THE CHRIST OF HISTORY
The Everyman Christ
The need to "make sense" out of our sufferings
and actions is deeply human. Apparently men everywhere and in every time
have sensed themselves as pilgrims looking for a way to really live in
this world. In the language of the poet, EVERYMAN quests after some light,
way, truth, door. More or less awarely, he searches for a bread or word
of life. He dwells in hope that some tomorrowwill bring a delivering
power, an illuminating story, some saving event, a final blessedness. When
that day comes, so he dreams, then surely in so me way the essence of life
and the living of it will be different. All peoples have forged signs and
symbols of this human characteristic. For the Hebrews of old, one such
image was the coming "anointed one," the Messiah, translated
into the Greek as the Christ.
The Messianic hope of EVERYMAN is born out of his experience
of the limitations of existence. His encounter with the unknowns, ambiguities,
sufferings and deaths of this world discloses his insecurity. This primordial
anxiety breeds the Messiah image. Watch him, as he is thrown up against
his finitude, become a seeker after some truth which will overcome the
unbearable incomprehensibles of life. Watch him search, however subtly,
for the justification which will alleviate his sense of insignificance.
Watch him relentlessly strive for a peace which will somehow blot out his
lucid awareness of the tragic dimension of life. One senses in this spectacle
a creature vainly striving to rise above his creaturely limits. Finding
his givenness burdensome beyond bearing, he dreams of discovering some
other kind of a world. indeed he already has a different world for he literally
exists in his present hopes about the future. Thereby he escapes his actual
life in the Now. His very meaning is his anticipation that some tomorrow
will render his situation quite different. On that day the ultimate key
will come clear; the final excuse for his existence will emerge and true
contentment will bathe his being. Then shall he truly live, so he imagines,
delivered from this present world of uncertainty, unfulfillment and anxiety.
Such a lifequest is an experience, I submit, that all of us are quite
privy to. Men dwell sometimes very explicitly, most times quite vaguely,
in great expectations of that which will relieve them of the necessity
of living their given life in the present situation. This great hope. whatever
its form, is the CHRIST OF EVERYMAN.
The Jesus of Nazareth
The New Testament age opens with the Jews, like E V ER
Y M AN, expecting the Christ. Of course, they were doing so out of their
concrete historical memory. The Christ quest is always tied to specific
life situations. It was into this particular Jewish yearning, around the
beginning of the first century, that one Jesus intruded. It might have
been, in an abstract sense, Herman of Hebbronville or Jones of Smithville.
But it was not. It was this fellow Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee. Very little
detail is directly known about this man. But as all of us do, he lived
a life and died a death. It was to be sure, his life that he lived and
his death that he died. This is the most important for it was in the midst
of these very definite historical occurrences, as they disturbed the hopes
of Israel, that the New Testament happening of Christ took place.
Perhaps the core of the issue could be put something like
this: a very specific man lived a very specific life and for that specific
life, died a very specific death. Somehow in these concretions the deeps
of human existence became exposed. A man got born, lived his life, and
experienced death even as you and I do. Yet there was a plus. Not a metaphysical
plus, but what might be termed a plus in specifics. I mean hc lived a life
essentially like that of anyone else, save he seemed to really live his.
However, one chooses to account for it: special mutations of genes, unusual
neurotic tendencies, peculiar environmental influences. unique occurrences
of lucidity is all quite beside my concern at the moment. Here was one
who apparently not only lived, but li·e~l his living. He appropriated
his life as an unqualified gift and bore it as a significant mission. The
gi\'enne.s.s ot creaturely living appeared to him to be the very meaning
of it. Indeed he kept saying that what everyone is looking lor is very
much AT HAND.
