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WHAT A SAVIOR! #17
DELUSIONAL OR DELIVERER
Effective comedians often use one of two gimmicks:
either self-deprecating humor, or self-glorifying praise. Ronald Reagan
and Rodney Dangerfield were sterling examples of the “can’t-get-no-respect”
variety of joke, and one of the more delightful tongue-in-cheek braggarts
in town is a Washington pundit named Art Buchwald. For decades now, he’s
pretended like he, and he alone, has been quietly running the world from
his ivory castle, as national leaders daily consult his newspaper column
before making any major decisions.
In his 1977 compilation, Down the Seine and Up the Potomac, he tells how
he was just a USC student watching the Notre Dame game in the Coliseum,
1946, when they paged him over the loudspeaker. “Art Buchwald, please
report to security. Mr. Art Buchwald . . .” He went to the nearest phone
and was soon on the line with one Harry S. Truman, President of the United
States. “You’ve got to come to Washington right now,” Truman begged him.
And Buchwald protested: “For crying out loud, Harry, I’ve gotta study
for an English test this weekend.” “But this is important.” Twelve hours
later, he was sitting in the Oval Office, helping Harry Truman deal with
the burgeoning Soviet threat. “An iron curtain has fallen over Europe,”
Art explained to him. Truman looked surprised. “That’s what Churchill
just said in his speech in Missouri!” “I know,” Buchwald said. “I wrote
his speech.”
Well, what to do? This skinny USC student, according to Buchwald’s “memoirs,”
devised a massive spending scheme to save Europe from going Communist.
“That’s it!” Truman exclaimed. “I’ll call it the Buchwald Plan.” “No,
no, no,” Art humbly interjected. “I’ve got to study. Why don’t you let
General George Marshall announce it? I work better out of the limelight.”
So that’s what they did – and it became the Marshall Plan instead. Buchwald
flew back to L.A., discovered a cure for polio – which they called the
Salk Vaccine – and got a job in Europe working for the New York Herald
Tribune. He gave advice to Ike when Eisenhower got into the White House;
he helped set up the Prince Rainier-Grace Kelly marriage. He went back
to the White House when Kennedy couldn’t seem to figure out how America
could beat the Russians in space. “I think we should get a man to the
moon,” Buchwald suggested. “Okay, but how?” Kennedy asked.
“I went to the blackboard,” Buchwald writes, “took
a piece of chalk, and wrote down a mathematical formula. Kennedy studied
it for a few moments and then said, ‘[Wow!] You’re right! We can do it.’
He immediately proposed a crash program and the Soviets have been behind
in the space race ever since.”
When the Cuban Missile Crisis hit, Buchwald was the
first person a beleaguered JFK called. As usual, Art had the answer, and
Nikita Khrushchev, eyeball to eyeball with an American naval blockade,
was the first one to blink. An airline stewardess later gushed to Buchwald:
“Jack says you saved the world from being destroyed.” All through this
one-man show of running the world, Buchwald intimates that the most beautiful
women and Hollywood starlets were dropping by his apartment at all hours
of the day and night, sharing state secrets and torrid kisses with this
debonair newspaperman.
When Johnson ascended to the Presidency, of course it was Buchwald who
came up with the slogan, “The Great Society.” (LBJ sent him a Hereford
cow from his ranch to show his gratitude.) After Richard Nixon got in,
Buchwald – who didn’t like Tricky Dick that much – worked behind the scenes,
pulling levers with Henry Kissinger instead. It was Buchwald, naturally,
who suggested the benefits of a detenté with China. Kissinger thought
it was a great idea, but had no clue how to proceed. Once again, Buchwald
had the answer. “Why not send a ping-pong team over? Maybe that would
break the ice.” Sure enough; the rest was history. And it’s no surprise
that Art Buchwald was the infamous “Deep Throat” newspaper source who
quietly helped Woodward and Bernstein bring down a Presidency in the Watergate
scandal.
Well, it’s fun to read – pure bunk, obviously – and Buchwald humbly calls
the essay: “I Did What I Could.” If it were a serious piece, his agent
would be the first person to call the men in the white lab coats.
