IT’S AN OMNIPOTENTBLOG CHRISTMAS!

Before there was the tour de force/world power that is Omnipotentblog, there was an obnoxious teenager that pondered questions like, “Why pray to Jesus? Isn’t he the #2? Isn’t he, like, God Jr.?” Then I matured (sort of) and kind of figured it out. But then I came across this:

What is your level of spiritual understanding?

A. What’s the Trinity?

B. I know a little bit about the Trinity.

C. I think I understand the Trinity.

D. I don’t understand the Trinity at all.

A friend cautioned once that if you think about the incarnation too much, you become Catholic. I’m not worried. But long ago I came to believe Catholics have it right in one respect: The crucifix is way better than the Protestants’ barren cross. Aesthetically, it’s macabre and artistic. That’s enough. But I also never understood the big deal about the resurrection. Jesus was God. God cannot die. It wasn’t a miracle; it was a foregone conclusion. But the thought that God, or a piece of God or God’s co-equal partner or….something, would leave Heaven where the temperature is always perfect and where, presumably, his favorite snacks were always on hand to become a dirty human, is unimaginable.

 

We’re comfortable thinking about Christ’s divinity, but what about his humanity? In an era with no showers and a dearth of hygiene products, the Lord of heaven and earth would come out of a woman’s body covered in the usual stuff and land in Joseph’s unwashed hands in a barn filled with the sounds and smells of animals pooping. The God of creation became a helpless baby who needed to suckle at his mother’s breast. God….GOD…couldn’t walk. He needed his bum wiped. Did he potty train early? Did he have childhood friends? And when they played kickball, did they complain of his being a stickler for the rules? Challenging authority and testing limits are natural parts of child development. Did Jesus go through the Terrible Two’s? Did Jesus ever need discipline at all? He was without sin. But Isaiah 7 says there will be a time when the boy messiah does not yet know “…to reject the wrong and choose the right.” This suggests an age of moral accountability. Jews now mark it with a Barmitzvah.

There is often an image of Jesus that runs through Christians’ minds, something like this:

 

 
Or maybe this:

 

But what about these?

 

 

"Buddy Christ"

 

The first is from a miniseries that showed Jesus running and laughing and splashing water on Peter. The second is sacrilege, of course, but was Jesus a good buddy? Probably. Did Jesus have a sense of humor? Why not? There’s been a lot of funny Jews. Why wouldn’t the best Jew ever be funny? If so, what kind of jokes would Jesus tell? Nothing racist or dirty, of course. Knock-knock jokes? But what about his looks? Was he good looking? Messianic prophecy Isaiah 53:2 says, “…He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

Some scholars say he probably looked like this. (Notice the confused look they gave him.)

 

Jesus healed others. What about Himself? Did he ever catch a cold? Did he have bad breath? Cavities? Did he ever hit his thumb with a hammer or get calluses? We know he rested and fled the crowds so he wasn’t super human. Did he ever get food poisoning or have bad gas and then when Andrew said, “Jesus! Was that you?” Jesus said, “He who smelleth it first…” Or maybe He laughed and blamed it on Judas.

The moment of Jesus’ baptism when the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove is interesting. Why then? Did he not have the Spirit before? Was that the moment of his spiritual maturation, the fullness of his divinity? Was it just symbolic? If so, why have Jesus go through a maturation process at all?

Martin Scorsese underscored Jesus’ humanity in “The Last Temptation of Christ”. The controversy was that Jesus, suffering on the cross, wondered what it would be like to reject His role as suffering savior and live as a man, marrying a woman and having relations with her. Christians went berserk. Jesus’ fantasy sex scene, mild as it was, was certainly shocking. But the idea itself is only blasphemous if all sexual thought is lust. Is it? Isn’t the sex drive a natural, God-given desire that, like all desires, can be perverted? Now, the line where Jesus mentions John’s tongue being in his mouth, that was ridiculous. But we know Jesus was so terrified of crucifixion, he sweat blood. Is it so inconceivable he didn’t have thoughts of rejecting it all and living a normal life? “Take this cup…Yet, not my will, but Yours be done.”

Christmas should make us ponder the whole glorious and mysterious nature of God. In C.S. Lewis’ “Miracles”, (which, admittedly, Omnipotentblog was too dumb to fully digest) he brings up some interesting questions. After the resurrection, what was Jesus’ actual “substance”? That he could eat fish yet disappear and walk through walls suggests a state other than purely physical or spiritual. Was the Transfiguration a preview of this state, of the new bodies we will have in heaven? Also, if God exists outside of time, which itself is a creation of God, what was Jesus’ reason for existence any time other than the incarnation? What do the Son and the Father “do” if it is the Holy Spirit that interacts with humans now?

Also, as we celebrate the birth of Immanuel-God with us, maybe we should consider not just his death as a sacrifice, but really his whole life. To be human is to be in pain. When life seems nothing but drudgery or intolerable grief and loneliness, Jesus went through worse. Yes, others were crucified. But none experienced the world’s sin on their shoulders and, after having had perfect communion with the Father, was then abandoned. “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” he shouted.

Ben Franklin, in his old age, once said he didn’t bother trying to figure out whether Jesus was divine anymore. He would see God very soon and he was excited to find out. But what was Jesus like when he was 16? And why the incarnation at all? And the whole Triune nature of God? What’s up with that? Presumably, Omnipotentblog has a ways to go. But I can’t wait to ask Him.

