Was Jesus creative? A short video clip from Christian movie director Darren Wilson and his father, Gary Wilson, nominates Jesus as the most creative person to ever live on earth.[1] In the clip, father and son refer to Jesus’ extraordinary story-telling ability, rich in complexity, depth and relevance. Jesus, Gary observes, offered new perspectives on everyday life, connecting the dots in ways that had not been done before.
[1] Wilson Darren, Why Jesus Christ was the most creative person to ever live. https://smartandrelentless.com/jesus-creative-person-ever-live/, accessed 1:19.2023.
Creative is not a descriptor I normally use for Jesus, but recently, I began to think of Him in those terms. This came to mind as I first thought about the inventiveness of people who sought Him out. The men who removed the tiling on the roof to lower their paralyzed friend before Jesus, for instance, exercised considerable ingenuity. Zacchaeus, the short tax collector, who climbed a tree to see over the crowd and get a glimpse of Jesus exhibited unorthodox behavior for a grown man and the gentile woman of Syro-Phoenicia gave a novel response to Jesus’ initial refusal to deliver her tormented daughter. Jesus explained that He couldn’t take the children’s bread and throw it to the little house dogs, but the desperate mother insisted saying, “Yes, Lord, yet even the small pups under the table eat the little children’s scraps of food (Mark 7:28).” Impressed by the woman’s faith, Jesus set her daughter free. These were unconventional acts that brought about results.
JESUS AND CREATIVITY
Pursuing this line of thinking, Jesus’ creative nature became obvious. And why not? The opening chapters of Genesis tell of God creating the heavens and the earth, night and day, greater and lesser lights, stars, seas, dry land, plants, sea creatures, moving creatures, winged birds and, in His own image, man, both male and female. In his gospel, John leaves no doubt that Jesus was central to the creation of everything. John relates, “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:2-3). ”Paul similarly reiterates that God created all things through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:9).
JESUS AS STORY-TELLER
To look at Jesus ministry through the lens of creativity opens a vast terrain. It seems that every aspect of His ministry displays inventiveness. As observed, Jesus’ teaching was marked by highly innovative story telling. Who hasn’t been moved by Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan or convicted by the story of the unforgiving servant who refused to forgive one hundred silver coins after he himself had been forgiven ten thousand bags of gold? Jesus knew how to draw His audience in with stories that touched the emotions and sense of justice.
Jesus intended for His stories to function as parables that reveal spiritual understandings. He was not trying to entertain, but convey truth. There is nothing simplistic about His stories. Time and again, Jesus uses the commonplace to disclose spiritual truth.
Drawing on Hebraic traditions, author Jared C. Wilson labels Jesus’ stories as wisdom scenes.[1] Parables, explains Wilson, derive from the root word, mashal, which means essentially proverb. “In the Old Testament, he adds, we find that proverbs, stories, riddles, and similes are all identified with the word mashal. A mashal is an illustration of wisdom.” Wilson thus identifies Jesus’ parables as wisdom scenes, reminding us that Colossians describes Jesus as embodying the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge. As creativity was innate to His nature so wisdom was as well. The two come together in His parables.
[1] Wilson, Jared C., February 7, 2014, How should we read Jesus’ parables? https://www.crossway.org/articles/how-should-we-read-jesuss-parables/, accessed 1.21.2023.
Needing to capture the attention of His audience, stories enabled Jesus to engage people, draw them in to ask questions, and learn more. Stories allowed Jesus to communicate layered meanings that could complicate the obvious. The question, ‘who is my neighbor?’ thus becomes considerably more complex after hearing Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan.
METAPHORS
As a figure of speech, metaphor is highly associated with creativity, letting one thing stand for another. Jesus, compared Himself to many different things such as a shepherd, light, bread, a door, and a vine. Using such likenesses allowed Him to skillfully and purposefully unfold His complex nature. The use of multiple metaphors also permitted Him to reveal the nature of the kingdom of God. The kingdom according to Jesus was like wheat and tares growing up together, a tiny mustard seed flourishing into a mighty tree, leaven invading all parts of the dough, a merchant of pearls finding a pearl of great price, a hidden treasure worth all one could pay, and a dragnet cast into the sea catching the good and the bad.
Jesus created comparisons from things that would have been familiar to the people of His time. He knew to start with the known to explain the unknown. The fact that He employed multiple metaphors or comparisons for the same thing such as the kingdom of God or Himself suggests the complexity of what He was explaining.
PARADOXES
Jesus unending use of paradox, to provoke and evoke new thought, is one of the most intriguing aspects of His creative nature. For instance, He proposed that to find our life, we must lose it (Matthew 16:24-26) and whoever lacks whatever he has will be taken away (Matthew 13:12) andif anyone wants to be first, he must be last (Mark 9:35) and to bear fruit, we must die (John 12:24). These paradoxical statements can make your head swim, but they make clear that kingdom life is unlike anything previously encountered.
