cartoon: crawling on water
Leave a Reply
Trackback URL
http://www.nakedpastor.com/archives/4037/trackback
-
artist. cartoonist. teacher.
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Jesus could have actually walked on the water…and it wouldn’t matter to people.
(Cue: crashing chords)
“and did His feet…” ….oh no,….that’s the wrong question….
the right question is…. ” and did Jesus splash in water?”
+ imho, the only answer is…. “of course he did”
for which I give thanks every day
Still LOL…
You never cease to amaze and amuse me!
Good Job!
I’ve wondered many times what it would have been like to be Mary–the mother of Jesus, the Messiah, and how Jesus’ childhood/adolescence would have compared or contrasted with the childhoods/adolescences of the rest of us…
Great cartoon! (as always…)
steve martin said – Jesus could have actually walked on the water…and it wouldn’t matter to people.
Speak for your self. I would be amazed at anyone who could defy natural laws.
Would I worship anyone just because they could defy natural laws?…no.
ttm…I’ve often wondered how Mary and Joseph kept their focus while they were raising him. Surely he had colic,cried at 3 a.m.,spit up on Mary’s shoulder, and soiled his undies at inopportune times. And what about the nails he must have spilled on the carpenter shop floor?the hammer…Joseph’s best…that he misplaced and that couldn’t be found for a week? I mean, he was fully human…
preacherlady, Exactly!
Yet wasn’t Jesus also fully God? Was he all-knowing? Did he remember exactly where Joseph had left the hammer? Was he able to out-think his parents? Did he never do anything wrong–leaving Mary and Joseph to feel rather unneeded in the areas of teaching and discipling? And if he was sinless, so that he never got in trouble, that must have really pissed off his siblings and created some family drama–”But you NEVER yell at Jesus for anything; he’s your FAVORITE!”
I believe that Jesus grew to be fully God, in that it took him years to discover the Spirit without measure within Him. I believe that ,especially in His case , without sin means never separated from God, and yet it doesn’t mean he didn’t get into the natural at times. Look at the day He overturned the tables in the temple and cursed the fig tree…we’ve been given all sorts of interpretations of righteous indignation etc. but I tend to think that Jesus was having a fully human hissy fit. Look at Gesthemene…he sweat blood, a sign of stark terror…not in God’s vocabulary. He may have shown Godly signs as a child, but remember there was a progression. At the marriage of Cana he told Mary that His time was not come, so He knew He was growing into something. Based on His words that we would be able to do everything He did and more I think He was acknowledging that this was a progression that we could grow into IF we follwed His teaching. Back to His childhood, I’m sure it created family drama…any child discussing “His Fathers business” with the temple elders at the age of 12 certainly separated itself from the pack. And of course we can’t know how much of the story is real or metaphor. It wasn’t written for years after He was gone and then by scribes who gave the account of the story as told them by eyewittnesses. And it really doesn’t make a difference. If we take the teachings attributed to Him and follow them, we’re on the right path. Back to where we were…I’ve often wondered what it was like to raise Him.
I’ve always assumed Jesus DID walk on the water, but I can’t say that knowing that makes a lot of difference to my life. I’m not really sure what it signifies.
Tiggy makes a good point. I’ve always thought what difference does it make whether he (or anyone else) did or didn’t walk on water?
This cartoon gave me a great chuckle. Thanks.
Jesus walking on water, and a lot of other things,have no literal meaning in our lives, only metaphorical. The meaning is clarified when Peter walks on water and then begins to sink. In the presence of the Christ we can do all things…when we allow our selves to be distracted we fail. Look at the crucifixion…what literal meaning does it have in our lives today? The Jews at that time had firmly ingrained in their consciousness that there was only forgiveness of sins through the shedding of blood…this wasn’t something God required, but that they required. The death and resurrection theme had been around for eons…way back into the goddess religions. But we in the west, unless we were brought up in a tribal sort of religion, have no such consciousness…we can reach the inner kingdom without the shedding of blood. The difference Jesus made is in the payment of our karmic debt through His consciousness which was such that it could cancel out the debt of mankind. This is what sets Christianity apart. Buddhists still believe that the disease you suffer today is from karma from a past life. Other eastern religions believe we have to have a guru, a living one, who will burn off our karma. The whole crucifixion story has a totally different meaning for us than it did to a Jew 2000 years ago.
What is this ‘karmic debt’ and ‘debt of mankind’? I don’t believe in karma or that we owe a debt.
When Jesus was asked about the falling of the tower of Siloam – a local historical event of the time – people wanted to know if those who were killed by the tower had that happen to them as a result of their own sin or their parent’s sin (presumably this had formed part of the discussion around the event) and he answered that it was neither, it just fell on them.
Tiggy…we reap what we sow…what we get in return for whatever we do is karma…don’t forget, some of the Jews at that time still believed that the sins of the fathers were passed down to the children. Jesus offset anything we have coming to us…there is total forgiveness for anything we have done that would affect us in an unsavory manner. Karma is a physical and mental law of the universe. The debt of mankind is simply that he offset anything anyone in the entire human race did.
