Almost every Easter I get took in by the Jesusilia of it all. Of the pbs type, of course.
Profound artistic masterpieces are shown, with appropriately hushed, serious and also profound words in an English accent voiced over mood music. And a man, a remarkable man comes to life. I feel it all, the art has worked, it has touched me deeply. I don’t know that I love this person but something has reached me and I understand the religion I do not believe. I understand it… profoundly. It is not a fairy tale about miracles and rising from the dead. It is about a great personality, a carer for us all, a beautiful peaceful presence comforting us in our various inevitable sufferings. So I understand this and feel the unifying force this one man, myth or real, provides to those who believe “accept into their lives” etc.
And I expect that millions of people see the same fellow. The creators of the program in 2021, the painters in the 15th century, Popes and prelates, nuns and peasants: there is a consensus. There was even a time, maybe 40 years ago, when I felt very animated by this personality, who may or may not have existed, totally unimportant, and looking a bit further I see the Greeks and Buddhists have their version of the beautiful young deities. And it doesn’t matter who was first, who really existed, he is a figment of imagination, an inspiration and a source of life, a life force. I thought a Universal one.
And yesterday I read, buried in the comments of a political post, that Donald Trump is Jesus returned, as prophesied. Here I hear a laugh of derision. I would definitely have joined in the laugh. The snort. Then but not today.
My Jesus of Caravaggio, el Greco and Velasquez, the one I assumed the real one, was really a reflection of the self. My Jesus. How I imagined I might be, were I he. It’s true and I am pretty sure it’s heresy, this identification. I was vehemently attacked by an Archbishop when I suggested this “Christ” to him. I was 32.
For me, this Church rage is it’s fatal flaw. The creation of Jesus, from his words to the story, the deepest of myths, seen in belief systems forever, the young lad sacrificed so the people may live, in the sculpture and painting, invite identification so brilliantly and perhaps so dangerously, so individualistically, the church says no! and promptly invents the inquisition.
The contradiction really isn’t one: the church is a controller, which is why “separation of church snd state” is only a slogan. An advertising jingle. So Jesus, the superstar, is not to be emulated. Jesus is entirely organic, it is his magic, he is natural and human and unworried by what worries us, what obsesses us: sermon on the mount. The church says it is impossible for us, objectifies us as fallen too far, too weak and corrupted to sit by his side so we eternally look up. A shame.
But it does put clothes on the Trump take. Makes of him a David Koresh. Once a Jesus is understood as a universal need, carried by all of us as a light, a hope or a bulwark against the shadow of life, a guardian of our sullied and abused selves. Once we know it is us that is Jesus, Trump, as our “warrior, your retribution” becomes very Jesus like. And I do not snort.
The Jesus is a human potentiality, in all of us. He has been given super powers, miracles, but that is not his real power. The man or woman seeing Jesus in Trump is seeing themselves. Trump plays good victim, they feel they are victims. Victimhood is not the Jesus myth: he chose his fate, at last. But we can play victim because the church has assured us we cannot be Jesus, we can only worship him as impossibility, and kneel. It us a yougb kine to take since most of the saints stepped right out if line, manifesting rather than following. But we can’t all be saints, or even try, so we get a dispensation: confess snd are forgiven.
Maybe this was inevitable as Jesus was mixed, crushed, foisted into the Roman thing. I dont know but it justifies Christianities cruelty. You are not he, he is not you, he is a god. The only way you can get close is to die. Preferably young and horribly. Christian Soldier you.
So, yes, Trump. Snort not. And our obsession with leaders, without whom nothing will happen, so a cohort of narcissists step easily into the role, not qualified, not comparable, but having been told by the Arch bishop that a personal attempt at Jesus life was heresy we can only seek for leaders, without, because our within is weak. And this is the whole story.
Weakening oneself to such degree is the story of religion, it’s endless cruelty and cult of fathers.