Digging Deeper: With Respect To

In the distance, the echoes of a bell shook the morning air. I popped up, barely missing the OSB board above my head, on the soft mattress. Bodies scurried through the cabin, alternating through the lone bathroom. A handful of two-minute showers, mismatched outfits, and cursory toothbrushing later, our group was herding itself down a dirt hill toward Morning Watch.

Mornings were usually the same. Morning Watch came first, an inspirational message delivered from benches facing a cross made of branches from the forest floor. Breakfast followed, a family-style meal with the entire camp. You stood behind your chair, hat in hand, for the morning blessing:

Gracious giver of all good,
Thee we thank for rest and food.
Grant that all we do or say,
In thy service be this day.
Amen.

Humorous skits and songs on the deck were the last thing before periods began: riflery, archery, canoeing, fishing, rock climbing, or skipping. My cousin Frank and I chose the latter. Walking down to an empty shack, he threw his arm in front of my chest. We hid behind a tree as an adult passed. We snuck into the hut and closed the door.

A pen about the size of a queen bed had a sign above it that read Bowser. Inside was the largest turtle I had ever seen. I could’ve ridden on his back like the horses up the hill at the farm. Frank was unamused.

“He’s dead.”

“No he isn’t.”

He grabbed a wooden broom from the corner, something in his eyes changing. Holding the bristles, he slid the handle slowly toward the beast’s face. It didn’t move. It didn’t blink. It didn’t even seem to breathe. Maybe he was right. He began bouncing the broom tip on its snout, and I began to believe him, until we heard footsteps outside.

As we peered through the slats in the door, a crackling sound rang out. Frank pulled up half a broomstick. It hadn’t snapped off the tip; the turtle had reached up as we looked away, and a clean cut broke the broom in half, right near Frank’s hands.

It’s fairly clear that each of us grows in wisdom over time. But how in the world does Jesus, being both God and man, increase in wisdom? God is omniscient. He knows everything. Isn’t that a contradiction?

Borrowing an example I’ve used before, and timely with the third film’s release, Avatar can be a helpful illustration (the word avatar literally means “descent” or incarnation). Jake Sully is a disabled soldier who enters the body of a Na’vi through a mind-body connection and futuristic technology. He thus has two natures, a human nature and a Na’vi nature. In his Na’vi body, the first thing he does is run outside the lab to sprint through the fields of Pandora.

So which is he, disabled or ambulatory?

This is the same problem theologians face with Jesus, and they’ve come up with a way of talking that is helpful. They use the phrase “with respect to.” So to answer the previous question, Jake is handicapped with respect to his human nature, but he is ambulatory with respect to his Na’vi nature. No contradiction.

Similarly, Jesus was omniscient with respect to his divine nature. He never lost that. But with respect to his human nature, he was limited in knowledge. He wasn’t acting when he said he was unaware of the date of his second coming; he was being honest. And in that sense, Jesus truly did grow in wisdom.

I doubt Jesus ever poked any Mediterranean turtles with a broomstick. But just like twelve-year-old me, he experienced the wilderness in a truly human way. And that makes him truly relatable to us.