EVERYMAN, here in Jewish guise. was understandably disconcerted by the style of this unknown and everyday stranger. The very point is that Jesus collided with the lives of all he encountered. He invaded. broke into, penetrated their worlds, leaving them painfully unsettled. To the proud he seemed humble and they were threatened. If men hated life, he loved it. To those who hung desperately onto living, he appeared
nonchalant about it all. If they thought of life as detachment,
he was utterly involved. If their living was a bondage, he was too obviously
free. Where men were other directed, he was independent. When they were
confidently self-determining, he seemed lost in loyalties. To conservatives
he was manifestly revolutionary; he impressed the radicals as a reactionary.
Obviously, the life of such a human being would be in jeopardy. When men's
lives are audited to the quick, either they must redo their lives,
or destroy the occasion of the audit. Jesus was executed.
Death comes to all men. So it had to come in some fashion
to Jesus of Nazareth. The specifics are what concern us. A life that was
in some way reallr lived, drove men to destroy it. Let this be said again.
Precisely because his living somehow exhibited the way life actually is,
men felt he had to be removed. Rulers saw him as a danger to society. The
hierarchy feared him as a menace to religion. The strange irony here uncovers
a tragic inversion in human history. There is yet another important concretion.
The man of Galilee embraced death as he embraced life. Call it the slaughter
of the innocent or thc miscarriage of justice; call it murder or mistake;
call it social expedience or the intervention of fate; however, and whatever,
he took unto himself his death without malice as a part of the givenness
of his life. Not that he sought death. But when it came, and as it came,
he died it as significant. In consequence, there was a compounding of disturbance.
His dying as his living, was disquieting.
In some such fashion did the life and death of an unknown,
Jesus of Nazarcth protrude into the history and the hope of Israel, and
therefore into the life of EVERYMAN. But this is not yet the end. nor even
the finally important aspect of the tale.
The JesusChrist Event
In the midst of the happenings surrounding Jesus, some individuals were seized by a radically new possibility for living in this world. Incredible as it was to the many, a few actually raised the question of Christ in connection with Jesus. This moves us to the heart of the matter. To really hear this question is to sense an absolutely unbelievable twist in the Christ symbol. The very lifeimage of the Jews; their very
existence, their very history was cut to the marrow by
the question: /s Jesus the Christ? Quite understandably. they reacted to
it as scandalous, Because it was a scandal, crucial decisions had to be
made. Here are the keys to the New Testament Christ happening: scandal
and decision.
The scandal is clearly manifest in the broad picture.
The EVERYMAN CHRIST for the Jews was oncretized in the anticipated coming
of a mighty king or cosmic figure who would fulfill the corporate dreams
of Israel. Patently, such a figure Jesus was not. He came a helpless babe
in a feeding trough. He left a pitiful personage on the state gallows.
7hi.s have to do with Messiah? How ridiculous! Indeed, the in light of
the sacred hopes, it was blasphemous.
Now the offense of the Jew is the offense of EVERY MAN. The question about Jesus insinuates an unmitigated revolution in human selfperception. The distressing implication is that life is not in the future; it is in the present. It is not in some other circumstances; it is those at hand; it is not to be sought after, it is already given. Obviously this cuts across the notions to which everyman has attached his being. The
s: one who seeks to escape his present situation as meaningless
must certainly be outraged by the hint that the final meaning is to receive
that very situation. Those who look to tomorrow to solve the riddle will
surely feel affronted before the intimation that the ultimate solution
is living the Now. This is the elemental scandal in the Jesus question.
The point needs to be underlined. If the selfunderstanding
which broke into history surrounding the living and dying of one Jesus
is to be designated by the term Christ, then very evidently a radical eruption
has occurred in history through a complete inversion of the Christ symbol.
This is not just an addition to or an alteration of. The total image of
life is disputed. In truth, it is literally turned upside down. That is,
the scandal is cataclysmic and universal. Concisely, what we shall call
the JESUS !~: CHRIST mortally assaults the EVERYMANCHRIST.
