Verse 3 in “Away in a Manger”:
The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes
Does anyone seriously believe that the baby Jesus never cried? I mean the first thing every new parent wants to hear is a crying baby emerging from the womb. It indicates health. Setting that aside, I’m sure Jesus cried, like every infant does, when he was hungry and needed food. For that matter, if Jesus was human, didn’t he fall and skin his knee as a toddler. Did he cry then?
You may say this is artistic license, and perhaps it is, but I do think we have a warped sense of the perfection of Jesus. He could be rude:
- Matthew 15:27 “But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Was he seriously comparing a Canaanite woman to a dog. I don’t care what interpretation you have, that was rude.)
- Luke 23:9 “Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing.” (Was he exercising his constitutional right to remain silent? Oh yeah, there was no constitution back then.)
- Matthew 23:33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (You’re going to tell me that Jesus can say anything he wants, but I thought He was the Perfect example of Humility. This is not humble, even if it is true. If you can’t say something nice, use TOUGH LOVE!)
Jesus is often set up as an example of meekness, but when he threw the money changers out of the temple, that didn’t sound very meek to me. Jesus lost his temper. I had someone argue that Jesus wasn’t angry, but it sure seems like a Bobby Knight temper tantrum to me.
If we believe Jesus was truly sinless and did no wrong, don’t we need to re-define Jesus in a way so that we don’t claim he didn’t cry, wasn’t rude, wasn’t angry?
Wheat & Tares 
Perhaps we do pick and choose or emphasise the “good” attributes of Jesus. One of the main reasons why I prefer to use only the scriptures when I teach or speak at church is because I find them more nuanced than the GA or other church authorities commentary. Jesus said “peace I leave you”, but he also said “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”. The scriptures have these great contradictions, you can view Jesus from many different angles. It is a shame, as you have noted, that there is a tendency to sanitise Him.
Only people who have never had a silent child think no crying would be a perfect baby. Crying is the only means of communication a baby has. Cries eventually differentiate to mean different things then are replaced by gestures then words. A baby that doesn’t cry is incredibly hard to care for, and would be immediately viewed as having something seriously wrong with it.
The song seems to imply that the perfect baby doesn’t do anything to interrupt the enjoyment of people basking in their presence. A more selfish version of “children should be seen and not heard”.
Interesting topic. When I was growing up, the emphasis was on Jesus’s humanity, and so I always assumed Jesus was an imperfect human being and, therefore, capable of sin (also crying, scratching, biting, pooping, etc.). I had to Google what Catholics teach on this question and, apparently, they teach that He did *not* sin. Maybe this is an extension of the idea that Jesus is part of the Trinity and that God is perfect, therefore Jesus must be perfect as well. On the other hand, the 7th commandment is “Thou shalt not kill.” and God went and wiped out every human being on earth in the great flood. I personally believe that Jesus was foremost a human being, that he was imperfect, and that he sinned. Sorry, theologians, I disagree with you on this one.
Frank Pellet’s comment is just what I was thinking. If a baby doesn’t cry, it’s not communicating its needs. “No crying he makes” isn’t scriptural, just a song lyric, but Jesus does exhibit irritating self-sufficiency when he preaches in the temple, answering questions at age 12, and his parents are frantic, not knowing where he is. And that’s why you always leave a note!
Well, “rudeness” is purely a matter of cultural norms, and I’m not sure one is always obligated to follow them. The moral issue with rudeness isn’t the fact of transgressing a cultural norm, but why and what you’re trying to accomplish. If I transgress a cultural norm to make you uncomfortable, just out of petty cruelty? That’s awful.
It’s also important to realize that rudeness is relational and situational. As King of the Universe, Jesus simply does not *owe* Herod a word of explanation, and refusing it to him is not even a breach of etiquette.
(Lest anyone think this gives them license to be a boor, first remember that, unlike Jesus, you’re not the King of the Universe, so you don;t get to act like it).
With regards to anger–well, anger is not necessarily sinful. The Bible talks about God’s righteous anger all the time. Ephesians 4:26 actually says “be angry and do not sin.”
So yeah, the issue here is that we have some pretty nonsensical ideas about what perfection entails.
One definition of “perfect” is “fitness for a particular role.” So if we define Christ’s perfection as being the exact person needed as teacher and Savior, he could still have all those human characteristics and meet that qualification.
