Argument from the Saints III: Christ Becomes All Things to All People

Another Unorganized Argument

Jesus was not a half-visible, floating figure too misty for definite shape. He was a man, so many feet and so many inches tall, with darker or lighter skin, a certain amount of extroversion, and a favorite food. Jesus is as outrageously particular as any other human. Sometimes people on the internet like to assign Jesus a Meyers-Briggs, enneagram, or Big 5 personality type. Others argue that Jesus was really all personalities, for reasons that trail off into warm fuzzies and religious pietisms. Even though saying that Jesus was really every kind of person might sound holy, it really makes a dangerous move towards denying that Christ had the full complement of human faculties. 

It makes us uncomfortable, though. If Jesus was, say, an INTJ, or a 1w2, or whatever Big 5 uses, does that mean those people are automatically more Christlike than everyone else? Well, let’s follow the logic. If Jesus had a favorite color, would we all have to switch to it? If he disliked celery, would we consider it a blight on the earth? Likewise, if he tended towards solitude, must we all? People have of late been very concerned to with projecting the concept of race backward 1600 years to determine whether Jesus was “white” or “brown.” Whatever color his skin was, does it follow that we all need to bleach or bronze ourselves to that exact shade? Of course not. If we allowed that logic to have its head, we would never have computer programmers, artists, or taxi drivers. We would all become pilgrims in the Holy Land and very likely end up dying of heat or starvation. 

Here’s where the saint come in. In the saints, we find exemplars of being Christlike in every walk of life compatible with Christian ethics. The saints are, to quote Lewis, gloriously different. Some were scholars, some distrusted books. Some were actors, others (by a special miracle) politicians. It can be extremely helpful and encouraging to find someone among the communion of the saints to look to as an exemplar in your own life. Jesus was not a millennial, but Blessed Carlos Acutis was. Jesus was not a woman, but Mary the Mother of God was. Jesus was not Native American, but St. Kateri Tekakwitha was. Jesus did not ever suffer shame that he really deserved, but St. Augustine did. The saints are like a thousand tiles in the mosaic of Christ’s body, and they help us see how we, with all our own quirks and gifts, can fit into it alongside them in service of the one Head, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

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