The JESUS CHRIST fronts man with the awareness that there is no messiah and never will be one, and furthermore, that this very reality is the Messiah. This must not, however, be understood as an intellectual abstraction. It is rather a happening, that meets men in the midst of their living. Indeed the fronting is experienced as death itself. For to receive the JESUSCHRIST is to put an end to my Christ quest; it is to
surrender my very life stance; it means that I must die
to my very self. Or better still, my self must die. The threat of the JESUSCHRIST
is now unmasked as the thereat of death. The scandal. as experienced. is
that I must choose to die.
The drama of this deciding unto death permeates the New
Testament. This is certainly to be expected. For decision is a rudimentary
component of the New Testament Christ happening and a necessary consequence
of the Christ offense. Those seized by the scandal of the Jesus question
could not avoid an answer. One way or the other they had to decide. Life
decisions are always compelled by the disturbance of life modes. But the
choice was not apprehended as just another choice. It was understood as
the elemental one and this. precisely because the above scandal was the
ultimate assault upon the world of EVERYMAN. In short, the great and final
divide of all human decisions is located in tt~e strange New Testament
question: Is Jesus the Christ'?
The response demanded and the only one that could be demanded
was a simple yea or nay. There is no possible third option, no middle ground;
no perhaps. Not even a delay is thinkable. For not to decide here is still
to decide. At any other point, several alternatives, in principle at least,
are offered. Such is not the case here. The scandal is either embraced
or it is rejected. Though repudiation has a thousand faces, yes, a thousand
times a thousand times, all are but some form of reentrenchment in
the EVERYMANCHRIST. This extreme dimension becomes clearer when one
remembers that for the New Testament people the Christ decision was transparently
an election for or against life itself. The negative answer was at bottom
a rejection of human existence as it is constituted. The acknowledgement
of the scandal, on the other hand, is a full and free affirmation of the
significance of the creaturehood of man. When the human situation is nakedly
exposed there are but two choices: to affirm life or to negate it.
Perhaps it appears incredible that such fathomless deeps
of man and history are caught up in so very concrete a decision. Yet this
is exactly the way things are in this dimension of existence. As the search
for meaning is always concrete, so necessarily is the offense to this meaning
historically rooted. And therefore, the ensuing decision must likewise
be grounded in the very particular. Though, at base, the New Testament
men were deciding about their own stance and destiny, yet because Jesus
was the occasion of the question, externally it took the form of deciding
about him: Is Jesus the Christ'? What do you say? Is your CHRIST, JESUSCHRIST?
or the EVERYMANCHRIST?
One final concern before the summation. The JESUSCHRISTEVENT
has been depicted at one and the same time as both death and life. This
draws together the entire twist. It is unmistakably plain that the early
Christians conceived of and experienced this happening as the very fullness
of life. They sensed after themselves as the blind who now see, as the
deaf who have been given to hear, the bound set free, the maimed made whole,
the dead men who are alive. The death involved in encompassing the scandal
was discovered to be life itself. There is no addition here, no subtle
way out. Any addendum would be a cancellation of the event. The choice
to give up our illusions and false hopes and hiding places is the death
of choosing the scandal. This very death is life, they insisted. To die
is to live. To use their figures, it is like being born all over again.
It is like the healing of a mortal illness. It is like being forgiven a
big lie at the heart of our being. It is like a resurrection from a tomb.
The dying to the lifequest becomes itself the very
bread of life. Surrender of the demand for final truth becomes quite the
truth about things. Capitulation to the secret that there is no way, becomes
the very door and way to being. This is the end of the road of selfunderstanding.
There is no beyond it. There is no need. For one can now freely live in
his negations, learn in his perpetual ignorance and walk in all his given
creatureliness. In brief, the decision to die is at the same time an election
to life. The JESUSCHRIST is life abundant. As it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be.
