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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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