The Real Jesus

A helpful January 1959 letter from C. S. Lewis to Edward Lofstrom reminds me of two men: Mark Driscoll, who has taught me about the manliness of Jesus, which got lost somewhere along the way; and Jonathan Edwards, who has taught me about the beautiful conjunction of lion-like and lamb-like qualities in Jesus. At one point Lewis responds to something Lofstrom had asked him about by saying--

'Gentle Jesus', my elbow! The most striking thing about Our Lord is the union of great ferocity with extreme tenderness. (Remember Pascal? 'I do not admire the extreme of one virtue unless you show me at the same time the extreme of the opposite virtue. One shows one's greatness not by being at an extremity but by being simultaneously at two extremities and filling all the space between')

Add to this that He is also a supreme ironist, dialectician, and (occasionally) humourist. So go on! You are on the right track now: getting to the real Man behind all the plaster dolls that have been substituted for Him. This is the appearance in Human form of the God who made the Tiger and the Lamb, the avalanche and the rose. He'll frighten and puzzle you: but the real Christ can be loved and admired as the doll can't.

--Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, 3:1011