just like us

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek." Heb 5:7-10

I read this last night and it rocked me:

"Speaking of Jesus' vocation brings us to quite a different place from some traditional statements of gospel christology. 'Awareness of vocation' is by no means the same thing as Jesus having the sort of 'supernatural' awareness of himself, of Israel's god, and of the relation between the two of them, such as is often envisaged by those who, concerned to maintain a 'high' christology, place it within an eighteenth-century context of implicit Deism where one can maintain Jesus' 'divinity' only by holding some form of docetism. Jesus did not in other words, 'know that he was God' in the same way that one knows one is male or female, hungry or thirsty, or that one ate an orange an hour ago. His 'knowledge' was of a more risky, but perhaps more significant, sort: like knowing one is loved. One cannot 'prove' it except by living by it. Jesus' prophetic vocation thus included within it the vocation to enact, symbolically, the return of YHWH to Zion. His messianic vocation included within it the vocation to attempt certain tasks which, according to scripture, YHWH had reserved for himself. He would take upon himself the role of messianic shepherd, knowing that YHWH had claimed this role as his own. He would perform the saving task which YHWH had alone said he could achieve. He would do what no messenger, no angel, but only the 'arm of YHWH', the presence of Israel's god, could accomplish. As part of his human vocation, grasped in faith, sustained in prayer, tested in confrontation, agonized over in further prayer and doubt, and implemented in action, he believed he had to do and be, for Israel and the world, that which according to scripture only YHWH himself could do and be. He was Israel's Messiah; but there would, in the end, be 'no king but God'.

I suggest, in short, that the return of YHWH to Zion, and the temple theology that it brings into focus, are the deepest keys and clues to gospel christology. Forget the 'titles' of Jesus, at least for a moment; forget the pseudo-orthodox attempts to make Jesus of Nazareth conscious of being the second person of the Trinity; forget the reductionism that is the mirror image of that unthinking would-be orthodoxy. Focus, instead, on a young Jewish prophet telling a story about YHWH returning to Zion as judge and redeemer, and then embodying it by riding into the city in tears, symbolizing the the Temple's destruction and celebrating the final exodus."
N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 653

I hesitate to add anything. Only that I would invite you to think of Jesus in the garden on the night that he was betrayed. Meditate on the tears that he shed. Go deep into his agony and anxiety. That was real. That was familiar. The struggle of faith. The knowledge that one is loved by God and the risk and danger of living accordingly.

Docetism is the heretical belief that Jesus was not really human but that instead he only appeared that way. A clever and convenient disguise that God put on so that he could lay the smack down and teach us pithy moral maxims and timeless theological truths. The degree to which my own understanding of Jesus' humanity has been influenced by a pseudo-orthodox docetism is perverse.

"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:16-21

Jesus heard that voice. He knew that he was loved. He knew that his life pleased God. But on the night he was betrayed his agony was such that he shed tears of blood. The 'word of the prophets made more certain' that Peter speaks of is Jesus. The dark place, that he speaks of is this world, this present evil age. The word rendered dark place is the word αυχμηρος and this is the only place in the NT that it occurs. That does not make it significant, but I love the way that it describes the world in which we live. The world that is subjected to the reign of Sin and Death. Where truth and especially the knowledge of God can only penetrate the thick darkness like shafts of light descending into the ocean. The NET Bible translates αυχμηρος as murky place. When Jesus humiliated himself and became one of us, part of his humiliation was subjecting himself to living in this murky place. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, who doesn't understand what it is like to live in this murky place, where the knowledge of the love of God is distorted, so let us look to him for encouragement and let us "draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:16