why Piss Christ matters

A disclaimer: I am mindful that the title of today's post may be offensive to some and I apologize if that is the case. I selected this title because it is a reference to an art piece by Andres Serrano who, in 1987, took a photograph of a crucifix immersed in a glass of urine. At the time, the photograph caused quite a stir as many Christians were extremely offended by it. My reflections below on this image are an attempt to re-frame how I, as a pastor, see Serrano's work as a potent expression of the heart of Christianity. Honoring the person and work of Jesus may not have been Serrano's intent, but I feel I am free to reinterpret his work because I see in it a humbling reminder of the lengths God went to in order to show his love for us. Thank you for your graciousness in understanding why I titled this post the way I did. Peace to you, Troy

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Advent starts tomorrow. I love this time of year.

During this holiday season, I am especially mindful of the mystery that Christianity presents God to us as someone who has a hometown. Christianity is about God becoming a person who grew up in a tiny, unimportant village in northern Israel.

If that fails to shock us, it’s because we’ve falsely sanctified our faith. During this time of year, we are accustomed to turning the messiness of Christianity into cute, cuddly songs and images. Mary, with her perfect alabaster skin, is magically thin again just hours after giving birth—and baby Jesus never has an umbilical cord attached to him. The straw of the stable must be clean. Surely the ox and donkey did not defecate there. The wood of the manger is nicely sanded and splinter-free.

I think we present the advent of Christ this way because our brand of holiness tends to be disembodied, pure and grime-free. We speak of God in mysterious, philosophic terms—and I do believe this is the source of our most deeply embedded heresy. We imagine a God who rescues from a distance.

“He’s all-loving and all-powerful,” we posit, “so he could have saved us any way he wanted.”  

But, when a friend is dying on the battlefield, you can’t come to their rescue if you’re still in the barracks. To rescue your friend, you have to go in there, all in. Christianity shocks us because the Commander-in-Chief becomes a private in the trenches. He removes his stars and puts on filth.

We may try to find ways to love from a distance but God does not love that way. God’s kind of love is messy and passionate. It’s more like a wet French kiss than a sweet, dry peck on the cheek. God’s love comes so close you can smell his bad breath in the morning.

The cornerstone of Christianity is the incarnation. God became flesh. We tend to emphasize the “virgin” part of the Virgin Birth, but the “virgin” part has no meaning without The Birth. Without the humanity of Jesus, the divinity doesn’t matter. Without the humanity of Jesus, God is just another Platonic Unmoved Mover.

Christianity says God is moved by our desperate situation and so he moves to be close to us. Remember this when you’re watching Star Wars this month: God isn’t a philosophy or an impersonal Force. God became a person.

This God-person, when he was an infant, produced meconium. He urinated and drooled. He had fingerprints and snot. He screamed when he was hungry. He giggled when he was delighted.

When he was a boy he skinned his knees and lost his teeth. He must have gotten sick at some point and vomited. His hair was tangled and greasy in the morning. Many boys fart and play with worms. He had dirty fingernails and smelly feet.

Think about it: he fished and made sawdust. He defecated and drank. He ate eggs and matzah, apples and figs, cheese and fish. He had chapped lips sometimes and probably smile wrinkles when he grew up. He had pubic hair and body odor.

He suffered. He knew pain. He bled and died.

Let that sink in.

God:

Bled.

Died.

Was Buried.

And rose again.

Bodily.

Yes, it was a bodily resurrection.

That matters. The heresy that most threatened Christianity in those early years was the heresy of Gnosticism. The Gnostics, because of their views of the body—and because they wanted to claim Jesus for their own philosophy—asserted that Jesus wasn’t really a human; he only seemed human, they said. It’s called Docetism.

But to the early Christians, if Christ was not human, they were doomed. His life, death and resurrection had no meaning if he wasn’t human. See, by becoming one of us, we now could become like God. And if he hadn’t become one of us, there was no chance for us to become like God. In fact, they believed, God became part of creation to save creation, both human and non-human creation.

God became human because humans have unique agency to steward creation well or poorly. We can destroy this planet if we want (and we are) or we can be healers, like Jesus healed. We pay the closest attention to Jesus’ healing of humans but, in his godly humanness, his healing work also extended to creation when he multiplied the loaves and fishes, and when he calmed the storm for the well-being of his friends. Jesus, as God-Man, is Lord of wheat and walleye if he is Lord of Walt and Wendy.

But, notice: he becomes Lord of Walt and Wendy by joining the gang. This King of janitors does not stay in his throne room. He becomes a janitor and cleans toilets. Yes, it is love that does this, but it is love that compels it, requires it—or it isn’t really love.

This is important to grasp because it tells us something about how we are to love. I am convinced that one of our biggest stumbling blocks is that we try to figure out ways to love people without really loving them--that is to say, without getting close. In a world dominated by social media, I actually think we often operate as if it’s possible to love others without getting close. But it isn’t and that is what God shows us in Jesus. I believe it is Karl Barth who once said, “Grace must find expression in life or it isn’t grace.” That’s the incarnation.  

This has to do with more than just Jesus. The Church as the Body of Christ is part of this great come-close, sweaty love story. The people of the Church are to be the hands and feet of God’s love.

Love closes the gap and, in so doing, widens your world. Get up close and personal with others this holiday season. It’s what God did with us in Jesus.