Now to the recapitulation: the JESUSCHRIST is an historical event. It is a radical revolution in the interior history of men proceeding from an absolute reversal in human selfunderstanding. Originally occasioned by Jesus of Nazareth, it is first of all the experience of an offense. This offense is grounded in an actual disaffirmation of our creaturely phantasms which issues in a new possibility of living our bestowed existence as a great benefaction. It is secondly, the decision to receive the offense and embrace the ensuing possibility as our own. This entails a dying to ourselves as defined by our mirages, which very death is experienced as the very life we were mistakenly searching for. Such is the radical transfiguration of the JESUSCHRISTEVENT.
The early Christians' pronouncement of it contained an
inseparable promise and demand. The demand is to die. That this very dying
is life. is the promise.
The Christian Story
Our task is not finished. Any serious dialogue on the
Christ symbol must of necessity consider the Christian story, socalled.
In and through the JESUSCHRISTEVENT an historical community broke
into time. The church and the event are actually but two sides of one historical
occurrence. Those to whom the event happened constituted the church. Like
every historical people the church forged a life-apologue or meaning story
by which it communicated to itself and to others that the event which created
it was rooted in ultimacy. What we have termed the Christian story became
therefore, along with the event and the church, an integral component of
the total historical complex.
The cosmic tale has a universal and definitive agency.
Both thc social body and the comprising individuals are contingent upon
it. As insinuated above. it is the vehicle by which thc interior history
is transcendently grounded' comprehensively appropriated and significantly
communicated. To say it again. it freights the universal dimension to selfunderstandings
and life missions. In fact. all intentional being and doing, all self-conscious
existence is finally interwoven with one or another cosmic meaning drama.
Such stories are conspicuously penetrated by the relative and arbitrary: not in their inner meaning but in their form. Yet once the story is devised, there is a certain absolute quality about even the form. In principle, the detail could have been quite different at its creation. And any time thereafter, its basic intent can be expressed in other ways. But once the original dramaturgy is complete, that production is the
prototype. It remains prototypal as long as the historical
community remains. The early Christians formulated their classical tale
out of the relative stuff of their specific Hebrew memory, the unique world
views of their time, and whatever figures emerged from the collective unconscious.
It was a work of expansive conception and consummate artistry. Through
it the church continued to grasp for themselves and transmit to others
the finality of what had occurred in their midst. This is to say, it endured
as irreplaceable.
The story is a strange metamorphic tale of two symbols: the cross and the empty tomb. These basic New Testament emblems pervade the drama from the beginning to the end. The truth of the matter is they play the stellar role. Uncommon and fantastic as it may sound, the leading character of the Christian story is none other than the biform symbol, cross and open sepulcher, indicating and embodying the reality of the crucifixion that is resurrection, the death that is life. To say it another way, the principle player is the meaningword that man may dare to be fully human, living freely among the uncertainties, ambiguities and anxieties of creaturehood, in gratitude, concern and creativity. The hero, in brief, is not Jesus, but the JESUS CHRISTEVENT.
In brief synopsis, the story develops as a dramatic extravaganza
in three sweeping acts executed on two stage levels. It opens on the upper
stage representing the cosmic, universal, transcendent dimension of life.
It moves next to the historical, temporal, human level on the lower stage.
Finally, in the third act the movement returns once more to the cosmic
gallery. Each of the three acts is a spectacle in itself. Yet all are bound
together into one majestic movement by two transitional scenes between
the acts.
The time and place of act one is the beginning of the
beginnings. Exciting awesomeness is the overarching mood. The JESUSCHRISTEVENT,
disguised as a most curious lamb which is alive though dead, is the principle
figure on stage. Here, before the foundations of the world' a slain lamb
is sitting very much alive on the very throne of thrones alongside the
creator. Indeed the lamb is portrayed as the creator himself calling all
things into being. Without him no thing that comes to be comes to be. Passing
to the third and final act of the play, the scene is very much the same.
It is again on the cosmic level with the slain lamb occupying center stage.