TURD FERGUSON

In a classic Saturday Night Live skit, Burt Reynolds, played by Norm MacDonald, insists Alex Trebek call him “Turd Ferguson” during a game of Jeopardy, because "it’s funny". Ferguson, Missouri? Not so much.

The riots were troubling but as long as there are people there will be riots. As Morgan Freeman in “The Dark Knight” says, “Some people just wanna see things burn”. Omnipotentblog’s four year-old son destroys any tower of blocks above 12 inches. His glee is a little disturbing but this destructive instinct is present in most boys. Watch any movie guy movie and count the explosions. One witness to the riots stated he saw a bunch of teenage boys running around having the time of their lives.

 What almost brought Omnipotentblog to tears wasn’t the small businesses in flames; It was a single interview. After the grand jury’s announcement of no indictment for the officer that killed Michael Brown, Fox’s Megan Kelly spoke to black radio personality Richard Fowler. St. Louis prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, had just finished laying out the evidence for 45 minutes. The physical evidence? Brown wasn’t shot in the back or while his hands were up. Brown had touched the officer’s gun, which had been fired in the car. A trail of blood led away from the officer, then back towards him. The witnesses? Most who alleged the officer murdered Brown were contradicted by the physical evidence or their own statements. Some admitted they hadn’t even seen what happened. Three black witnesses corroborated the officer’s story completely. What happened? Brown punched the officer, tried to grab his gun, ran away, then turned around and charged the officer, who shot and killed him. In a highly unusual and transparent move, all the evidence and testimony were released to the public. Omnipotentblog listened to the entire 45 minutes. It was solid, open/shut. But an outraged Fowler completely ignored the entire body of evidence and ranted about the murderous injustice of it all. Evidence be damned.

That the sheer weight of evidence can by so easily dismissed to favor a chosen narrative is utterly depressing. The truth just doesn’t matter. After the verdict came the usual clown parade, of course: Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Their criticisms were petty and procedural. That was predictable but when the head of the Congressional Black Caucus said on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives that this decision means cops can kill black people with “impunity”, it is a sad day for the country. 

Did activists apologize about George Zimmerman after they saw the pictures of his broken nose and busted head? No. Did they apologize to the Duke Lacrosse team after it was proven they were innocent of raping a black girl? No. Have they ever apologized for their outrage over any of the fake racism scandals, about two hundred of which are listed here? No. What they mean by justice is very different than what most of us mean. Justice, for them, is for groups. Justice is reparative, makes up for past ills. It balances the equation, redistributes wealth. Usually, justice means a person gets what they deserve. The guilty get punished. The innocent don't. But notice the left rarely uses the term “justice” alone. It is always “social” justice, “economic” justice, “racial” justice, “environmental” justice. You can be certain that when “justice” is preceded by another word, it is not justice.

 

The world is not a just place. The proof is that a man like Al Sharpton occupies such an exalted position. This is the man who gained fame when Tawana Brawley accused white men of a brutal and disgusting rape. Brawley and Sharpton later lost a defamation suit because…she made it up. Sharpton also incited riots that ended in the burning of Jewish stores and the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum after a Jew accidentally ran over a black kid. Sharpton has made many, many racist comments over the years and now it’s come out that he’s a tax cheat. His organization owes 4.5 million in taxes. But he goes to the Whitehouse to advise the president. His heart must be in the right place.

A recent caller to the Michael Medved show ranted about the evils of America. What country is better? “The one that doesn’t exist yet”. And there it is. Liberals hate conservatives because we stand in the way of utopia, the Great Society where everyone will finally come together as one people. Conservatives, filled with fear about the future, are stuck in the past. It's the visionary, smart liberals who know how to create this brave new world (Obamacare anyone?). So, the riots from Ferguson and other unfortunate incidents are because of two things. 1. So many black people really believe in the total ubiquity of white racism. It’s an easy scapegoat. The alternative of owning the sicknesses in their community like anti-intellectualism and the epidemic of absent fathers is too painful. 2. The entire political strategy of the left rests on the underclass being in a constant state of agitation, believing the group on top hates them. Blacks aren't wrong about a racist America; They're just hopelessly behind the times. It's only been a generation since the Civil Rights act but times have changed. Racism has been chased, as Mark Davis states in “The Real Lessons Of Ferguson”, into the dark, attitudinal caves where it belongs. Despite this truth, African Americans are used and manipulated in the most condescending, patronizing ways by Democratic elites to maintain power. Paranoid, you say? Read Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. It’s one of the most cynical things you will ever read. Hillary Clinton and Obama were both disciples.

Booker T. Washington said, “There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public…these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” After it was evident Brawley lied, Sharpton brushed it off. His partner stated, "I don't care 'bout no facts. I'm not going to pursue it legally. I'm going to pursue it politically." Sharpton stated, “We beat this, we’ll be the biggest niggers in New York”. But Sharpton is more than just a huckster. He probably does care about black people and, like many good leftists, he’s a true believer. Obama’s former chief of staff said it well: “Never let a crisis go to waste”. You see, when there’s a revolution to be had, you can’t let the facts get in the way.