Who was Jesus? This is the question that stands at the center of our faith and our history. We believe Jesus is the Son of God who came down to earth to become part of the human race. In a profound act of love, the Creator decided to become the creature.
But we must be very clear about the nature of this arrival: Jesus came for the human being. Everything else—religion, country, language, and social status—came after. These are what we might call the “accidentals” of history. The “essential” is humankind. God attached supreme importance to humanity, while man has attached supreme importance to everything else.
This is the great reversal of our spiritual lives. We tend to focus on the rules, the regulations, the boundaries, and the labels we have created. Our worldview is limited by what we know and what we have constructed to make ourselves feel secure. But God’s worldview is limited only by what God knows—which is all of us, without exception. If we do not grasp this, we will continue to mistake the accidentals for the essentials and the essentials for the accidentals.
To recognize the dignity of a human being, we must understand what Jesus came here for. To understand human worth, we must see what God sees in each of us. This is the litmus test for the believer: If you find a human being—no matter their politics, their country, their language, their color, or their creed—you have found the person for whom Jesus came.
The scriptures bear witness to this universal reach of divine love:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son...” (John 3:16). Note that it does not say God so loved the “religious” or the “citizens,” but the world.
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This is the dismantling of the accidentals in favor of the essential unity of the human family.
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). His mission was defined not by boundary lines, but by the shared human condition of need.
What Jesus preached was justice, kindness, mercy, honesty, and forgiveness. These are the virtues the world has misplaced as “unimportant” or “weak.” In their place, the world has elevated power, arrogance, and domination as the most important goals.
Today, I invite you to see the “politics of Jesus.” His politics will always side with the human being. As the Suffering Servant, He attached Himself to the poor, being born as one and dying as one. We must never forget that real politics is the art of relationship—a sacred exchange in which the “other” is served so that the best in everyone can be achieved.
As the mystic Meister Eckhart once said: “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.” We must subtract the labels to find the human.
And as St. Catherine of Siena whispered: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” God meant for you to be a human being, reflecting the divine image, free from the accidentals that divide us.
Reflect with me and share your thoughts in the comments!
What “accidental” labels (political, national, or religious) have I allowed to become more important to me than the “essential” humanity of my neighbor?
If I were to view every person I meet today through the “litmus test” of the Incarnation, how would my interactions change?
How can I practice the “politics of Jesus” by prioritizing a relationship of service over the pursuit of power or being “right”?
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.