man, or even boy for that matter, deal with knowing a brutal death awaited him? How did he deal with this struggle?
I asked Jesus and the universe to show me his humanness.
They answered loud and clear.
I was guided to read a book in the Bible called Hebrews during this time. The book immediately began talking about how Jesus was born into the seed of Abraham. He came to Earth in God's specific form as a child. At this point, he was neither angel nor human-- just in between divine and human.
So, as a human, he was given the gift of free will.
This is why Jesus had to practice obedience:
he lived on this earth, had feelings, and went through natural life cycles of adolescence, puberty, young adulthood as well as birth and death.
So how did Jesus deal with the knowledge of his inevitable fate?
God pointed me to Hebrews 4:7 where this passage talks of Jesus offering prayers and "strong crying" to God, his Father, who was the "Only One" able to save him. I interpreted this recording to have happened when Jesus was younger.
I understood this as he was fearful and anxious, which are very human feelings and emotions.
When he did not understand, he cried out to God, and to cope, Jesus listened.
He obeyed his father's divine command, and he learned the lessons God was able to teach him because he was willing.
He was willing to suffer, as Hebrews 13:12 tells us, "without the gate."
Whereas previous ways of cleansing sin dealt with sacrificing animals, Jesus was told to sacrifice himself. And he did.
If animals once were good enough to offer repentance, why would not the son of God be worthy for the rest of time?
Animals had to be kept behind a gate. They were unwillingly captured before they could reach the freedom that was beyond the gate. They were forced to die as a sacrifice.
But Jesus had no gate. There was no force to make him choose to die.
His humanness was his choice to live his life according to God's plan. He used his free will in the best interest of all humanity. He saw the bigger picture and his inevitable brutal murder, but he chose day by day to live in the moment, as a human, and perform his miracles, teachings, and mercy.
Jesus did have the choice to be selfish and refuse to endure the pain like his persecutors taunted him to do.
But he did not. He endured brutality in his time on this earth so that he could receive his blessing in Heaven and to save us all, if we would accept.
Finally, the lesson that I forgot was that Jesus felt the pain of his death. He had pain receptors and nerve endings, and he felt every blow. He felt every wound.
For us, he chose these things.
He knew what he had to offer and what he had to do for this world, so he endured. He was willing for us.
He had a choice, and he chose us. What a wonderful Savior indeed.
