The You-Don’t-Know-How-It-Feels Clause!

Have you ever been in one of these situations, trying to convince a child or a spouse or a parent of something, maybe, involving personal change? Just when you feel you are making headway, the conversation gets emotional, and they throw the you-don’t-know-how-it-feels clause at you. This clause is usually considered a hard stop. It is best to retreat and try again another day!

The Word as Flesh

There are three scenes in Matthew’s Gospel, where it is the fully human nature of the hypostatic union that stands in stark contrast to Jesus’ fully divine nature. The first is the scene on the banks of the Jordan, the Baptism of our Lord (Matthew 3:13-17). The one who was “from the beginning, was with God and is God” (John 1:1), is standing in front of a “perplexed” John the Baptist, asking to be baptized. Jesus’ response to John’s bewilderment is “allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”.

The second is the scene from the Garden (Matthew 26:36-46), the “word made flesh” (John 1:14), is alone, in agony, asking the Father that “this cup may pass” (Matthew 26:39). Soon after, Jesus deals with his agony with an unflinching acceptance, “your will be done!” (Matthew 26:42), he says.

The third scene plays out in the Lord’s Passion and death on the Cross (Matthew 26-27). His fully human nature is nailed to the cross, in all its seeming powerlessness and vulnerability. There is no celestial light show in response to the taunts of the passing head-shakers to “save himself by coming down from the cross” (Mark 15:30). With nary more than the will to obey, Jesus, the Lord and Creator of all, humbly “drinks from that cup” to let his Father’s “will be done”.

When John sees Christ coming to him for baptism, he tells Jesus (Matthew 3:14), “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” I usually have similar versions of this question when meditating on any of these three scenes. In other words, aware as I am of Jesus’ fully divine nature, I have questioned or at least not quite comprehended, the mystery and necessity of the utter powerlessness of his fully human nature. It is the kind of question that arises when I am focused on Jesus’ divinity when he is presenting, for good reason, His humanity. The question is what is that “good reason”?

You Are My Beloved!

I like to wistfully think that the answer is a move on His part to preempt any possibility of me throwing petulant tantrums, involving the aforementioned you-don’t-know-how-it-feels clause. There is just no way to do that! Is there a particular malignancy of my heart? Or a series of life-excuses that I can claim rationalize the choices of said heart? He has seen them all. He carried the weight of every sin. Past, present, and future, of every single person that he “knew from the womb” (Jeremiah 1:5). It is that weight that nailed him to the cross. And it is that weight that agonized him in the garden. It is the fore knowledge of that weight that brought the Savior to the Jordan, to be baptized, like any other sinner, even though he was sinless.

In each of those scenes, Jesus did not perform a celestial light show of raw heavenly power, featuring thunder and lightning. In each of those actions he showed us that the pathway through life in Him, is a walk in “meekness and humility” (Matthew 11:29). It is never a self-aggrandizing pursuit of honor, power, glory, or wealth. Yet, in every one of those scenes, the heavens opened to testify to His obedience of the Father’s will. It is as if, every time I make a right choice in humility, in this walk with Him, I feel that the heavens are opening up to tell me (Matthew 3:15), “You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”. That’s a good feeling. Try it, and you-will-know-how-it-feels!

[Readings: Is 42:1-4, 6-7; Mt 3:13-17]