Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
The 2 Jesuses
In the last few days, I’ve been spending more time in the hospital than I would prefer. My partner had the gall to take a week of vacation, which leaves me holding the bag. Or the scalpel, I suppose. Anyway, it’s been a rough week, with three 10 1/2 hour days, and yesterday I didn’t make it out until 8:45.
The hospital we use is an Adventist hospital. I like the Adventists, mostly because they seem to have a left-wing political bias. This agrees well with their religious philosophy, which (speaking as an outsider) seems to be that they read the New Testament and actually pay attention to Jesus’ teachings. Anyway, the Adventists really love their larger-than-life Jesus portraits, like this one here. Our hospital has two larger-than-life Jesus murals. Perhaps it was the fatigue of a 12.75 hour day that made me notice yesterday that the two Jesuses are really quite different.
The first one is in our lobby. Jesus is sitting in a field with his arms outstretched. There’s a kindly, loving, welcoming smile on his face. You would gladly sit down with this guy for a sardine sandwich even if he does make you listen to one incomprehensible parable after another. He just looks like a hell of a guy.
The other Jesus is in the chapel area, or whatever they call the room for quiet reflection. This Jesus looks older. Two thousand years older, but aged 2000 years in a way that only an immortal could age. He’s still got a full head of brown hair, I mean, and there are no turkey wattles under his chin, but you can tell this guy has been around to see the Inquisition, two world wars, a couple thousand years of slavery, and so forth. While he is still smiling, this Jesus’ smile is an expression of intense exasperation. This Jesus has his hand out, but I have the sense he’d like to slap us upside the head with it before regaling us with an incomprehensible parable. A parable no doubt regarding the way people never seem to listen to him.
I’ll have to snap a couple photos with my cell phone tomorrow and share them with you. I’m curious to see if you agree with me.
Meanwhile, I’m counting the hours until this weekend is over and I can pass on the emergency box o’ goodies to my partner.
D.
I am thankful to know that not all Christians are off the deep end insane with their bigotry and hatred. Fwiw, I’d like to smack some sense into the rest, too.
We had a nurse anesthetist back at my old hospital who would occasionally share their magazine with me. Well written articles, very political, nothing the least bit loopy. Quite a bit different than The Watchtower 🙂
Clearly, the exasperated one has been busy not answering the prayers of my born-again ex-wife.
It would seriously suck being Jesus. Dude died to make his point, then had to sit up there at the Right Hand of God and watch millions of people screw it up. And it’s not like it was a complicated point, either: Do Unto Others, Turn the Other Cheek. In other words, to quote Wil Wheaton, Don’t Be A Dick.
Why is that so hard for people to understand?
If I were Him, I’d be doing some serious bitch-slapping, starting with each and every televangelist. During prime time.
In our church at home they switched from having a crucifix with Christ hanging on it to a smaller “risen Christ” version (they’ve also added an immersion baptism area and video screens that come down on either side of the new crucifix). Not much left to show it’s a Catholic church, except for a Virgin Mary statue hidden in one back corner (she used to be up in front). All Sunday masses are in the insipid main church (the baptismal pool can be made to circulate water to give the soothing sound of water running – kind of like in your average day spa). The huge painting with Christ hanging on the cross that used to be behind the altar is now hidden away in a separate room (sort of like the adult section they used to have in videostores) used for mass on other days – it’s not quite like a speakeasy, since you don’t have to give a password, but someone coming to the church for the first time wouldn’t even know it was there.
It seems that some liturgical committee thought seeing the big guy hanging there giving up his blood and guts was too much for the average churchgoer, so they took that away and replaced it with the crisp and clean look of two planks nailed together. What a bunch of weenies!