Quaker Theology #14

We Are the Missing Link -- Page 4

Son of Man versus Messiah

Jesus speaks of the Son of Man in the third-person, sometimes referring to himself. Why did he prefer it over Messiah, the Son of God? The title of Messiah was laden with kingly, prophetic, and priestly expectations. The wilderness temptation story (in both Matthew and Luke) portrays Jesus struggling with all three expectations. Wink offers a good list of positive and negative potentials inherent in projecting human hope upon a Messiah (pp. 114-15). These range from our positive desire for redemption and vindication, to our negative desire for someone to punish our enemies. Jung saw Christian faith as a total identification of Christ with the Self (or, in theological terms, with God). But as the Human Being, Jesus attempted to bridge between ego and Self, between humanity and God, and serve as a catalyst for personal individuation and species evolution. .

When Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah, Jesus warns him to tell no one, then immediately shifts to the Son of Man and predicts his suffering and death. Peter is scandalized by Jesus’ response. The sharpness of Jesus’ retort ("get behind me, Satan") suggests how Jesus himself struggled with the messianic identity. Wink paradoxically summarizes that Jesus bore the messianic identity but refused to be identified as such (p. 116). So, he doesn’t deny Peter’s confession, because he must keep the messianic image alive in Peter.

Similarly, when John the Baptist sends emissaries to ask Jesus if he is the Messiah ("the one who is to come"), Jesus responds by describing his healings and the good news he preaches to the poor. Then he adds the admonition, "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Again, he evades messianic identification, but keeps the question open. His true messianic function is to help people find the Messiah in themselves. Finally, when Jesus appears before the Sanhedrin the night of his arrest, he is asked directly if he is the Messiah. In Mark, he answers "I am." In Matthew and Luke he responds enigmatically, "You have said it." But in all three cases, he immediately shifts focus to the Son of Man, whom they shall see coming upon clouds of heaven (an allusion to Daniel 7).

Wink maintains a helpful tension between Messiah and Son of Man as identities of Jesus. He views both as archetypes with powerful positive and negative valences. As he did for the Messiah archetype, he offers a list of potentials inherent with the Son of Man archetype (pp. 125-26). For example, positively, the archetype draws us toward wholeness. Negatively, there is the danger the archetype may tempt us to repress the shadow rather than seek to integrate it. Wink summarizes his argument: Jesus couldn’t tell people he was the Messiah, because it would block them from discovering it in themselves. "And if Jesus did not enable them to discover such powers within themselves, he was not the Messiah" (p. 127). That enigmatic statement leaves the question open for us, much as Jesus did for John the Baptist

Wink admits that both Messiah and Son of Man will always invite our projections. But projections aren’t necessarily bad. Handled well, they function as keys to spiritual illumination. They have heuristic value for us as models in our journey toward individuation. Wink cites the example of Albert Schweitzer, who concluded a century ago that the quest for the historical Jesus simply projects our modern ideals upon Jesus. As an antidote, Schweitzer portrayed Jesus as a faith-healer and apocalyptic prophet, images that resist modernization. Then he went off to Africa to serve humanity as a medical missionary. Rather than make Jesus over in his own image, he made himself over in Jesus’ image (p. 128).

We can recognize Jesus working with projections in the gospels. When someone addresses him as "good teacher," he retorts that no one is good but God. When people are healed, he emphasizes that their faith has made them whole. Finally, the death of Jesus serves as the ultimate breakdown of his followers’ projections. In Luke’s story of the two disciples walking out of Jerusalem to Emmaus, we hear of their shattered dreams of messianic redemption. They do not recognize Jesus risen and walking with them. Later, when they do recognize him, the vision fades. At that point, he is no longer visible before them, but becomes active within them. Successful work with our projections requires finding within ourselves that which corresponds to what we have perceived without (p. 145).

At the end of his ministry, Jesus announces that his servants/disciples have become his friends (John 15:15). In our own experience, the Son of Man mediates our projections over the course of a life-long process. In human relationships, that process turns mentors into partners, parents into friends. Wink describes Jesus as "God’s Lorelei, luring the ego to blessed shipwreck on the rocks of the Self" (p. 146). Hebrews similarly testifies, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (10:31 NRSV). Integration of the shadow into a larger sense of self has its terrors. "But that seems to be the price that must be paid for authentic life" (p. 147).

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