Jesus: Mary Poppins?

A few months ago I had my first real hit of a real "crowning moment". On the day that I graduated college, I was awarded with a medallion and the title of Valedictorian. My university doesn't tell the Valedictorian who he/she is until graduation day, when that person is awarded with a medallion. In May of 2012, just a few months ago, I was awarded with this honor.

I didn't really think much of it till others did. It was incredible the amount of support and congratulations I received. It meant more to my family I think than it meant to me. But it meant a lot to me that my family could be so blessed by it, and I was too.

Since  then, the moment of my highest honor/glory, has become one of the biggest sources of condemnation. In the quiet, doubtful moments of my graduate life, I look at what I have and what I am, at least from a worldly view, and I cannot believe that I was the Valedictorian.

I'm currently living with some amazing people, who have graciously accepted me into their home until I get on my feet. It's been 6 months since graduation and I'm still not there. I work 20 hours a week at not much more than minimum wage. At times when I feel a lot of pressure, I look at my bank account and I hear, "And you were the Valedictorian? And this is how you've ended up?" What had been a symbol of success has become the comparative image that declares my current state of utter defeat. Or so it seems.

I used to think of Jesus this way. I once wrote in my journal about how I thought of Jesus the way I thought of Mary Poppins. Anytime I read the gospel, I saw Mary Poppins.

He was a performer of miracles, who could have pulled a lamp out of a bag if he wanted. He did plenty of weirder things. And in my head, he most certainly had a tape measure exactly like the one she did.

"Jesus Christ: Practically perfect in every way"

And of course, anytime this measure was used for anyone else, like myself, it certainly would yield just as distasteful results as it did for the poor little younguns in the movie.

Jesus had become to me this divine measuring stick who walked the earth to show everyone they didn't measure up. Literally that was the exact sermon I was told again and again about the Sermon on the Mount.

I never had the fondest of feelings for Mary Poppins. I really didn't. She was unpredictable. Some moments she was fun-loving and cheerful. Others, she was irritable and she always had high, yet unclear, expectations of the children. And she was always, in her best and worst, absolutely full of herself.

I felt the same way about Jesus. I'd even had people tell me, "Jesus is the only person who could be full of himself and not be sinning. Because he is sinless, he can be full of himself because its him being full of righteousness." Philosophically there is an interesting argument there, but I think it falls flat to its face. I think its entirely false. Philosophically, if that's how pride worked: where it's sinful only if the person is sinful, it would be an interesting theory. A fun little thought excursion for nerds like me. 

It's interesting to me that Jesus seemed to me for so long to be a Divine Measuring Stick. He, who was supposed to be my very glory, had become, in my mind, the biggest source of condemnation. Everything I did became wrong in light of Jesus, this measuring stick. It's interesting to me to think that our understanding could be so perverted that our greatest glory and hope could seem to us to be the exact opposite.

For a minute I had thought that Jesus' death was the symbol of the Divine Measuring Stick being broken. At first glance that seems true. I mean, as someone I greatly respect reminds me, the Bible says that it wasn't simply our sins that were nailed to the cross, but actually the whole system of indebtedness was. That is true. Absolutely true.

But my previous conclusion, that Jesus as the symbol of the divine measuring stick being broken conveyed this truth, is absolutely incorrect. For this to be a fair reading of the gospel, Jesus would have to be set up as the divine measuring stick. And guess what. He never was set up to be that.

Was he sinless? There are debates, but I believe so. So was he perfect? In my beliefs yes. If so, could one set themselves up to Jesus to measure where they stand? One could try, but Jesus himself never uses this approach because it's not the right approach.

I'll close with one of the most faith-changing things someone has ever spoken to me.

I approached a close friend of mine a handful of years ago about my frustrations with God and my disbelief that I was really truly forgiven freely, when I had always believed I was forgiven begrudgingly.

I said to him, "Okay, listen. Let's say I came up to you every and asked for a pencil. Then I broke it every single day in front of your face. But every day I still ask for a new pencil. Would you still keep giving me the pencil? If you did, wouldn't you resent me for putting you in that position?"
He said, "Emily, He would take the pencil and break it himself because it's not about the pencil, it's about you and Him."

That changed me life. I don't say that lightly. We cannot allow Jesus, who has become our glory, for we are co-heirs with Christ, to become our source of shame and condemnation. He is not, was not, and will not be our measuring stick. He never set himself up that way. Don't put Jesus where he would not go himself.

Colossians 1:21-23
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.