THE PROXY IN THE STORY [T, 4-28-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Theology of An Old Reader—THE PROXY IN THE STORY [T, 4-28-26]

 

In every story, there is a character who is the proxy for the reader. The reader may not know it. Even the author may not know who it is. It may not be some character with whom the reader identifies. Indeed, the reader may not even like that character. But the proxy character brings the reader into the story and walks through it with them, often more in spirit than in action.

Jesus is the proxy for the reader in the story God is writing.

We don’t see the author of a story. That worthy individual is hidden behind words and pages. Indeed, it’s usually a shock when we see the author’s photo in the back flyleaf of the book. He doesn’t look like the author of The Dainty Diaries. She doesn’t look like someone who would write The Corn Flakes Killer. [Cereal killer; get it?]

[Note to author: it’s not funny if you have to explain it.]

But you can get some hints about who the author is, and how she thinks. Maybe even where he lives, or where she shops, or what flowers he likes. That’s true of God, too. We get hints about who God is and what God wants by paying attention to how God writes the universal story.

[Reminds me of the kid who was coloring in Sunday School. “What are you doing, Billy?” the teacher asked. “Making a picture of God,” he said. “But no one knows what God looks like,” she protested. “They will now,” he said.]

We understand the story best, though--not only understand it but get into it ourselves--through the proxy character. In the Gospel story, that is Jesus. He is the go-between, between the author and the reader.

Our omnivorous reader friend, Dow Cooksey, used to say, when he gave up on a book half-way through, “There just wasn’t any character in the story that I could care about.”

The good thing about Jesus is that he is easy to care about. Even if you are a Muslim, you respect Jesus as an important prophet. Even if you are an atheist, you respect Jesus as a teacher of ethics. Even if you are a drunk, you respect Jesus for turning water into wine.

That’s why Jesus is the Christ.

Christ is not Jesus’ surname. It’s a job title. It means he’s the proxy in the Story. Not just the Christian story. Not just the Bible story. God’s story.

I heard of an African who read the New Testament for the first time. When asked what she thought, she said, “That man, Jesus? He is good medicine.”

John Robert McFarland

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.” Ludwig Wittgenstein. [Wittgenstein is one of my favorite philosophers because he helped me get an A in a graduate statistics course. I knew nothing of the math of stats, but I gave an incomprehensible oral report on Wittgenstein, so the prof and other students assumed I was smart.]