Christ: Writing in Blood

Biblical Models of Manhood Part IV

Before I was a Christian, I was a Nietzschean. I admired his ideal of being a physically strong “higher man” who lives nobly and doesn’t complain about suffering. And his emphasis on integrity also appealed to me. ‘Of all that is written,’ Nietzsche said, ‘I love only what a person hath written with his blood.’ A man must have skin in the game.

But I realised that Nietzsche’s godless worldview gave him no grounds for any objective meaning, purpose or value. By what standard is the “higher man” higher? None. Yet I didn’t abandon what was true in what Nietzsche had to say. Instead, I came to see that it was mixed in with a lot of incoherence (especially the contradiction that it’s true there’s no truth) and searched for something that would accommodate it.

And then I saw that Christ — described by Nietzsche as the greatest man ever to live and the world’s most powerful example of writing in blood — offered it all and more. Since the masculinity of Christ has been so downplayed for so long, I hope this article will help recover it. I don’t pretend it’s definitive, and I’ll keep it brief and non-academic, but it covers a lot I was never taught.

Finding meaning in your mission

Although Christ’s life was full of suffering and persecution, He spoke of it as blessed. He didn’t complain. As Scripture says, among the fruits of the Spirit are joy and peace. Men don’t bitch. They build. And that means helping the people around you. Christ took joy in the simple things in life (nature, friendship, reading) and spent a lot of time restoring people to health not only spiritually but physically.

Imagine being age 12, announcing your life’s work and then never wavering from it until death. That’s exactly what Christ did. And no adversity could make him waver. He had total confidence in His Father and led a life marked by the fearless discharge of duty. More than they need money, men need a mission. And that’s exactly what Christ provides: “These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full" (John 15:11)

Being the bigger man

Small men have small problems. Little grudges eat away at them for years. They don’t pray for their enemies. Instead, they fantasise about revenge to satisfy their wounded egos. And it’s because of their prideful, peevish outrage at the perception of having been slighted. A big ego is constantly bumping into everything.

What little good will they have is restricted to a narrow social circle of people who flatter them somehow. Even the great moralist Cicero is said to have hated his enemy Clodius so much that, two years after his death at the Battle of Bovillae, Cicero was dating his letters, “The 560th day after Bovillae.”

But Christ prayed for his enemies while they were crucifying Him. A man on a big enough mission can’t afford to get bogged down in petty personal contentions. Christ didn’t even bother to debate degenerates most of the time. He just died for them instead.

It’s OK to get angry

When He saw the abuse of others, Christ became indignant. Do you let things slide? Or are you trying to make your community the best it can be? Part of the current crisis of masculinity is that men don’t think anything matters enough — or men matter enough — to bother making a stand.

As St. John Chrysostom warns, however, ‘without anger, teaching will be useless, judgments unstable, crimes unchecked.’ Modern man has confused being meek with being weak. The meek man knows when to flip tables and whip people like Christ did.

And of course Christ was also severe in his response to any evil suggestions that arose to tempt him. Being a man means defending boundaries, and that starts with your own heart. The man who wants to reform the world must remember that, in Emerson’s phrase, ‘the soul of reform is reform of soul.’ Be harder on yourself than you are on others.

Leading by example

All great men are loyal to a cause — something bigger than themselves. Hannibal swore vengeance on Rome at age 9 and made it his life’s mission. Denied this, young boys seek it out in gangs. Life isn’t about drifting around in search of fun. That’s why Christ drew a line to mark out the spiritual battlefield: ‘He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.’ (Matt. 12:30)

‘Apostle’ means, literally, one sent: a man sent forth into battle to represent Christ’s cause. He motivated men with hardship, not ease. The first Christians knew they had a high risk of martyrdom: the first pope was crucified upside down. Christ demanded that men write their loyalty to him blood as He had shed His for them.

