By now you have probably seen the “He Gets Us” commercials that were aired during the Super Bowl last Sunday. In short, the commercial portrays other people following the example of Jesus by washing the feet of different characters representing people who are sometimes shunned and excluded by others in society.1 This is the second year that the He Gets Us campaign has run its commercials.
According to the He Gets Us website, the purpose of these commercials is to “remind us of the example that Jesus set while inviting all to explore his teachings so we can all follow his example of confounding, unconditional love. Because He Gets Us. All of Us.” Seems like a good idea, right?
Well, maybe. But maybe not.
Minutes after the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, a barrage of criticisms began to flood social media. Some of the criticism raises a point that deserves criticism. According to the Dallas Morning News, the cost of the 75-second commercial was $17.5 million. Most of us can’t even fathom spending that much money because it is more than we’ll ever earn in a lifetime. So I hear the concerns about whether paying for a commercial slot during the Super Bowl is the wisest way to spend that much money.
Some other criticism I’ve heard leaves me shaking my head, especially since the criticisms come from Christians. On Facebook, I read one post saying the commercial is “spiritually dangerous” because it says nothing about Jesus’ call for repentance. Similarly, I saw a video on Instagram of a pastor claiming the commercial is not biblical because it promotes a caricature of Jesus who washes the feet of people who hate God—those who are deemed to be living sinful lives. Then there’s the video which was made as a correction, “The Super Bowl ad they should have made,” showing different people who once were not Christians but have given their lives to Jesus, becoming Christians.
Don’t be bothered if Jesus extends grace to someone who believes and behaves differently than us, just be thankful Jesus has extended God’s grace to us.
Picture me doing a facepalm right now because of these criticisms. Look, there’s only so much that can be said in a 75-second commercial, so there’s no way possible to say everything about Jesus and the message he proclaimed. We have four different Gospels in the New Testament because neither Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John were able to say everything we need to hear about Jesus and his message. To suggest the He Gets Us commercial is promoting false teaching because it doesn’t mention any call to repentance or because it depicts people washing the feet of others, presumably in the name of Jesus, requires us to read a lot of assumptions into the commercial and draw conclusions based on what the commercial doesn’t say. When we start drawing conclusions from silence, we reveal more about ourselves than those we are criticizing.
There is nothing wrong with a video showing different people who have become Christians, as that is certainly a testimony to the power of the gospel. But I have watched the He Gets Us commercial over and over. Jesus indeed washed the feet of his disciples rather than the “sinners” of Jesus’ day but that misses the point of the commercial. Plus the Gospels do depict Jesus dining with the sinners and tax collectors as well as welcoming a host of other people who were excluded by the religious authorities, which seems to be precisely the point of the He Gets Us commercial.
So, for clarification, I firmly believe that the invitation of Jesus to “follow me” includes also the call to repentance and faith (cf. Mk 1:14-17). This is a call into a lifetime learning endeavor in which we let go of sinful living in pursuit of kingdom living. There is no following Jesus without repentance and faith, so please understand that I am not promoting a watered-down, wishy-washy, notion of Jesus who just approves of whatever life we’re living. But when we start lobbying criticisms like those mentioned above, we end up sounding more and more like the Pharisees who held Jesus in disdain for eating with the sinners and tax collectors, for letting a sinful woman wipe his feet with her tears, for going to the home of a chief tax collector named Zacchaeus, and so forth.
Thus I wonder if the church gets Jesus. I know that Jesus gets us and thankfully so or all of us would be dammed to hell. If we care so much about the world knowing who Jesus is, let’s make sure we spend time with real people in our neighborhoods and serve them as witnesses of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Criticizing a commercial trying to get other people to consider Jesus seems unnecessary. Don’t be bothered if Jesus extends grace to someone who believes and behaves differently than us, just be thankful Jesus has extended God’s grace to us. Go and do likewise!
I have corrected this post, as I originally said that the He Gets Us commercial portrayed Jesus washing feet but it actually portrays people washing other people’s feet.