Jesus and Physics

I was watching NOVA on PBS the other night. Yes, I know. You are probably saying, "NOVA?" Yep. In the episode I was watching, they were discussing the movement to make things smaller. Especially in the area of technology. It was amazing how small things can get. In that same episode, they were showing an illustration of physics on the micro level. They had two glass boxes. One was filled with regular water and the other with a more viscous liquid. They wound up two toy frogs and place one in each tank. The frog in the regular water swam as expected. It moved through the water with very little to no resistance. On the other hand, the frog in thicker liquid, moved very little. This illustrated how physics are more evident on smaller objects in space. So, the smaller the object, the denser the space around it. The denser the space, the harder it is for that object to move. So what, right? I know that is what I thought, but then it dawned on me. If physics affected this toy frog so dramatically, how did it affect Jesus? Let me explain. The toy frog in the regular water represented God in the expanse of His existence. (God who moves through "space" with no effort.) Every movement propelling Him.* The space around Him is non-existent, therefore having no affect on Him. Yet in the second tank which contained the thicker liquid, we have the frog that is fighting for every inch. It is expending all of it's energy just too move. If physics reveal the smaller an object gets the more dramatic the resistance of space becomes; imagine God, who has no boundaries or borders, condensing Himself into the form of a man. The God who is bigger than any description the human mind can give or understand, being "stuffed" into a form that we see everyday. Now, apply this illustration of physics. We often only think of Jesus suffering at the hands of Pilate or on the cross. (At best) But according to this, Jesus suffered from the moment He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Can you image the pressure that was crushing Him? Can you imagine how strange it must have been for Him to move? Through the Person of Jesus Christ, God was fighting to just move. Every motions, every step was labor intensive. Space was crushing Him in ways He had never experienced. Space had become so dense that it was making every movement exhausting. It was not just the beatings or the horror of the cross, it was every agonizing moment He took up resident with us. Because Jesus was God, He understood what it meant to not feel these forces working against Him. How humbling it must have been to surrender to them? No wonder Jesus was called a "man of suffering" in Isaiah 53:3, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; He was despised, and we didn’t value Him." Jesus was acquainted with suffering long before the cross. The One who did not know limitation, was now fighting them at every turn. God the Father used the very physics He created to "crush" His beloved Son for you and me. The fragrance of the gospel was being squeezed out of Jesus every second of His life. Everyone who crossed paths with Him smelled the sweetness of grace. The disciples dropped everything to follow Him, because the Father was crushing the aroma of grace out of the One who was calling them. Mary could recognize Jesus at the tomb because she had smelt that perfume before. The One who knew no pressure, now was being crushed by it! It took God using a toy frog to awaken my mind to the depths of His love for me... and you. *We use the concept of movement to help understand the illustration.