Benedict/Ratzinger cites 'liberal theology' as theorising that Jesus, having hitherto lived a perfectly normal life in Galilee, at his baptism by John underwent a shattering experience that began his ministry. He condemns this as being the attitude of a 'Jesus novel', and claims that Jesus is above our psychologising, that we should read the whole episode theologically.
He is doubtless right in the major sense. But I do not think that it is either irrelevant or reprehensible that we, as humans reacting to the story of a God who took full humanity upon him, should wonder how he came to the point where, ca. 30 years of age, he began his ministry. And if this is a 'Jesus novel', then so be it: a novel conceived, composed, and read in faith.
I have spent a number of years wondering about, and being fascinated by, the 'lost years' of Jesus, between 13 (in the Temple) and 30 (on the bank of the Jordan). The image that suggests itself to me pleases me but is not therefore necessarily wrong.
It is of a young man much marked by his childhood, much marked by his mother's presence and stories, but otherwise a young carpenter (teenagers worked) of Nazareth; a young Jewish carpenter, i.e. one who not only learnt the trade but learnt to read and spent much of his spare time studying the Scriptures. A little later, say ca. 21 or 22, I suspect he is taking over the shop: he is the eldest son, and Joseph is either retired or already deceased. So he is a young professional craftsman, running a small business -- and reading, reading the scriptures at night, as well as conversing with his mother, who must have been a major presence.
During this time, partly because of the climate of the period, partly because of what Myriam may have told him about his birth, what he reads is especially the passages about the Messiah, and notably those of Deutero-Isaiah, that show a counterintuitive Messiah, a Messiah who is not a conquering king, not a supreme warlord, but a sacrificial lamb, a scapegoat almost, a Messiah who takes upon him, into himself, all the sheer awfulness of crapulous humanity and bears it into the mouth of Hell. And gradually, there must have come upon him as he read these scriptures an awful (in every sense) sense of recognition. My feeling is that the Revelation came upon him gradually, that it stole into his consciousness, that it crept in upon him, until one day, at the age of perhaps 29, he could no longer put it aside or ignore it -- much as he may well have wanted to. The recognition that 'OMG, it's me.' But also the day his regular and devout prayers open, open up a vast space in which at first he is lost, but which then surrounds him like cosmic skin, immeasurably vast and utterly close and intimate at the same time, where he is fully one with the Father he has been praying to and with the Ruach Qadosh who has been doing the praying, through him.
And then, having heard about John the Baptist, he realises that not only must he now go out and live this destiny in the world, but that being baptised by John is the only true and perfect beginning to such a road. He has always been God and man/boy; now he has truly become God and Man. And if Man, then he must, even if he is sinless, join with the sinners who are immersed in the water of the river overhung with trees and skimmed by kingfishers. John, remember, is his cousin; and John too has grown into his destiny. When it is Jesus' turn, he recognises him, both as Cousin Yeshua and as the Meschiach: briefly taken aback, he quickly sees the point. And the heavens open. Were they two the only ones who heard the Voice and saw the dove?
Of course, this is novelistic, in a way. But it is also the cry of human historical inquiry since Ranke: Wie es eigentlich gewesen: What really happened? We want to know, about human events that occurred in this world, what really happened? We wish we could time-travel; we want to have been there. And it is very hard, if not impossible, for us not to think that the only alternative to 'this really happened' is 'this didn't happen, at least not in this way.' And that if we are told, as in the ancient Catalan beginning of tales, 'Aixa era y no era', 'this was and was not, that we are being told a fiction, something made up.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons so many modern people have turned away from religion: because we have lost the particular scale of reality it demands. A scale where what we are told is true, the form in which it is expressed is true, it is not fiction, yet it did not happen in the way that this morning's subway ride happened. It is this truth that Genmesis expresses; it is this truth that Revelations communicates; it is this truth that the story of Jesus' baptism offers us.
Perhaps -- to continue the inquiry -- this is one of the reasons, if not the main one, that we are told to become as little children. A child at a certain age does not distinguish between truth and happoening: the stories you tell him make sense, that is all and that is enough. We all experience our children's or our grandchildren's first questioning of Father Christmas as somehow a fall from grace; and this, while inevitable, is also true. The child now begins to believe that there is a difference between truth and fiction, and that truth resides in happening. Only much later, if he is fortunate, does he relearn a sort of unity, when he is taught that fiction can contain important truths; but in that educated-adult universe, its fictionality remains. What Jesus teaches us is that what we need to be close to his, and our, Father is to regain the pre-factual sense of truth.
How to do this? That was Nicodemus's question. How can an adult become a child again? Isn't it against nature? No: it's against culture, not against nature. What we have to do is to allow ourselves to be children again. Nature will let us do this; culture disapproves. Rereading Genesis, we allow ourselves to be thrilled all over again, unquestioningly, by the image of the Spirit of God brooding over the waters. We react with absolute simplicity and enthusiasm to the story of Abraham making lunch for the angels. We see the three Children of Israel in the fiery furnace, and shiver at the fleeting vision of a fourth. And while we do so, the truth is silently building in our minds and hearts an edifice: a synagogue that can allow truth to be transmitted, a temple that can receive Emmanuel.
Benedict/Ratzinger says, and he is right, that the texts tell us nothing about Jesus's years between 13 and 30; he also says, and there I'm not sure he is right for everyone, that that means we should not try to go beyond the texts but read therm as they were intended to be read: as a young Church's attempt to make sense of the life, the death, and the resurrection of the Messiah. Again, I believe that ultimately he is right in this; but proximately I believe that a fragmentary 'Jesus novel', if conceived and received in faith, may have the virtue of helping us be, or become again, the children our daily lives and even our serious religion all too often disallow.
No comments:
Post a Comment