Show Me How to Live

Jesus did not just die for us, but he lived for us.

This thought kept recurring in the broken record of my brain as I was writing a paper on Johann Baptist Metz's "Poverty of Spirit," a neat little book that focuses on the "transcendental neediness" of the human person. While I agree with its core truth - that we are not sufficient unto ourselves, but need something beyond ourselves, whatever name we call it - I noticed a preoccupation with the cross, i.e. the suffering and death of Jesus. This got me thinking about a couple things.

First, I thought about how the cross event is often cast in the light of inevitability, as if it had to happen, as if it were a forgone conclusion. While there is some truth to that, the other side is equally true: that the passion and death of Jesus did not have to happen, but, rather, was a horribly unjust act. He did not just "die for our sins" - he was killed by a political and religious establishment that viewed him to be a dangerous subversive upsetting the social order that served them.  In that sense, he did not have to die, and it was far from just and right that he died.  He did not just die for humanity, but because of humanity.

The second and more pressing thought that came to mind was that putting Jesus' cross and death in the oreground relegates his life and ministry to the background.  In other words, focusing on how he died causes us to miss the lessons to be learned about how he lived.  To paraphrase the song above from Audioslave, Jesus showed us how to live - with courage, love, forgiveness, and trust.  Setting aside the holier-than-thou overtones typical of reflections on the life of Christ, it struck me that Jesus "saved" us not just by his death, but also by his life.

Consider the Gospel stories using Ignatian contemplation (I'm a big fan) with the senses of the imagination, "being there" as Jesus healed the paralytic, cured the lepers, gave sight to the blind, and saved the condemned adulturess from stoning. These and many other "episodes" from Jesus' life teach us how to live "life in full" and be fully human.

So, while there are certainly times to reflect on how Jesus died for us, I'd like to think of how he lived for us, and showed us how to live.  In uncertain times in which I'm dizzied by competing value systems and the ever-spinning hamster wheel of stressed-out American life, I need this Light of the World to illuminate my way more than ever.  It's not just a pious, religious thing, but a human thing.