I
am fascinated by the common ground found between Herod the Great and Jesus in their
respective flights to Egypt (see yesterday). In keeping with other mammals,
humans have a sympathetic nervous system that enables us to respond to potential
danger with fight, flight, freeze, or fawn behaviour. Herod and Jesus share
their humanity, as well as, in Herod’s action against Jesus, our capacity for
inhumanity. Moreover, there is a long biblical record of flight from danger:
Moses flees Egypt, later returning to lead his people in their own communal
flight; David flees the wrath of Saul; Paul will escape Damascus lowered down
the city wall hidden in a basket.
But
it goes deeper than this. For Jesus is not only God, fully human, but
also human, fully divine. Jesus reveals the nature of God to us, even as
he participates in the life of God.
To
be human is to be limited – by our bodies, by the actions of others for or
against us – and to be invited to embrace our limitations. Limited, not because
we are creatures, in contrast to a limitless Creator, but precisely because we
are formed in the likeness of a Creator who, from the beginning, embraced and
continues to embrace limitations. To acknowledge and embrace our limited nature
is the most divine expression of being human possible.
The
flight response we see in humans and other mammals reflects and reveals
something of the nature of God. But what would God flee from? And to whom would
God flee?
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