Real Life Jesus

How to rescue a beached whale?

Forty pilot whales lie stranded on Darlington beach, Tasmania. Andrew Irvine, a marine conservation officer, knows that he must act fast.

Scientists are not sure what causes a whale to beach itself. Some have suggested that it is the result of a disease that upsets the mammal’s internal navigation system. What we do know is that — without intervention — being beached is invariably fatal.

On Darlington beach the huge grey slabs of whale blow and gasp. As people arrive on the scene, eager to help, Irvine co-ordinates the rescue attempt. Someone sets up a hose pump and begins to spray the whales with seawater. Others spread heavy hessian mats over the bodies of the whales and wet them down.

Once the mat is in place, the team begins to drag the whale back towards the sea. On the count of three they lift him for a few metres at a time, then drag and lift and drag until they are waist-deep in water. They push on and soon the whale is floating. But he is very still. Five of the team stay with him to keep him stable. After nearly an hour, he gently flicks his tail and swims off into the ocean. He is back where he belongs.

Stranded men and women

The Bible teaches that, as the whale was made for the ocean, men and women were made for God. He created us to enjoy his love and to reflect his ways on earth. Our relationship with him is, as it were, the environment in which we are free to be fully human. But, as the whale has crashed out of the ocean, humankind has walked out on God. We thought that it would set us free. But it has left us stranded on the beach.

During the past few days, I have sat by the fire and laughed with friends. I have wandered round an art gallery. I have eaten lamb tagine and lemon syllabub. I have danced around the kitchen table. I have sat spellbound with my children in the theatre and gone with my family for a long and happy walk in the Mendips. Life is beautiful. And yet that beauty is shot through with sadness. During the same few days I have wept at the funeral of a friend who committed suicide. Someone else has told me that his marriage is breaking up.

The beauty in our world is easy. We don’t think twice about what we are to do with it — we just enjoy it. But what are we to do with the sadness?

What to do with sadness?

We have been brought up to believe that the story of humankind is a story of progress. In some ways that is true. The world is healthier and wealthier than it has ever been. But under the surface, do you think there is less sadness in the 21st century than in the first? Do you think we shed fewer tears?

The cheery optimism that says that humankind is on the up and up is a bit like a whale trying to persuade itself that, despite all the evidence, it was made for the beach and that suffocating under its own body weight is as good as it gets. The whale has to tell itself that there is in fact no ocean. We have to try to tell ourselves that there is no God.

If there is no ocean, then the whale’s experience of the beach is not a problem. It is just how things are. Similarly, if there is no God, then our experience of sadness is not a problem. It is just how things are. If life is just the result of a cosmic roll of the dice, then laughter and tears are neither good nor bad. They are just the numbers that came up.

But it seems to me that there is a tension between the story we have told ourselves about what it means to be human and our everyday experience of being human. We say that we are no more than ‘naked apes’, yet when someone behaves ‘like an animal’, we are quick to identify what they did as being somehow less than human. In other words, we say that we are no more than animals and yet we expect people to behave as though they were a whole lot more.

The logical conclusion to draw from the story of the universe that we tell ourselves is that our thoughts and actions are no more than a series of chemical reactions over which we have no control. And yet we go on talking about what people should do or ought not to have done as though there is such a thing as an ability to make moral and meaningful choices. But the fact is that the story we have told ourselves about what it means to be human gives us no foundation for our sense of being moral creatures. From where have we smuggled in this sense of morality and meaning?

I am not saying that this proves that there is a God. I am just saying that we find it hard to live in a way that is consistent with our atheism. The story we tell to make sense of what it means to be human doesn’t seem to be big enough. So there is a tension at the heart of the human experience. Face down in the sand, all we can see is beach. It is only logical for us to conclude that the beach is all there is. And yet the longing for the ocean won’t go away. We’re not able just to shrug our shoulders in the face of the sadness and the suffering. We campaign against injustice because we think it is wrong, and we weep at the loss of those whom we love. And every time we dream of a better world, we are admitting that human beings are made for something bigger than the beach on which we find ourselves stranded. We are admitting that something has indeed gone wrong.

Making sense of the tension

One of the reasons I take the Bible seriously is because it makes sense of the tension that we feel. The story it tells starts with Genesis. Of course, there is scope for debate on how exactly we are to read the first few chapters. But the author wants us to know that the story of the universe begins with God. It is God who charges the whole universe with meaning. And we are not just an accidental assortment of atoms. The Bible says that God made us in his image. In other words, the Bible has a noble view of humanity and says that we have been created for a noble purpose. As those made in the image of God, our purpose is to enjoy his love and reflect his ways in the world. And life with the Creator, who made the stars and the dragonflies, is never dull.

So, on the one hand, the Bible makes sense of the beauty of life. It says God created this world for us to enjoy. On the other hand, it also makes sense of the sadness.

The Bible says we are right to dream of a better world. As things stand, this world of ours is not as good as it gets. In the beginning it was good. Very good. But something has gone wrong. We have gone wrong because we have turned our backs on the God who made us.

Our culture is deeply suspicious of any suggestion that we might be in any way to blame for the mess our world is in. To our ears, it sounds like a sure-fire route to low self-esteem.

Jesus the restorer

The Bible’s diagnosis of the human condition may take some chewing on. But you need to know that it does not lead to low self-esteem. Just the opposite. The very fact that we are held responsible underlines the fact that we are not meaningless animals. We are noble creatures, but we have used our nobility badly. Instead of using it to enjoy the God who made us, we have used it to crash out of the ocean. That is why our beauty is shot through with sadness. Stranded on the beach, we thrash about, fighting to eke out some kind of existence. But it’s not the life that we were made for.

Towards the end of his account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, John tells us why he has taken the trouble to write it all up.

‘But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’ (John 20.31).

In fact, Jesus himself says: ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full’ (10.10).

I think that this comes as something of a shock to us. We have picked up the idea that Jesus came to tie us up in ‘thou shalt’ knots that are going to restrict our freedom. The word on the street is that he is going to tell us to sit up straight and stop enjoying ourselves: stop thinking, stop feeling, stop laughing. Stop going to the cinema, or making music, or asking questions. We think that following Jesus will mean missing out on life.

But John says: when you think about what Jesus has come to do, don’t think of rules and regulations and rituals. Think of a beached whale being restored to the ocean. Think of it swimming free again.

Jesus goes on to define the ‘life’ that he has come to bring. On one occasion, when he is praying for his disciples, he says, ‘Now this is eternal life: that they [the disciples] may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’ (17.3). He says that the life he has come to bring is about knowing ‘the only true God’. In other words, Jesus has come to restore us to the environment for which we were created, because he has come to give us a relationship with the God who made us.

Jumpy?

There might be a bit of you that is jumpy about the whole idea of knowing God. We are not sure that we want God looking over our shoulder and breathing down our neck the whole time. It sounds so oppressive. But the ocean doesn’t oppress the whale. The deeper it goes into the water, the freer it is to enjoy all that it means to be a whale. God doesn’t compromise our humanity. The deeper our relationship with him, the freer we are to enjoy all that it means to be human.

Extracted and edited from Real Life Jesus by Mike Cain, published by IVP, January 2008. £7.99. ISBN 978-1-84474-218-9. Used with permission.

An extract