"Like" if you would help Jesus up!
Beware so as not to be condemned by your memes
Years ago, I saw a meme titled “Like if you would help Jesus up” with a picture of Jesus collapsed under his cross and extending a hand up toward the viewer. I wrote this piece in response. I begin with mixed thoughts on the positive impact (if any) of “awareness” or “support” posts like this, then turn to look at a deeper teaching this particular post might afford.
Perhaps you have seen this meme or others like it. Now we can endlessly argue about the value or effects of online activism and the awareness and attention garnered there. I think the prevailing sentiment is that it is ineffective, and that, even if the awareness is good, people quickly drift to new problems or distractions. There is certainly evidence for this. But let me offer another, more positive, outlook.
I recently saw a meme that said something like “the internet is our new brain; it is the electric projection and emerging formation of our collective consciousness” (in a pithier way). Rarely have I enjoyed such insight in memes. I follow many “spiritual” or “conscious” pages, and they do post some good stuff. But, largely, the deepest insights are the hackneyed ones—“love is all you need”, “you have power”, etc.
These are very powerful even if they are cliche and passed over as such; even then they work on a subconscious level because of their deep truth. And, of course, there are people out there who do need to hear that, even if you don't in the moment. So it is not at all a detriment that they go on posting them.
Many posts, though they may contain some truth, are merely directed at affirming one’s belonging to the tribe. IYKYK. Outsiders will scoff, but we who are strong will “like and share”. Christians make such posts, as do any and all groups—crunchy hippies, flat earthers, vaccine skeptics, anti-Trumpers, anti-democrats, etc. Truth be told, this is the purpose of the majority of online content related to worldview: “We are awesome, those others just don’t understand!” Online solidarity is a potent boost for connection for an almost completely disconnected world.
However, this meme about the internet being our incipient growing conscious extension, I thought marvelous and absolutely ingenious. And, what is more, this perspective gives us hope for all the nonsense—there is hardly a better term for it—we see every day.
In our own minds most of us do not have continuity. We hold many conflicting beliefs, many unreasoned (not necessarily bad), many true and many false beliefs, both consciously and subconsciously. We all harbor inner contention within ourselves. Now take that level of development and kick start massive growth and interaction. Take all the (or most of the) self-contentious minds on the planet and force them to reveal themselves (which they are often afraid to do) to each other, put them in constant direct contact with endless others all harboring just as much conflict and yet varying inconceivably in their constructions, each having a unique perspective.
Well, the internet as we see it is what you get; and is essentially what we should expect. So such contentious and grotesque extensions that we may find are all the more understandable. And further, each of our many little excursions each day into our cybernetic consciousness become all the more significant. Each time we interact with another, express a point of view, make some connection, we are essentially forming new cyber-neural pathways. We are establishing all the focal points of and the many avenues connecting our collective-consciousness-growing-into-physical-manifestation; any set(s) of which have the potential to become the future main streets and hubs of our world-mind. In this sense, a “mere” 'like' or even passing awareness becomes a significant elemental construct in this burgeoning life-force.
Well then, perhaps the 'like' is valuable after all! But what of this meme? 'Like' if you would help Jesus up! It implores with a picture of the Savior fallen under the burden of his cross, bleeding from his crown of thorns, and imploring you with outstretched hand and affectionate eyes...
Ah those are the proud Christians who stalwartly face the backlash of the online community for expressing their faith! Well, I have just gone to some length to actually support the merit of this kind of action. But this meme itself is shallow, not for the lack of power in the 'like', but for the message it seeks to represent. The truth of Jesus is deep and beautiful. And the question presented here—would you help Jesus up?—is not what it seems.
This meme takes the historical, suffering, and unjustly persecuted form of Jesus and asks us if we would stand up for him. “Yes!” the good Christian is expected to reply and so they can feel superior to all those foolish bystanders of the time who had neither faith nor a sense of righteousness. But we have hindsight on this matter. The question is not whether you would help up the man you know to be virtuous and defy the government you know to be unjust; the question is would you have the courage to help a strange vagrant, even when all those around you—except for a small group of “crazy” fanatics fallen under the spell of some cult—tell you this man is a menace, a disease, an instigator, megalomaniac and a blasphemer? It is not about standing up for the good you have been taught to see; it is about standing up for righteousness—against the torture, persecution and alienation of anyone, not just “the Savior” you know well. (“Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”) It is about standing against the sentiments of the age and the masses, and (in all likelihood) against the beliefs and wishes of your own family and friends.
The reason why this meme bothers me is not because it represents a lack of power in its internet-instantiation, but because it is being treated as a simple in-group-affirmation while it is saying something much more profound. Every day we see Jesus fallen in the streets—whether in the news of events around the world, or in our own towns as the homeless and “crazy” outcasts, or in the mirror (if we have the tendency to despise our own form)—and allow Him to be persecuted and forgotten. And if we are saying that we would, but then not actually doing it, won’t our words (or our “likes”) condemn us? (“But not that you saw, ‘We see,’ your guild remains.” John 9:41; see also James 1:22-25)
The question is not would you help Jesus (the bodily form) up, but did you love your neighbor today? Did you look kindly at the mailman? Did you offer what you could to the “dirty” and “useless” beggar (even if “only” love)? Did you see all those demonized figures around the world and in the news—who your government or your family or whoever is telling you is “evil” or a traitor, or a liar, or otherwise not worthy of our cares or moral consideration—and stand up for them with your love and recognition? How many of your enemies did you pray for? Did you see a world, half or more populated by problems and nuisances, or did you see God today in his great-manifold-manycolored-strange-wonderful wardrobe?
Excellent observation and commentary on the modern social media consciousness. This reminds me how amazing Jesus truly is. Even though I very likely would not have helped Jesus up had I been on the street in Jerusalem that day and even today as I fall short of living out his example in "doing unto the least of these," Jesus still willingly paid the price on that day for my shortcomings and ignorance.