A Conversation With A Very Smart Guy

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Locke's Classroom. Mr. Locke aka Neal is a Princeton seminarian and we are having a conversation.
Check it out!

Jesus Who?

March 3rd, 2009 by Neal Locke

This post was inspired by Pastor Ellen (one of my last remaining Methodist Pastors) who emailed me the following question as she prepares for a class:

Did Jesus know who he was and what he was going to do on earth? At what point did he know if he did? How does that connect w/fully man and fully God?

It’s a question that we’re dealing with right now in my Systematic Theology class, and one we dealt with last semester in my Early/Medieval Church History Class. And once again, I’m on the verge of throwing up my arms and yelling, “WHO CARES?”........(continue)

To which I answered....
Oh, Neal! We live in the same spiritual neighborhood and so I find myself wrestling with the temptation to simply let it go vs. pursuing the issue! Ultimately, the question becomes...why do we want to know? Is it for the sake of dogma, is it a ruse for justifying faith or the lack thereof? Or is it to know Jesus better, understanding that this could be a side trip on the path to wisdom?
Ever the psychologist, I am using current profiling techniques in my class to get a fix on Jesus as he was in an effort to move my people past the Jesus they've created in their own image. That said, I anticipated this question so I polled you and a few other brainiacs to get a span of opinions (which, we know are like...shall we say belly buttons?).
I love your rant and I agree...what Jesus did is so very important and often gets overlooked by pamphlet-toting Jesus freaks and textbook-toting academics alike.
But to step completely away from the conversation, from the searching, from the pursuit of knowledge is to alter the trajectory of the Kingdom in a most dangerous way. Better, I think, to see that the ingredients of your argument are not mutually exclusive or finite. The argument, in and of itself, points to that truth.

Man, I love this stuff. But I think I better go do some trench work...the Kingdom comes!