Immanuel was a strange and scary sight when He showed up on earth. His behavior and etiquette felt threatening and baffling to people. He arrived in the world He made, but the world was repulsed by Him. It would be like if an octopus showed up in Midtown Manhattan… this revolting creature from an alien world, showing up amidst all these “sophisticated” and “civilized” city folk!
Who was this renegade rabbi from the repugnant rural village of Nazareth, recruiting and elevating misfit fishermen, zealots, and tax collectors? The decorous religious community felt threatened! They never expected the Messiah to look like this! Jesus rejected the prescriptions and protocols of the polished temple officials, preferring instead to invest His time in no name towns and desolate places with disreputable and undesirable people.

From the very outset, Jesus established His enigmatic course …After His baptism, His first official business was to wage war with Satan in the wilderness. And in this warfare Jesus’ defense is the Γέγραπται (it is written). Jesus’ instinctive and definitive defense is octopus-esque …He exudes and extravasates the Word of God! At every turn, Jesus responds to Satan’s suggestions and schemes by simply appealing to what God has inked (the it is written/Γέγραπται)! Even when Satan slyly cites the Γέγραπται back to Jesus, the response of Jesus is to double-down, and press deeper into the the Γέγραπται!

Let us embrace this octopus-esque security system of Christ! May our definitive and wholistic defense be the Γέγραπται. Let us follow the lead of Jesus… loving and radically relying on the Word; interpreting and clarifying the Word with the Word! Rejecting self-serving and skewed citations of the Word. Harassing and lambasting those blubberous Pharisaical whales who twist, neuter, and pacify the Word to suit self-indulgent preferences and whims. Let us adamantly receive and emit The Word on the Word’s terms. When we feel defensive, let our defense be the Word! Pressing into the Word. Wrestling through the Word. Stewarding the mystery of the Word. Never leaning on our own understanding but always always always coming back again and again and again to the Γέγραπται (the it is written).

• A metaphor of Jesus harassing the blubberous Pharisees. Jesus definitively attacked self-righteous people who puffed up and glutted themselves on religious knowledge, and laid blubberous burdens of decorum on people [see Matthew 23 and John 8:42-45]