The difference is that it is now the ending of the endings. All things
have passed away. The lamb, alive whiledead, is once more seated on
the throne. This time he is playing the role of the unconditional judge
presiding over the finale of history. In sober awe all things come forth
to account and no thing is judged save by the judgment of the lamb.
Embracing the middle act are two transitional scenes.
Their theatric function is that of getting the lamb on and off the historical
stage where the second act is performed. The entrance into temporality
of the JESUSCHRISTEVENT figure cannot of course be like any other
entry. Heralded by angelic hosts, he arrives born of a virgin. If the play
were being composed today the advent might well have been by way of a space
rocket fired out of nowhere. In this case, the lamb imagery conceivably
would be replaced by that of a strange little creature from beyond the
timespace continuum. The important point is that the cosmic figure
invades history on a mighty mission. When the mission is accomplished he
departs the temporal, not, of course, as others do, but through ascending
in an effulgence of glory again to the upper level.
In the second act, the interest is in the cosmic mission.
The central character is still the JESUSCHRISTEVENT.Camouflaged
in the first and last act as the slain lamb, it is here disguised as a
man. In this double concealment the cosmic figure submits to the ordeal
of finitude. He meets and straight forwardly engages the twin forces of
death and the devil: that is, the temptation to illusion and the anxiety
of creatureliness which drives us into the clutches of illusion. He engages
the forces of EVERYMANCHRIST and destroys their power by boldly withstanding
their subtlest wires, He enters the very den of death and emerges from
the grave the unchallenged conquerer. In a mighty invasion, the JESUSCHRISTEVENT
has overcome the hosts of the foe on the plains of history, pushed to the
fortified place and bound the strong man, leading humanity forth from its
bondage and slavery unto the glorious freedom of life. The sign and power
of the cross and empty tomb are engraved for all time upon the fact of
history. Cosmic permission to live has been epiphanied. Mission accomplished,
the lamb returns to that realm from whence he came, the manifest victor
to rule as sovereign lord and only judge forever and forever. What a play!
It must be underscored that this drama is in no sense
a web of metaphysical statements. Nor is it an aggregate of religious doctrines
to be believed. It is a story. Its task is to hold before the reader, in
a comprehensive, precise, and constraining fashion the stance of life.
One is moved therefore. not to ask whether the dramatic images correspond
to "objective realities" but whether the life meaning they embody
corresponds to the way life comes to us as persons.
When it is received as the truthstory it is, the
axial point is quite plain. Though the point is singular it peradventure
ought to be put several ways. First of all. the JESUSCHRIST is presented
not as just a way of life but the final and only way. The story announces
both the cosmic permission and the cosmic requirement to live after thisstyle.Second.itisclearintheplaythattheJESUSCHRISTisthewayreallifehas
always been from the very beginning of human existence, and it will always
be to the very ending. Third, the JESUSCM RIST is a removal of the
false veils we have drawn over life as it is. It is in no way a superimposition
upon life. The transfiguration is a restoration, not a novelty. Lastly,
the JESUSCHRIST tells us nothing we do not somehow know. The meaning
of being human is that we were constituted to be human. This is what we
were given to be. This alone shall be our judge.
The compendium is this: the JESUSCHRIST IS LORD in
every sense of the word. Every man, it is plain, bows his knee to some
life image. Before one or another selfunderstanding under the general
canopy of the EVERYMANCH RIST, he utters the submissive word: My Lord.
The early church was quite clear about this. She was also transparent concerning
the location of her own obeisance and confession of allegiance. Her earliest
credal formula: JESUSCHRIST IS LORD, is an abbreviation of the whole
cosmic tale. It is at once a subjective decision and an objective state
of affairs. The story of the cosmic Christ: his pre and postexistence,
his virgin birth and ascension to heaven, his historical life, death and
resurrection, are all signs and symbols of this lordship.
In all of this the primitive church was calling upon herself
and all men everywhere to live boldly in the JESUSCHRIST, confidently
sure that this is the way things are, ever have been and ever will be.
