explaining jesus away

You see, they say that the divine could not become human. Some say there is no divine to begin with: end of argument. But that is such an easy way out and a self-made prison. Reflected in their own glory, they preen their feathers. Some say the divine manifests in all of us, in all things all the time. That is true, but evades the understanding, the claim that the divine decided to walk the earth and invaded history. Myth, they say, like all the other hero and salvation myths of virgin births and stealing fire from the gods and resultant forms of crucified punishment. But who is to say that these are not test cases, trial runs of consciousness of the inevitable: the actual birthing of the divine in human form? Oh, now you are taking a metaphor literally, they say. Don't you know that all is story, in this case a powerful story to be sure, embedded in human consciousness across and beyond time? Well yes, and if that is the case, your story that all is story is a story and am I to believe your story that all is story and there is no place to rest my feet? You ask me to believe you and your story and thus explain Jesus away. Jesus is stuck in our craw and we cannot get him out. He is the gravel that grinds all human corn. Muslims say that he is one of a line of prophets and not even the final one. Buddhists say he is a bodhisattva, an enlightened being looking for and working for the salvation of the world. What are we going to do with Jesus? He won't stay put, won't stay confined to one box. Everyone thinks they have him pegged. But wasn't he pegged once and then he escaped all attempts to nail him down?