And men respect a leader who’s willing to die for him. The missionaries in Japan, where Samurai culture made loyalty the supreme virtue, said this quality of Christ won Him the most souls. There can be no brotherhood without blood. This is ‘the rock’ that Christ asks us to build our lives on.

Even Napoleon, arguably the word’s greater military commander, knew Christ did it better:

“I have inspired multitudes with such devotion that they would have died for me”, said Napoleon on St. Helena, “but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present, with the electric influences of my looks, of my words, of my voice. Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years Jesus Christ makes a demand which is, above all others, difficult to satisfy. He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart. He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands unconditionally, and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man with all its powers becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him experience that remarkable super-natural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man’s creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish the sacred flame ; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This it is which strikes me most. I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite conclusively the divinity of Jesus Christ.”

Staying the course

But having ideals is no good unless you can pay the price for challenging the world with them. Talk is easy. And when trouble comes, you can become embittered or ennobled. As Lord Randolph Churchill famously wrote in a letter to his wife in 1891,

‘More than two-thirds, in all probability, of my life is over, and I will not spend the remainder of my years in beating my head against a stone wall. There has been no consideration, no indulgence, no memory or gratitude— nothing but spite, malice and abuse. I am quite tired and dead sick of it all, and will not continue political life any longer.’

Endurance is the hardest part of fortitude. Most men can get pumped up enough to go on the offensive for a moment when they think there’s a realistic chance of victory. But a real man can keep going and going when all hope seems lost. Imagine how easy it would have been for Christ to get frustrated by the frailty of human nature. He picked the best 12 men possible. One betrayed Him. One denied Him. The others all ran away.

Yet still, even after falling on His face in the Garden of Gethsemane, He didn’t quit. Looking at the punishments He had to endure before finally being nailed to the cross, doctors have concluded it’s a miracle He didn’t die before He got that far.

No pressure, no diamond

It was a miracle, of course. But Christ also knew how to use his troubles to strengthen Him spiritually. After the temptation in the wilderness, ‘Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee’ (Luke 4:14). Think about what that means. The Spirit led him into the wilderness so that He could overcome the devil. No guts, no glory.

Succumbing to temptation is sinful, but being tempted isn’t. In fact, it can help make you stronger. ‘Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations.’ (James 1:2-4.) Here we have an echo of Nietzsche’s famous sentiment ‘whatever doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.’ In fact, everything true in Nietzsche is only an echo of Christ, Who is Truth.

And for anyone struggling against temptation, it’s worth noting that Christ didn’t debate the devil. He simply cited God’s law and stood firm. When Ulysses sailed by the sirens, he had to tie himself to the mast and only just made it. His mistake was listening to them. Orpheus drowned out their singing with his own music and didn’t need to be tied up. Fill your mind with what’s holy.

Integrity

Christ could have lied to save himself from the cross, but He didn’t. A lie is the fundamental sin. His speech was never insincere or deceptive. At the height of His popularity, ‘great multitudes’ followed Him. But He told them the hard truths they didn’t want to hear even if it meant they turned away from Him. ‘Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14:26-27).

After that, the multitudes turned away, leaving only twelve, to whom Jesus said, ‘Will ye also go away?’ (John 6:66-67). You have to be on good terms with yourself and with others but ultimately with God. That’s what matters most. And it means not only avoiding appearing better than you are but also worse than you are. A man must let what God has given him shine. If you don’t use your gifts, you disrespect them. Don’t turn your back on your mission.

Fear God only

Staying committed to your mission means resisting the downward drag of the world. You might have to lose friends, your job or even your life. But truth matters more. Christ wasn’t complacent at all. Success in life isn’t measured by success in this life. Are you fearless enough to do God’s will anywhere and at any cost? That’s the foundation of courage, and it’s what Christ did throughout His life.

