Monday, December 13, 2010

Did Jesus Ever Get the Flu?

This is the season of joy and laughter and celebration, but for many it is also flu season.  Over at his blog today, Russell Moore considers the question of whether Jesus ever got the flu.  He concludes that he must have, as the very point of the incarnation is that Jesus became just like us.
It just doesn’t seem right to us to imagine Jesus feverish or vomiting. But that’s precisely the scandal. It didn’t seem right to many to imagine Jesus as really flesh and bone, filled with blood and intestines and urine. Somehow that seemed to detract from his deity. It surely didn’t seem right to many to imagine the only begotten of the Father twisting in pain on a crucifixion stake, screaming as he drowned in his own blood. This was humiliating, undignified. That’s just the point. Jesus joined us in our humiliation, in our indignity.

I hope you don’t get a stomach virus this year, or the flu or the fever or a cold. But, if you do, I hope you remember, just for a minute, in your discomfort that Jesus has passed through everything you’ll ever face. He might have been racked with nausea or chills or aches, just as you are. And then he faced far, far worse.

But, as you lie there, remember the gospel of incarnation and substitution, a gospel that comes, as the old song says, to make his blessings known “far as the curse is found.”
I encourage you to read his whole post here.

5 comments:

Jeff B. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeff B. said...

The sacrificial lamb had to be without spot or blemish. Did Jesus have boils or herpes or some other unclean virus? Does Russell Moore believe, had Jesus not been crucified he would of died of natural causes? You can see where this is going. I respectfully disagree with Russell Moore.

Pete Scribner said...

Jeff,

Interesting thought. I would ask you to consider this though:

In Luke 8, when Jesus was touched by the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years or when he took Jairus's dead daughter by the hand, was he made unclean? It seems to me that the "clean"/"unclean" categories were ceremonial and merely existed to point to a higher reality of personal sinlessness, a reality that Jesus perfectly embodied...and that's what made him without spot or blemish. Let me know what you think.

Jeff B. said...

I agree with your point on Luke chapter 8. I should have made my point more clear. Jesus getting tired, weary or haveing to relieve himself of bodily waste are all normal functions of the human body, and I'm sure if He bumped His knee or stubbed His toe He felt pain like all of us do. This is all normal. Sickness is an abnormality. Sickness came upon us all because of the fall of Adam. God's promise to Israel was health if they obeyed His commandments. "For I am the Lord who healeth thee" Exd 15:26. Jesus had no sin therefore sickness and infirmities have no reason to be in his body. Thats my thoughts anyway. I enjoy your blog. Thank you for taking the time to care.

Pete Scribner said...

Thanks for reading the blog and thanks for your thoughts!