The Line in the Sand

“Jesus was the only one who raised the dead,” the Misfit continued, “and he shouldn’t have done it. He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left eh best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”
From “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Flannery O’Connor

In one crude yet surprisingly rational monologue the Misfit describes the dilemma we post-Christ humans have to face: do we follow Him or not? If Jesus spoke the truth, then we should all follow Him. If He didn’t, then He’s a liar, and worse than any demon, and nothing matters on earth than to do exactly what we want, no matter how destructive or immoral or sociopathic.

Flannery O’ Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a story about a family, who through pure happenstance, come across a murderous escaped convict. The grandmother manages to identify him out loud, provoking him to murder them in order to insure his escape. His fellow convicts murder the rest of the family while he has a discussion with the grandmother and she pleads for her life. It is in this conversation that the convict lays out his very logical rationale for what he is doing.

He says Jesus was the moral turning point of all mankind, in all of history. Jesus drew a line in the sand and said in essence, “I stand with the Almighty, and He stands with me. Join me or perish.” Not only did he say that, but by his actions he proved his words to be true. He rose people from the dead. If it were not for this, we could dismiss Jesus as some lunatic, or the worst kind of liar, but this action, the resurrection of Lazarus, lent the most irrefutable credence to his words. The Misfit lays out the choices we now have: either Jesus was telling the truth, and we should all toss everything aside and follow him, or he was lying, and nothing else matters in this life except to do what makes us happy.

If Jesus was telling the truth, then everything he said about God and about justice and heaven was true, and the only rational, logical choice is to follow him and trust in everything he said. If he was lying, then he is the worst kind of liar, claiming God to be on his side and demonstrating the power of some otherworldly omnipotent monster to back up his claims and seduce us to the worst kind of hell. If Jesus was lying, where did he get this power from? Who was really behind the miracles he performed? If not God, then who?

If Jesus was a liar, then everything he said about truth, and love, and justice have no meaning. If Jesus was a liar, the only meaning this life can give us is pleasure, however we can find it. If he was a liar, then every action he did to help people, his compassion, kindness, and power all have some darker and cosmically ominous significance.

What kind of person would come to the conclusion that Jesus was a liar? A person like the Misfit, yet the Misfit was a monster. His conclusion that Jesus was a liar led him to a life of “meanness”, for it was the only pleasure he found in life, and murder was the only purpose with any meaning for him.

Jesus laid all of existence bare when he raised Lazarus from the dead. There would no longer be a middle ground between God and men. We can either follow Him or call Him a demon. Any kind of compromise between the two is complete nonsense.