Yesterday's lecture that touched on "person" vs "identity" and "work" vs "mission" makes me a little melancholy when I stop to think about it because our terminology does reveal our thought processes to an extent. And the way we have talked about Jesus has objectified him; but what came first, the chicken or the egg. We reduced Jesus to a product that churches sell, as Sherman said, a sort of antidote to sin, so no wonder we have talked about him in terms of his work.
Sometimes people get ridiculously touchythough, about using politically correct speech. I was in a lecture once in the States where a lady started hissing and booing the professor for reading something out of the bible that didn't jive with her ultra feminist ideology. Her behavior was rude and embarrassingly out of place because the guy reading was really an above board, sweet person, and I wished she saved her hostility for a situation or someone that might have deserved it.
The heart of the terminology issue might be how to change a mindset, and I guess using "identity" and "mission" might help turn the tide, but it will take more than that because I think we like religion to be very utilitarian. How can we be a friend to Jesus when we are obsessed with the bottom line of getting eternal life out of the relationship? This is where other religions might conceivably help us out by providing Christians with a model for following a leader without trying to get something out of him. I don't know really, but I don't think Buddhists exploit Buddha the way we do Jesus in order to get to heaven. I wonder how many Christians would still follow Jesus if salvation wasn't a promise. Maybe a non Christian who does the right thing because it is the right thing is more spiritual than a card carrying Christian who does the right thing because they are afraid not to.
The whole idea of the atonement seems to work against genuine friendship because there is so much riding on the outcome. Maybe that is part of the reason Jesus kept his identity under his hat for so long, he wanted to hang out with guys who not conniving or phony, just real people talking about everyday stuff. Maybe that is why he blew off the guy asking how he could get eternal life... I bet he didn't want everyone around him constantly worried about that topic when maybe he would rather talk about the equivalent of soccer for a change.

When Titanic came out, fans went to the theater and watched it over and over a crazy amount of times, like twenty or thirty. Sometimes they had all the dialogue memorized, but still couldn't wait to see it again. It sounds a little bit like adversion therapy gone wrong, but sometimes you just want to get lost in another world, even if it is a cartoon one.
I've seen Lion King a whole bunch of times, and I know I will see it lots more in the future. But from now on, I will process the plot more thoughtfully as opposed to being just swept away by the wonder of Africa.

Like Simba, we are all just growing into ourselves and figuring out who we are; everyone has so much potential. It's really a question, how to invest ourselves. You really have to ask God. Reaching our potential shouldn't be equated with sucess, that's the easy standard. Like Br. Lawrence, you could be called to practice the presence of God in the ordinary, then again, you could be called to put your life on the line like Su Kai or Dr. Martin Luther King.

There is a slogan in American associated with an advertising campaign for African American scholarships, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." But there are so many casualties, people who are wasted due to circumstances beyond their control. Then again there are people who shoot themselves in the foot time and time again, getting distracted and diverted who end up frittering their life away. The Buddha almost did that, ditto St. Augustine. Thank goodness Jesus did not; and scripture tells us he was really tempted by worldly greatness. The thing about Jesus that we are not told, so I'm just guessing, is that he probably was most tempted by the thought of being just like everyone else- working at his trade, raising a family and hanging out with his friends and using just enough of his divinity to pull out a handy miracle when someone he loved needed it. He could have lived a happy, long life that way. Simba had it better than Jesus in that respect, he had responsibilities, but his valor and strength saved his life and he went on to live the life of a lion.

Finally, what is a blog without getting wierd, but how much of a role does the "watcher" have... if Jesus had been killed as a "cub" (and he almost was by Herod) before anyone outside of his family or the wise men knew he was the son of God, what effect would that have had on salvation etc.? Did God have a Plan B up his sleeve just in case? Or would we have had all the benefits of grace without knowing any of the story? Maybe God had already been onto Plan Z with us, but because we kept putting monkey wrenches into the works.

I am sort of overdosing on theology at the moment since I am working night and day on a new presentation, but I guess there are some brain cells left to think about our last class.

I think it is a little sad that Barth and Brunner became such enemies over the virgin birth, because the friendship they dropped was probably more important than their points of view. Obviously they could not just, "agree to disagree" about such a nebulous subject that nobody can prove one way or the other.
Keeping a little mystery surrounding Jesus' birth sounds like a good thing- sort of the way having a swimsuit on is supposed to be sexier than nothing at all. (Of course in my case, neither option is very sexy!) American culture insists on swimsuits, but it would be dumb to go to war with the Europeans over the fact they don't wear swimsuits (My country needs all the friends it can get!) Two theologians who won't speak to each other over the virgin birth missed out on all the fun they could have had arguing together about the issue!

We over analyze issues. Some people would rather go to a lecture on heaven rather than go to heaven because, "inquiring minds have to know". I think Jesus incarnate in a pre mass media age so he wouldn't have to answer reporters' questions like, "Tell us now, how were you conceived?" Even if he answered such a nosy question, the people who didn't want to believe in the virgin birth would discount whatever he said, thinking he was protecting the family honor.

Personally, I think it would be trickier for God to make a bright star shine out over the spot where Jesus was born than to instigate a pregnancy. But I haven't heard of anyone getting all worked up over whether the star was there or not.