There is but one objective, everlasting unchanging life truth, namely,
the living of life as a gift is the meaning of living life. Put it liturgically:
the JESUSCHRIST IS LORD.
The Eschatological Hero
Intimately related to the Christian story yet not synonymous
with it, is still another component of the Christ construct. It is the
image created by the primitive Christians of a hero of faith or a cultic
exemplar. The hero was first etched upon the common memory of the community.
In time he became universally public as the central literary figure in
the Four Gospels. One must not be misled here. This cultic man is not Jesus
of Nazareth. Nor is he the cosmic figure sketched above. Neither is he
simply a representative of what we have termed the JESUSCHRIST happening.
One must rather say that the Christian paragon is a masterful artistic
combination of them all.
Every historical community has its cultic figures. They
are the models of the corporate selfunderstanding in the collective
imagination. Such representations inform the liturgical dramas through
which the group recollects who it is. They are the universal categories
which provide the everyday common sense. They are the generalized other
in the conscience that prompts and judges action. They are the master signs
through which the active and passive emotions are usefully illuminated.
In sum: the archetypal persons are the keys of concretion in the corporate
worship dramas, the corporate life styles and the corporate practical wisdom.
It is most understandable then, that the early church
was inspired to create such a hero. His paradoxical nature has already
been indicated. He eats and weeps and experiences deep struggles of the
spirit. Yet he also withers trees with a glance, does disappearing feats
and quite actually rises from the grave on page 25 or so of the record.
Succinctly, the Christian hero is the JESUSCHRISTEVENT embodied
at the seme time in both the temporal Jesus and the cosmic lamb.
This complex of paradoxes needs a closer look. To begin
with, the hero is a man of this world, plus or minus nothing. He was born
and he died. In between, he is portrayed as experiencing life's gamut of
joys and sorrows, failures and successes, knowns and unknowns. Furthermore,
he struggles, as humans must, to assume his posture toward his creatureliness.
The stance he embodies, however, is not that of the EVERYMAN. He elects
to live entirely within the JESUSCHRIST faith, deciding and acting
only in the style of the death that is life. The Christian prototype, to
employ a formula, is in the first instance, the historicalJESUSCHRISTman
The other pole of the hero's individuality is likewise
a fusion. In this case, the ingredients, like those in the Christian story,
are the cosmic dimension and the JESUSCHRISTEVENT. This is the
figure that stills storms, turns water to wine, casts out demons, and raises
up dead men. He signifies the wholly other, the utterly absolute, being
in itself. Use any symbol of ultimacy, the beginning and the end, the first
and the last he is it. At the same moment he is the JESUSCHRISTEVENT
that takes place in time. His own death and resurrection are presented
as the master sign. The wonders he performs and the oracles he utters are
likewise symbols of the Christ happening. Actually, his total existence
is an unbroken nexus of signs pointing to crucifixion that is the resurrection.
In terms of our schemata, the archetypal hero is the cosmicJESUSCHRISTfigure
as well as the historicalJESUSCHRISTman.
The picture is still not complete. The whole emerges only
after the polarities in the two formulae are totally amalgamated into one.
A diagramatic statement of this amalgamation would look something like
this: the cosmichistoricalJESUSCHRISTmanfigure. Authentic
human existence and ultimate cosmic significance coalesce in the JESUSCHRIST
EVENT. Here is the bare skeleton on which was shaped the most remarkable
personality in the literature of any people. The paradoxes are made to
completely cohere in the characterization of that strange personage who
moves through the New Testament Gospels. It is a work of consummate artistry.
In one paragraph, he moves from the very human business of dispersing crowds
and enjoying a moment alone to his stroll across the lake. Wonderfilling
as this is, the reader is not surprised. There is no jarring. The player
is exactly in character, so to speak.