Some of the Jesuit missionaries to the native Americans carried on preaching while their tongues were cut out or they were being burnt alive. And that converted their persecutors more often than anything else did. Emerson describes a hero as one who, ‘Taking both reputation and life in his hand will, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob, by the absolute truth of his speech and rectitude of his behavior.’ If you’re on God’s side, you’re on the winning side — whatever the situation right now.

Echoes in eternity

Are you living as if you’re of infinite value in the sight of God? Are you treating other people as if they are? You probably remember that line in Gladiator about how ‘what we do in life echoes in eternity.’ The tremendous and terrifying truth of Christianity is that this applies to your daily life. You’re always at the crossroads between heaven and hell.

Think of at least one person in your life you’d change your attitude to if you had this truly in mind the whole time. And think about your friendships in the light of it as well. Christ was friendly to everybody, but He was friends only with people who met His high standards. If you don’t do that, you’re actually harming the other person because you’re encouraging him in his sin and harming yourself by weakening your own resistance to it.

What’s your number one?

Only one thing can come first in your life. Fr. Gabriel Amorth, formerly Rome’s chief exorcist, said that men’s main weaknesses are always the same — pride, money and lust. Ultimately, these are all different ways of putting ourselves first. But the only wealth that last forever is doing God’s will. Our time and energy is limited. Life is full of compromises. Schiller once said that you can tell an artist by what he leaves out. Greatness doesn’t leave time to major in the minors.

The test of success

There’s a chilling interview with Mike Tyson when he says that the devil comes when you’re at your most successful. Christ was offered the world, but He turned it down. Women literally fell at His feet wherever He went, but He stayed chaste. Not a shred of simping. By contrast, if you study the lives of spiritual “gurus” — human, all too human — you’ll notice the orgies start when the success does.

Imagine having infinite power but being able to restrain it. Chesterton said that if you give a weak man a sledgehammer and ask him to swing it hard at an egg but stop it on the shell, he’ll crush the egg. Only a truly strong man can pull it off. Christ’s whole life was like that, and He also knew that there was something to be honoured in everyone.

Ride or die

Let’s hear from Napoleon again:

“Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded great empires, but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force! Jesus alone founded his empire upon love, and to this very day millions would die for him. I think I understand something of human nature, and I tell you that all these were men and I am a man. None else is like him. Jesus Christ was more than a man.”

You’re going to die. But you don’t have to suffer the fate of living in such a way that you lose your life before you’re dead. That’s the real meaning of death before dishonour, and nobody did it better.

• Think about how Christ appeals to what is most militant in you.

• What abilities are you currently wasting?

• What comes first in your life and why?

• The culture war is a spiritual war, and it’s also taking place in your own heart. Have you decided which side you’re fighting on and made use of all the armour and weapons you can?

A call to arms

Today, a lot of the messaging about what it means to be “alpha” is actually emasculating. The same people who tell you “men are supposed to do hard things, bro” will tell you marriage is too hard or it’s too hard to walk away from the open legs of the wrong woman.

Christ places higher demands on you. He was born on a plank of wood in a manger, died on another plank of wood and lived a live of  constant hardship and heroism in between, never backing down despite the full weight of the world being against Him.

Everything admirable in every superhero you’ve ever been inspired by is ultimately an echo of the greatest story ever told. My favourite is from the end of The Dark Knight Rises:

Catwoman: You don't owe these people any more. You've given them everything.

Batman : Not everything. Not yet.

It could have been said to Christ because He didn’t owe us redemption.

In Part 1 of this exploration of Biblical models of masculinity, we learn from Noah, Abram and Joseph: a man must ride the storm, put God above all things and be tested in the fire of humiliation.

In Part 2, Job taught us to praise God during suffering; Moses showed that the masculine man is steadfast in prayer; and from Joshua, Gideon and Samson we learnt that true heroism is humble.

In Part 3, we’ll look at David, Solomon, Elias and Tobias showed how luxury and lust bring down kingdoms, why men mustn’t get lazy in prayer and what advice a strong father should give his son.

This article on Christ completes the series.