Jesus is in the news a lot these days.  Mel Gibson has certainly accomplished that much with his movie.  But The Passion of the Christ presents a certain image that, despite the movie's supposed "accuracy," still misses a lot of what Jesus was about.Jesus is always depicted as this endlessly kind individual, meek and mild and always the same.  In the movies, at least, he's usually a goody two-shoes in a robe, all beatific smiles and suffering.  That's your basic image of Christ.  A goody two-shoes, forever turning the other cheek.

If you're curious about this fellow Jesus, you might consider reading the Gospels.  Because the Jesus that's in the Gospels is not the Jesus that people talk about or that people make movies about.  He's such a rich and interesting character, you can see without much effort that the monochromatic Hollywood version we're so familiar with doesn't begin to do him justice.

Take a look at the Gospels, and you'll see a man who meets every situation with the response it requires.

The loaves and the fishes, right?  People are eager to hear him, so he talks and he draws a crowd.  A big crowd.  His disciples come up to him and they're in a state.  They're all anxious: "What are we gonna do, Master?  We've got all these people, and only a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread."

Presented with the problem, Jesus deals with it.  "Have everybody sit down," he says.  They sit.  "Where's the fish and the bread?"  he says.  His people bring him what they've got.  They're sweating bricks.  He's not.  "Why don't you give it out?"  he says.  So they give it out.  Next thing they know, they feed everybody and collect enough leftovers to feed another hungry bunch.

That's only one example of the kind of guy he was.  The Gospels are full situations where he just seems to be fully there with whatever is going on, and as a result something miraculous happens.  Then, before you know it, he's looking at another impossible situation, another problem.  He doesn't look back, doesn't worry about the future.  It's all about the present for him.

Here's what people don't see.  Jesus responds to situations, he does what's necessary, and then he moves on to the next thing.  He's so there that when he has to rage at the peddlers in the temple, he acts, well, like Mel Gibson.  He gives them a blast that's survived 2,000 years.  And then it's over.  If he has to chide someone, he chides them.  If he has to be tender, he's tender.  He's presented with a situation and he's emotionally free enough - you could say empty enough - that he's able to see what's needed and respond accordingly.

He finds out a friend has died.  He cries.  Then what?  Then he goes on to the next thing.  The next thing is that he brings his friend back from the dead.  He's engaged with life, fully engaged, and then, when the situation is over, he drops it and goes on to the next thing.  He's not concerned about it before and he's not concerned about it after.  He's only engaged with it when it's going on.  That's freedom.

There are countless other situations, one after the other in the Gospels.  Someone comes to him and says, "My daughter's sick, come to my house."  Now Jesus is a busy guy, he has a lot of things to do, he doesn't even know the guy, but he goes anyway.  When he arrives at the man's house, what does he find?  People come up to him and insult him: "Oh, great, you're here.  Well, you're a little bit late, she's dead.  Beat it."  What kind of a greeting is that?  He's come all this way, even though he's got a lot on his plate.  He's willing to come and do something, and the people who supposedly care about this girl insult him as soon as he arrives.  So he says, "Get these people out of here."  She's asleep, he says, she's not dead.  This really cracks the crowd up, because they know better.  She's dead.  Then he brings her out.

Then he goes on to the next thing life presents him with.

How could it happen, situation after situation?  His life was no different than ours.  Except that whatever he did, he remained unattached to the outcome.  He didn't have what we call today "an agenda."  He didn't insist on doing things his way.  He didn't, you could say, play Peter against Paul.  That came later.  He was able, because his heart was open, to respond to whatever he was presented with, even his own death.  But he's not attached to anything.  What happens, happens, and he goes on.

So, he died.  And he went on.

It's Jesus' non-attachment that so frequently gets overlooked.  You don't emulate him by being one thing or another all the time - always turning the other cheek, always tossing the moneychangers out of the temple.  You have to be free enough emotionally to see what's going on and to see what's needed, and then you can respond in the proper way.  People see the peaceful Jesus and the raging one as comprising a mystery, as if one response cancelled another.  "See," people say, "he wasn't always peace-loving."  It seems contradictory to them - that a person has to be one thing all the time.  Well, no, that's not the case for anyone who wants to live a free life.  There was nothing automatic about Jesus.  He didn't greet every situation the same way, like a machine would.  Check out the Gospels.  He drove his apostles nuts.  He wouldn't even let them protect him when his time had come.

Here's a definition of freedom for a human being: to get to the point where you can act and not be attached to what has to happen, you just take an action because that's what needs to be done.  Do it and you're free.