In this age of seeker - sensitive, touchy feely evangelism, one of the many portraits of God/Christ that pastors like to use is that of Don Quixote de la Mancha, especially the Broadway version. If you are not an afficiando of the stage, Don Quixote is a deluded old man, wandering around the Spanish countryside in search of the Impossible Dream. In an old nag, he sees a war stallion. Windmills are giants to be defeated. An inn keeper is a noble lord. An out-of-shape, amusing friend is a squire. A scullery maid/whore becomes a lovely lady. Battered old tin is seen as armor. Yet, when faced with the truth, the dream crumbles into despair. Don Quixote has been living in the land of denial in a castle made of sand.
It is not the best way to portray Christ. The only part of his saga that really does allude to Christ is the effect he had on others. He inspired them to want to be more, to be what he saw in his delusions.
A better typographical figure might be Professor Henry Higgins, the linguistics professor who took the squashed cabbage leaf of a flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, and transformed her into a princess. Along the way, he offended all of polite society. The "good" people of ancient Israel were utterly scandalized when they met Jesus. He was hard on Eliza, at times, brutally so. Yet, in the end, she was her best self. She had dreams of a better life, of being a teacher and doing what he did for her for others. Christ told us to continue His work.
Higgins never differentiated in how he treated people. He treated flowers girls and duchesses exactly the same, which is precisely what Christians are told to do in the Epistle of James. Granted, we are supposed to treat them both well, not with utter scorn. Christ is much kinder than Higgins, but He does not stint on truth. Higgins never denied that Eliza was pitiful and was wasting her life. But, he did see that she could, with help, become more. In Christian terms, that help is grace. Without it, we are lost in sin, in bondage to our depraved wills.
When Higgins met Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza's father, the man's honesty about his dishonesty made Higgins cheer and lead to Doolittle being rewarded. When Christ meets sinners, if they admit they are just that, He heals them and gives them new lives.
When Liza had her triumph, Higgins rejoiced at what his work accomplished. Now, here is the sticky part. Under reformed theology, salvation is all about what God does, but our sin is all ours. If we are elect, it's because of what He has done, but if we aren't, that's our fault. Like Eliza, we see that as unfair, but that does not make it less true. Christ did point out that there is great rejoicing in Heaven when the lost are found, when God's work is accomplished.
At first, Liza leaves Higgins, thinking to either marry a foppish boy or go back home to her old life, but, she finds, as new Christians do, that the old life just isn't for her, now. She no longer fits. Nor does a life with her swain. She returns home, where Higgins asks where his slippers are by way of greeting. Those slippers were the same things she had thrown at him in a fit of rage. He invited her abuse, indicating he forgave her. In that same way, acknowledging our sins that nailed Him to the cross, and repenting are our way back home.