On a related note, a common understanding of perfection, meaning having no flaws of any kind, and never having done anything that wasn’t the exact right thing, seems less meaningful to me the closer I look at it. Flaws, for one, are in the eye of the beholder. To some, any kind of anger is a flaw. To others, righteous anger is a virtue. Our ideas of perfection vary from culture to culture, and from age to age. Additionally, in most situations, there are many possible actions, some of which are better than others. There is no one right answer, usually, just a lot of better and worse answers, and even those valuations depend on which variable we’re optimizing for.
Then there’s the question of whether this stricter kind of perfection is even a worthy goal. Striving for that often leads people to becoming judgmental, to becoming too focused on the details, or to frustration and shame at never being able to measure up. Should we not strive for wisdom and compassion instead? Those goals seem more attainable and more useful.
“a common understanding of perfection, meaning having no flaws of any kind, and never having done anything that wasn’t the exact right thing”
That’s exactly the point I was trying to make. This is the kind of thing you hear at church, as in “you should never get mad”. Jesus got mad. If Jesus was “perfect” inasmuch as he did no sin, and therefore was able to satisfy the Atonement because if his sinless nature, then I think it’s really hard to reconcile “get mad” = “sin”. We really need to re-evaluate this. I think that people use the phrase “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” as a bit of a passive-aggressive weapon. Sure there are times that we need to be judicious and not say rude things, but there is a time and place where getting angry is appropriate. I find far too many people think that we’re supposed to be all smiles, and meek like Jesus. Jesus wasn’t always meek. He could rip people a new one and give them a tongue-lashing.
I really don’t think we have a good concept of what it means that Jesus was sinless if we think that means Jesus was never rude or angry. As such, I like the definition of perfect as “complete” but when people say it, it seems more like a platitude that has no real meaning, other than to make the sayer sound intelligent. Really, we need to re-evaluate what it means to say Jesus was sinless. He made people so angry that they killed him. If we did that, people would say, “well, he had it coming. He brought it on himself.” But we never say Jesus brought his troubles on himself.
“One definition of “perfect” is “fitness for a particular role.” So if we define Christ’s perfection as being the exact person needed as teacher and Savior, he could still have all those human characteristics and meet that qualification.”
The Bible also says Jesus was without sin, though. (Hebrews 4:15)
Kullervo, that’s true, the bible does say Christ was without sin.
Sin is another one of those concepts that, the closer I look at it, the less it means to me. Killing someone is wrong, except when it isn’t. Drinking alcohol and having multiple wives is a sin now, but it hasn’t always been. Nephi was commanded to be dishonest. It boils down to only this, as far as I can tell: whatever God doesn’t want you to do is sin.
Christ was sinless, so that means only that God approved of whatever He did. In most versions of Christianity, this is a tautology. Christ is God, so whatever He does is by definition God’s will, and therefore not a sin. In LDS theology, the Godhead is different, so it’s a little less that way, but still pretty tangled up.
Much like the perfection issue, I think that focusing on sinlessness is a less effective way to go. It can lead to a checklist mentality of right and wrong, and may miss the more important points of God’s teachings. Once again, I think that focusing on compassion, wisdom and Christ-like love will accomplish the goal better, and the sins will naturally fall away as we develop these other character traits.
I take it to mean that he didn’t cry on that one fictional occasion when the cows woke him up.
I’m not really A fan of the idea that Jesus (God) can do or say anything he wants but we can’t. It feels like a double standard. If we are supposed to. BE like Jesus then it seems we can live a double standard too,
I agree, Mormon Heretic. That’s why I think we should follow an ethical system that’s independent from “God said so.” It’s too easy to support almost anything that one wants to do by saying that God supported it somewhere in scripture. It’s been used to support racism, sexism, murder, and lots of other bad things. We should seek to understand the ethical framework behind the commandments, not just the commandments. Isn’t it better, rather than just doing as you’re told, to do what you think is right, after carefully thinking about it, and it actually is right? I think that’s what wisdom actually is, and I think if we’re trying to be like God, that’s the quality we should seek after, rather than just trying to mimic Jesus’ actions and follow a set of commands.
Of course, while we’re learning to do that, trusting the advice of those wiser than us is certainly a good move.
Japanese poet Matsuo Basho said, “Do not follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek instead what they sought.”