The Bubbha’s Frontporch

By many accounts, Jesus of Nazareth was a perfect being. God incarnate on this very living Earth. Walking amongst mortal sinful retched mankind. Immaculately conceived in the womb of Mary. I like to think that Mary was asleep when this happened. You know…sneaky like. God touched an egg of Mary and that egg had Mary/God DNA? Or all of God’s DNA? Does God have DNA? Well, if he does you can be sure that that his genes are dominant. Either way Jesus is God made flesh. Sinless in every way. Or “perfect” as we have heard.

In this context I must pose the question: what is the vision in our minds of this perfection? In first addressing this question I am compelled to say that everyone in some way and to some degree projects their values upon Christ. I guess that’s really the difference between Christ and Jesus. Christ is the mythological type (hero-figure) and Jesus is the guy. Christ is the sinless god/man with the flowing robes and a halo glowing about is long brown locks. Jesus was a carpenter, said some cool stuff, and was killed for being a heretic. When I was a Christian..i thought of Christ, now that I’m not…I think of Jesus. I think about this dude that is such an enigmatic and impactful figure in history.

Perfectionism. I think most of us would agree that this isn’t the same as being perfect. Its the constant struggle to attain perfection. But if you think about people you know that you call perfectionists, they really don’t screw up that often. But we’re talking about a morality issue here, not whether you misspell a word or spill a glass of water. Still is there anything more annoying than a perfectionist? I don’t think Jesus would have attracted a following if he had been a perfectionist. Which opens a huge door of speculation on some traits that Jesus may have possessed that many wouldn’t regard as “godly.”

First off, do you think Jesus was an awesome carpenter? Everyone talks about Jesus being a carpenter by trade, but somewhere around his 30th birthday he drops his mallet and hits the road. Maybe Jesus sucked at carpentry. “I got this stable that needs built and the only guy that’s able to do it that Jesus fella.” “I wouldn’t trust my oxen in there with a Jesus-built.” And what do you think: Day-laborer or independent contractor? I hope he gave 2 weeks noticed before he convinced some other guys to quit their jobs too. They had bigger fish to fry I suppose. Its not a sin to be a bad carpenter, but this is the kind of assumption that people make subconsciously: Jesus was a great carpenter.

Now we come to the whole purpose of writing this page…wild speculation! OK, here’s some things that one wouldn’t consider perfect God/Man traits, but at the same time wouldn’t be considered sin. Here goes: bad breath, annoying high-pitched laugh, close talker, nail biter, huge farts after supper, or said “um, like” all the time. But its not fair to say all this stuff without saying equally flattering things about him too…

But I’m not going to do that. Just remember this… when you go around saying I believe Jesus was a man. That he was a man like the rest of us. Imperfect and perfectly human.