Mormon Momma

In a discussion on another blog, a commenter said: “Not doing anything Jesus wouldn’t do is seriously, way totally hard.”

Largely because of my musings about perfection and my New Year’s Resolution, I replied with the following (edited to add some things that hit me after I commented):

What if “what Jesus wouldn’t do” is way different than most of us imagine? What if what this thread is discussing forces us to re-examine our assumptions (many that have descended through a cultural prism that we classify as corrupted over time) about what His “mortal perfection” means? I agree it still is very hard and unattainable all at once, but even the Bible says Jesus grew “from grace to grace” and “in favor with God and man”.

I think we buy into the incorrect traditions of our fathers too much with regard to many topics, and how we view “what Jesus wouldn’t do” is one of them. There is something profoundly disturbing about the idea that “little Lord Jesus no crying he makes” and “He never got vexed when the game went wrong” - and it is related directly to our too common acceptance of totally unrealistic expectations, especially for far too many women I know.

To recap, the real meaning of “perfect” is “complete, finished, fully developed”. The last thing Jesus said, just before He died on the cross, was, “It is finished.” According to Matthew 5:48, He might have said, instead, “I am now perfect.” He grew from grace to grace, line-upon-line until he FINALLY could claim, right before he died, “It is finished.” Why do we suppose we need to short-circuit the process of growth He experienced and be *now* what He was only at the end?