MIRACLES
If you study Jesus’ miracles, it becomes apparent that He never worked from a formula. He healed and delivered people in diverse ways. To heal a blind man, He smoothed mud over the eyes of the man. On another occasion, He healed a tormented servant of a Roman centurion without even being present. He only spoke a word and the servant was set free. While on other occasions, Jesus reached out and touched the sick person.
In other miraculous episodes, Jesus produced a coin from the mouth of a fish to pay the temple tax, prayed over a small amount of food to feed thousands, and, during a wedding celebration, took six jars of water and turned them into six jars of wine. Jesus was simply unpredictable. He met the occasion. Instead of following a pre-set script, He played to the circumstances.
THE PAINTING
What could you do with a long vertical line 1.5 inches from the right or left edge of the page, .5 inch from the bottom and variable dimensions from the top? These were the rules I set for myself to explore the idea of invention. On twelve blank canvases, I drew a vertical line 1.5 inches from either the left or right edge, .5 inch from the bottom and variable dimensions from the top. I then experimented with creating a different form on each canvas by expanding outward from the original line. The challenge was to avoid repetition and too close a similarity between the invented forms.
I happen to prefer simplicity so I added a rule to evade complicating the forms too much. As I worked, I learned that while difference was the goal, a degree of similarity was necessary to communicate the idea of change.
To challenge myself further, I created twelve more forms using the same vertical line as a starting point and, finding some images from the second set more interesting, I replaced some of the initial twelve. Comparison between the forms became part of the process as I dodged repetition and found stimulation for inventing further forms. It seemed clear that through inventiveness the process could continue almost endlessly.
Why did I set up this visual problem and why am I detailing the process? Since I was writing about Jesus and creativity, I wanted to very directly and simply explore the process of inventing. I discovered that it was important to begin by establishing at least a few rules such as positioning the vertical line as a starting point. Creativity is not entirely free-form, but works best when there are some restrictions, which is why artists often set up arbitrary rules for themselves. Anything goes doesn’t usually produce strong results. We need boundaries.
Jesus’ creativity was structured. He appears to have some rules, however loose. Every story, metaphor and healing, for instance, was directed toward a single overarching purpose to bring the kingdom of God to earth. His inventiveness was not to amuse, but to convey truth. Another rule: He seemed to stay within the boundary of the everyday as a source for his stories and metaphors, choosing things that would be within the understanding of His audiences such as farmers sowing crops, business transactions, lost coins, wayward children, wedding feasts, judges, friendships, etc.
The painting is the result of deliberate choices, based upon a set of simple rules intended to bring something new into being. Jesus also deliberately made choices to inventively bring about something new. As He put it, new wine cannot be put into old wine skins. Jesus brought ideas that differed from traditional religious understandings and He needed a vehicle to present this new thing. He needed to signify that His teachings were unlike what had come before. He delivered His message about the kingdom of God come to earth in ways that arrested people. They did not always understand everything but they knew His message was unlike anything they already knew.
Lord Jesus, thinking of You as creative and inventive is not meant to trivialize Your work on earth; but rather, to more deeply appreciate it, knowing it is extraordinary, not common. So often creativity is seen in terms of amusement and entertainment, but You show us how it can become a vehicle for significance. Surely, the first signs of creation on earth, described in Genesis, hold great significance. You were not trying to amuse. In fact, the results of Your creativity held such import that You came to redeem it with Your own life.
You made us in your image and this includes Your creative nature. As You used creativity to reveal the kingdom of God and draw people into it, so we too should ask the Holy Spirit to activate creativity in us to reveal and draw people into the kingdom. So often we ignore this possibility, relying on what we or others have done before. Having models as a starting point is useful, but couldn’t we go further if we paused to ask You to give us inventive ideas and strategies?
Lord Jesus, we also thank You for just the pleasure and joy that creativity imparts to our lives. You didn’t live a humdrum life by any means and neither do you desire for us to do so either. Creativity infused Your life on every page of the gospels. Why could it not seep through our lives?
Help us to enlarge our notion that creativity is only for a select few, but understand that it is Your intention for all of us. It is more than producing artworks, composing musical scores, or giving performances. If we avail ourselves of Your creative nature, letting it become alive in us, it can be how we do life.
Sydney Walker, January 27, 2023
One response to “INVENTIVE”
I think you showed exceptional insight into this topic Sydney. I especially liked this comment “ Surely, the first signs of creation on earth, described in Genesis, hold great significance. You were not trying to amuse. In fact, the results of Your creativity held such import that You came to redeem it with Your own life.”