With that observation before us, let’s go to the Word of God and discover
a much shorter essay, this one running just five words long . . . and
it’s far more grandiose than anything the delusional Mr. Buchwald ever
pecked out at his typewriter. In John 16, Jesus is very plain in talking
about His divinity. He tells His disciples that He’s soon returning to
His Father in heaven. He’ll send the Holy Spirit. Some day in the future
He will definitely return. Jesus’ followers can ask God the Father for
anything in the mighty name of Jesus, and it will happen. Then chapter
16 concludes with this amazing claim:
“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may
have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I HAVE
OVERCOME THE WORLD.”
Just like that. Not: “I am a good teacher.” Not: “My
philosophy of love will make a huge impact these next 2000 years.” Not:
“I bring a unique perspective that will fill many books.” No. Instead,
Jesus makes this boldest of propositions: “I have overcome the world.”
You know, we scour the surrounding passages to see what’s going on here.
Is this just a bit of comedy? Is Jesus being funny? Not at all; every
indication is that He’s dead serious.
Possibility #2: Was Jesus just a delusional madman? Once in a while, maybe
you get a photocopied mailing from some religious kook who claims that
he, and he alone, has figured out the date for the Second Coming, or that
he is a second David Koresh-like “new messiah.” But even Jesus’ worst
critics concede that the Carpenter from Galilee was a brilliant thinker,
a visionary whose teachings were solid and beneficial. Millions through
the succeeding twenty centuries have had their lives transformed, their
goals changed, their hearts melted, by the words and the example of Jesus.
Churches, colleges, hospitals – all bear the imprint of His philosophy.
Could so much be attributed to an imbalanced megalomaniac, a Captain Queeg
or a Bligh of the first century? That hardly seems likely.
I remember seeing on TV an ad for some new medication. It was touted as
being able to solve a lot of medical problems, but it did have one rather
odd side effect. This pill could actually plant delusional thoughts in
your brain. Not everybody, of course, but a certain percentage of users
would end up basically hallucinating and experiencing alien, fictional
emotions. In their book of Christian apologetics, Ready With an Answer,
John Ankerberg and John Weldon write:
“For someone to be convinced that he is God when he
is only a man is the height of psychosis. Was Jesus so psychologically
crippled that He had deceived Himself into believing that He was God Incarnate
– even though He was only a deluded man?”
And so we have this incredible self-proclaimed resumé
from a man who was killed for saying it: “I have overcome the world.”
Well, let’s ask this question. Taken at face value, what exactly did Jesus
mean? There in 31 A.D., He clearly wasn’t suggesting that all world armies
were bowing to Him. That very same Thursday evening, Roman soldiers arrested
Him, bound Him up, and nailed Him to a cross. Jesus didn’t protest; He
accepted that moment of horrible submission. And even 2,000 years later,
armies still march against one another; nations are ruled by people who
often pay no attention to the claims of the Christian faith. So, if Jesus
was sane when He said it, what exactly was He claiming to have overcome
as His disciples sat with Him in the murky candlelight with the wine and
the bread?
Our NIV text notes have this comment:
“Just before His death Jesus affirms His final victory.”
And over whom? Obviously, not armies of men. No, Jesus’
claim here is a spiritual one; He is guaranteeing, even ahead of Calvary,
His triumph over Lucifer and the forces of darkness. In fact, one paraphrase
version puts verse 33 this way:
“Remember that I have overcome Satan’s hold on the
world.”
Now, friend, in our last minute of worship, let me
say this. Maybe you’re one of the many who have enjoyed reading the Gospels,
and had your heart stirred by the teachings of Jesus. But when it came
to: “I have overcome the world,” or “There is none other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved,” you stopped short. You didn’t
attribute those sayings to humor, or even to insanity. You just stopped
short. You didn’t “go there.” But I must humbly say – and I’m a frail
Bible student myself – that such a halfway embrace really doesn’t work.
That same book, Ready With an Answer, puts it in these stark, unavoidable
terms:
“The only logical choice is to take all of Jesus or
none of Him. To reject His claims is to reject His teachings is to reject
HIM.”
Do I accept Art Buchwald’s wild, winking claim to be
the Savior of all mankind? No. I smile, I show my wife Jeannie the cute
lines, and then I walk away. But with Jesus, you either accept “I have
overcome the world,” and believe that Lucifer’s government of terror was
defeated at the cross, that Jesus is going to rule the entire universe
one day soon, or you take none of it.
Madman? Or Savior and Lord? To me, that’s an easy one.
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