Well I never heard that preached in a church before. How does a baby or small child reap what it sows? A baby can be killed, raped or injured and it hasn’t sown anything or done anything wrong. The same with a child. People use that idea to explain w hy some people are born with handicaps and I find that abhorrent.
The sins of the fathers and mothers can be passed down to the children in a different way – in their damaging effects on the children. So the children reap what their parents sowed, not what they themselves sowed.
I don’t know what ‘Jesus offset’ means, but then I don’t understand matters of finance and debt.
‘there is total forgiveness for anything we have done that would affect us in an unsavory manner. ‘
The above needs unpacking a lot before I could claim to understand it. I’m unclear as to what plane you’re talking about.
Karma is an idea in Hinduism and Buddhism – it is not the same idea in Hinduism as in Buddhism – and not one in Christianity. In Hinduism and Buddhism its based on the person having countless lives, which isn’t part of Christianity. It differs between Hinduism and Buddhism because of the Buddhist doctrine of anatta (no soul).
Karma isn’t a word generally used in Christian circles but the parables about sowing and reaping are taught. When people talk about God punishing them for sin what they’re really experiencing is the sin punishing them. This is why we need forgiveness…to have certain thoughts and deeds erased from our consciousness, and this is why we need to forgive. When we hold resentments toward someone, we activate what was done to us in our own consciousness, and rather than establish a pattern we need to release it. As to reincarnation, some in the early church believed in it…in fact in scripture someone asks, speaking of Jesus, was it Elijah returned. Somewhere around the 4th century it was made official that the church did not believe in reincarnation. And of course, how could it? If Jesus absorbed the karma of the human race, there was no longer a need for reincarnation. As for Jesus absorbing the karma, there is a long, involved quantum physics explaination of how it worked, something I can’t begin to understand other than that his consciousness was such that it was able to do that. Forgiveness, by the way, is the act of deleting or deactivating something from the subconscious mind so that it can’t operate in our lives.
I guessed He believed like a child when this happened
Tiggy, great insights
More nudity on nakedpastor’s site…
Fred…sooner or later, everyone who visits this blog becomes naked because it’s safe.
Although I meant it completely as a joke, is it “safe” here? What does that mean? I’ve seen some pretty acerbic conversation sometimes. I appreciate that the conversation is allowed (i.e., that it’s “safe” to have such a conversation), but it seems to me that some people get offended. Maybe it’s only “safe” if someone has a thick enough skin…?
Its safe in many ways, and if someone becomes unreasonable and offensive, my experience is that everyone will tell them to lighten up. But I was talking about it being safe to voice any opinion. Its only those who have the “one true way” and who expect everyone else to conform to their thinking that become offended/offensive.”
And those vulgar English women who swear a lot during theological arguments.
preacherlady,
Here’s a little “nakedness” from me. I know what it’s like to be thrust into the position of making decisions I never should have been forced to make. I know what it’s like to be misunderstood by people who claim to be open-minded Christians–people who have judged me and the decisions I’ve had to make after hearing only one side of the story. I’ve borne the brunt of conversation behind my back and name-calling by people I’ve liked and respected. Maybe I’m a sucker for punishment, but I still can’t help liking those people (although maybe the respect diminishes), but it still hurts being in the same room.
In at least one case I’m sure the judgment (by these “non-judgmental people”) is a case of “blood being thicker than water,” but in the long run sometimes I wonder whether or not some people that claim to be “open-minded non-judgmental Christians” are just as full of shit as people that “claim to have the one true way.”
It’s a lot easier to be idealistic when you haven’t got difficult decisions to make. It sounds like you’ve had to be more pragmatic and that didn’t suit their ideals.
It seems to me that anything ‘metaphysical’ in a theological sense doesn’t quite lend itself to “one true way”. How can ‘the unverifiable’ be treated as fact?
Depends on how you “verify” something. You could make a thoroughly logical argument that nothing is completely or truly “verifiable.” There is always room for questioning. And so we all take something on “faith.”
We must or even basic communication is impossible.
“It seems to me that anything ‘metaphysical’ in the theological sense doesn’t quite lend itself to ‘one true way.’”
It seems that even in your language usage you acknowledge that you are taking that statement on faith–not sure how you could “verify it.”
Fred…what I’m trying to say is that metaphysical statements are in a different category than statements that can be verifiable by evidence that we know to be based on objective probability.The statements”Jesus was a first century Galilean” and”Jesus was the Son of God” illustrate my point. The truthfulness of the first statement requires that you establish 1) Who was this Jesus referred to? 2) When was the first century? 3) Where is Galilee?…all verifiable by accepted historical methods. The second statement can only be considered truth ‘by faith’, that is, an acceptance that someone’s interpretation of events is correct, despite the absence of verifiable probabilities.
Fred…there are always those people who SAY “we love you unconditionally” and what they really mean is we’ll smile a great big fakey smile to your face and then stab you in the back. And they think they’re liberal. And being non- judgemental is a process…learning to let someone make their own mistakes and walk their own path is something we grow into…and its necessary that they do. If they choose to learn from our mistakes, fine…but we shouldn’t ram anything down their throats. Oh yeah, Tiggy…I forgot about those vulgar English women.