I’ve tried to deal with this subject delicately but I just had to get out of bed this morning with the thought “my back is killing me”. I wondered if Jesus was human enough to have had a bad back or knee trouble or arthritic twinges in his young life up to the point where the Romans nailed him to a cross?

It was a first, this morning, when my back instead of my knees forced me to get out of bed and stumble around and make the decision to stay up and go about trying to act normally.  Acting normally for me is to get the newspapers from in front of the door and make breakfast so I can read while I eat my grits and drink my Postum.  These things are not usually difficult for I do them automatically.  This morning I was acutely aware that “my back was killing me”.  When this happens, no matter how you squirm or reposition yourself, that back is out to get you.

I initially brought up Jesus because many believe him co-equal with the Jewish God who was given credit for fathering him. There is a whole story in there about THE “GOD” who had an affair with a human Jewish woman promised or actually married to a Jew named Joseph.  I might rightly guess that Jesus had a very bad back when he faltered carrying the cross to the place of execution.  He was excused from taking it all the way by a volunteer who picked it up for the last steps. Hanging from that cross was certainly no cure for back problems and the strain on his hands, arms, feet and legs must have been greater.  But, if you have been following this up to this point, let me turn your attention to an article in the NY Times this morning in the left hand column of the Op Ed page by Nick Kristof.

His title is “God and Sex” and the article is about attitudes toward homosexuality which are given code names like “Gay” and “lesbian”. Mr. Kristof asks in an inset, “What Would Jesus say about gay marriage”.  He is actually making fun of the scholars and professional religionists who have tackled the problems caused by Conservative Christian zealots who have pushed a willing President into trying to change the Constitution of the United States through a “Marriage is only between one man and one woman” amendment.  This despite the Old and New Testaments having only fragmentary mentions about these practices – although there is a lot to say about multiple wives and concubinage as commonplace; at least for those wealthy enough to indulge their libidos.

But this started out as a question about, what would Jesus have done about a bad back. My thought was that if he actually had God-like powers he would cure himself in a minute. But the story seems to stress his agony on a cross graphically detailed by Mel Gibson. I find that by sitting at this computer, that I have quite forgotten my painful back.  Now it is my knees again. - I wish I believed in prayer.