He Gets Us. If you watched the Super Bowl, and stayed for the commercials, you’ll understand what that little phrase entails. It was a commercial, part of the He Gets Us campaign, produced with the intent of creating a false dilemma between a Jesus who affirms people right where they are; and if you don’t, then the implication is, that you have a Jesus of hate. This represents a false dilemma, clearly, because as genuine Christians understand, from Holy Scripture, Jesus is both grace and truth incarnate. The most loving thing He has done for us is to assume our sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. But understand, this is a violent, apocalyptic happening; He invades this fallen world, by taking up our fallen humanity; inhabiting it until the priestly age of 30 (and into eternity), taking it finally to the cross, burying it, and rising afresh anew in a recreated humanity, in His vicarious humanity for us, giving us true hope wherein we might live for the triune God, in His freedom and holiness, forevermore.

If the aforementioned is the case, and it is, then a commercial that has Jesus simply washing the feet of people, in locales that by way of their scenery and imagery, reflect the intersectional, critical theory agenda that they do, then this is a mis-promotion of Jesus and the Gospel reality. There is a Godly love, just as there is a Godly sorry, both lead to repentance and life. There is also a worldly love and a worldly sorry both leading to destruction. The Jesus in the He Gets Us commercial represents a cultural love; an emotional love (not based in the concrete reality of God’s sacrificial love for us in the incarnation and the cross); a “love” that the world already knows, and is being pummeled by each and every day. That is not the love of God in Christ. Again, His love deals with the reality and rot of our sin and decay. His love is brutally honest, and even contradicts us, even as He invites us into His banqueting table. He doesn’t need to “get us,” He knows us better than ourselves; even as He is closer to us than we are to ourselves. He didn’t come to bow down to our sinful lifestyles, but to redeem us from them.

The following are some of the reflections I’ve been sharing on this on other social media platforms:

This was a mockery of Jesus. This has Jesus, through His “followers”, literally bowing down to paganism. It inverts the “wilderness temptations” of Jesus in Mt. 4, and makes Jesus a failure rather than the Savior.

“He gets us” so much, He became us, that by the adoption of grace we might become Him (co-heirs with Christ). He gets us so much that He put us to death, and raised us anew afresh in His re-created humanity for us. He gets us so much that He wouldn’t leave us in our squalor, but became our squalor; thus, by His poverty making us rich. He gets us so much that He made a way, in His life for us, to be holy as He is Holy. He hasn’t left us as orphans in our sins, but has called us to His righteousness. He gets us, understanding that we needed His righteousness in order to come into reconciliation with Him. He came to elevate us, not leave us where He found us; cast aside in our mother’s afterbirth, in the brambles on the side of the road.

The social scenery in these commercials actually reeks of critical theories, LGBTQ agenda, intersectionality, so on and so forth “affirmation.” That is actually a major trend devouring mainstream evangelicalism right now, and these commercials play right into this. When interpreting narrative, in order to get into the context, we need to pay close attention to character development, setting, gapping etc. In the commercial’s case it has Christians washing peoples’ feet in front of or at various places as if affirmation of various behavior/sin is being promoted; as if Jesus is in solidarity with these folks, just as they are; just as they will be, as they determine to be. That’s neo-Marxist liberation theology, and identitarianism. The theme of the scenes evokes *social justice* not God’s in Christ. Jesus was only in solidarity with us sinners on the cross, ultimately. He washed the disciples feet on the way to the cross etc. The Christian bears witness to Christ by bearing witness to the truth of Christ, which is the love of Christ. The Christian, as Jesus did with the Samaritan woman, comes in both grace and truth. The commercial’s messaging, given our cultural and ecclesial contexts, is completely different than that. This isn’t even what Chuck Smith did with the Hippies, per se.

“He gets us” is driven by an agenda that might have good intentions, but one that is captivated by a cultural Jesus; and a notion of love that affirms people in their sins rather than pointing them to Christ’s righteousness. The posture of the people having their feet washed in the commercials does not appear to be the posture of the broken, per se, but of the entitled. Jesus has indeed come for all of us, in our sins. But He washes the feet , figuratively, of all those who have come to sup with Him. Not to mention, that almost in every scenario, in the commercials, these “oppressed” people all are representative of movements of people today who are consciously in rebellion to Christ. Jesus still loves them, but He calls them to repentance; He calls them to Himself. The problem is that there is a serious move within the evangelical churches to affirm people—when that isn’t our place—in their chosen “lifestyles,” rather than to call them out to the risen Christ in truth and love.

He doesn’t “get us,” He “became us,” that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.