In literary flesh and blood, the gospel hero is first
and last a man of mission. Being and doing are consolidated in him. His
singleminded vocation is exhibited in a two fold activity of living
life genuinely, authentically-as a man of faith in the midst of the world-and
announcing to all others the possibility of such living. This is patent
in both poles of his individualization: cosmic and historical. To use our
earlier figure, he walks freely out across the anxious, uncertain, ambiguous
waters of life. At the same time, he beckons others to do likewise. On
the temporal side, the same pattern is discernible. With utter intentionality,
the hero lives as the free man. He humbly opens himself to what is given;
gratefully receives himself in what is given; and benevolently involves
himself on behalf of what is given. He is liberated to be thankful for
life; to love this world of neighbors; to be directed toward the future.
This is to say, he is free to live life. And while he is busy living, he
simultaneously declares to those about who have ears to hear the good news
that they too can live in the freedom of the JESUSCH RISTEVENT.
Within the cultus, the name of the hero came to be Jesus Christ. This is frequently abbreviated just to Christ. And sometimes, perhaps more of the time, he is simply called Jesus. This is the Jesus of piety. To caution once more, he is not Jesus of Nazareth, but rather Jesus of the holy literature, the Jesus of the liturgical experience, the Jesus of the common life. As such he is the most vividly alive, the most finally
significant, the most always present personality in the existence of the cultus. There
are, of course, a host of other companions who live in
the collective memory. Jesus Christ is the primordial one. The many titles
bestowed upon him are indicative of this: Lord of Lords, King of Kings,
Son of Man, Son of God. No designation or mark of honor is too high or
high enough to articulate his status for the people who bear his name.
This raises a question about the adequacy of the term cultic hero. The
representational Jesus very obviously is the cultic or prototypal figure
of the people who live in the CHRISTEVENT. Yet the church knew him
to be more: not just the cultic hero but the final or eschatological hero.
That is, he represents the way things are for all men. He is the paragon
of man as Man.
This eschatological hero is then the portraiture of what
human living actually is. He is an unqualified delineation of the human
style of life. He is a model of faithfilled living. A model is a design
of the way things are. It is a construct of the manner in which things
are understood to function. In dealing with subjects rather than objects,
as in the case at hand, where the model is a personage, perhaps the exemplar
would be a more fitting term. The Christ hero is a model or exemplar of
what is going on where unmitigated human living is taking place.
The terms ideal or example have been intentionally avoided
for fear of distracting connotations. To be sure, since a model is necessarily
a totally unbroken and unfragmented representation, it might be labeled
ideal. But it is not ideal in the sense of disclosing some oughtworld
of precepts and virtue through which we can escape our humanity. It is
not ideal in the sense of some moral goal toward which men strive for the
sake of meaning and significance. All this would be merely a subtle form
of the EVERYMANCHRIST. that builds illusions about the human situation
in seeking for truth, perfection and peace.
The Jesus model is the JESUSCHRIST made flesh. It is a dramaturgical embodiment of that life stance or posture. To follow in the steps of the representational Jesus is not to imitate his words or reproduce his deeds. It is to be and do as a free man in our concretion as he depicted this stance in the concretions of his role. It is to walk out across the uncertain, ambiguous, anxious deeps of my life in gratitude, humility and compassion. with the sure confidence that this very walking is the meaning of life. The Exemplar is an ever present indicative word in the memory of a people, that to live is to live in the Christ event. and an ever present imperative word that continually calls them to it. In this sense, it guides their thoughts and deeds, their words and feelings. It is the context in which and out of which they forge their concrete actions.
The New Testament writers think of their Jesus hero as
the pioneer who blazes the way: the elder brother who goes on before; the
first fruit of a mighty harvest to be reaped. The followers then see themselves
as the second wave of explorers, the younger brother. the latter harvest,
yet as embodying the same life, traveling on the same way, participating
in the same mission. As he lived his life as the meaning of his life, and
announced the cosmic permission for all men thus to live, so the church
understands that she can and must go and do likewise. As Luther said, The
Christians are to be little Christs.