The question and arguments raged for decades. There were thoughts, opinions, theological treatises on both sides and there was a “council”, what we would call a ‘Vatican Council’ , the Council of Nicea ( 425 CE ). The decisions? Jesus was both fully human and fully Divine. Jesus was not play acting his humanity.
Just as Hebrew Scriptures do not paint things with a blind brush so as to minimize how humans really can and do acts at times, this passage from John is quite telling. This reading shows the depth of agony and sadness Jesus felt at the death of his friend Lazarus. If we look further we can see other examples of downright human behavior and emotion coming from Jesus. Overturning merchants’ tables in the temple was not a casual and planned event. Jesus was angry. Sadness and anger are two very powerful very human emotions. The scene of the young John with his head resting on Jesus’ chest at the last supper is another touching human emotional moment. I am certain of even more and more still not fully documented.
There are times I need to know the fullness of Jesus’ Divinity. There are are perhaps more times that I take great comfort in the knowledge that Jesus felt all of the emotions and feelings that I feel. I wonder in all sincerity, does Jesus know what it is like to be gay? I think he may. More important is the common bond we share in his humanity and my however small but latent divinity.
Thank you Jesus for embracing humanity and granting us a share in your divinity.
John 11:28-44
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’
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