Identity Check

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The two men in today’s picture both claimed to be world-famous film directors. 

One was telling the truth. The other was a con artist. 

Can you tell which is which?

On the right is the late Stanley Kubrick, who in his 50-year career directed only 13 feature films. But some of them rank amongst the most significant movies ever made, including Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining. 

The fellow on the left is the late Alan Conway, chiefly known for spending much of his adult life pretending to be Stanley Kubrick.

What’s fascinating is that Conway didn’t even look like Kubrick. 

What helped his cause is that the director rarely appeared in public. Few people could have picked him out in a line at Starbucks. That encouraged Conway to pass himself off, almost on a daily basis, as the reclusive genius.

Gullible people were thrilled to have the chance to “know” a famous person. They enthusiastically treated Conway to dinner, drinks, and dessert.

Even Frank Rich, theater critic for The New York Times, was taken in. He couldn’t believe his luck when “Stanley Kubrick” gave him his home phone number and suggested they get together for an exclusive interview. Conway, of course, never showed.

Warner Bros., which financed and distributed Kubrick’s films, was inundated for years with phone calls from people who were surprised the director hadn’t been in touch with them. He had personally promised them, after all, a role in one of his upcoming movies.

The truth finally caught up with Alan Conway. His deception was brought to light by several journalists. A desperate Conway then floated the idea that he might have a mental disorder: “It was uncanny. Kubrick just took me over. I really did believe I was him!” 

Over the centuries, theologians have had to wrestle with a far more consequential question of identity: Who exactly was Jesus of Nazareth?

Was he divine? Or a con artist? An ordinary first century resident of Judea? Or someone whom the Holy Spirit “just took over”?

At the center of the Bible’s account of the birth of Jesus there is this mind-bending miracle: God becomes a human being. The artist becomes part of his canvas.

This is so startling and unexpected that an entirely new word had to be coined just to describe it. That word is incarnation. God himself became embodied – he took on carne, the Latin word for “flesh” – in order to become one of us.

And what difference does that make?

The first day of fall is just four days away. The odds are pretty good that during these last few days of summer you’re going to experience disappointment. Temptation. A laugh-out-loud moment. Perhaps a surge of anger. Relief. Hope. Frustration. Joy.

At the heart of Christianity is the startling claim that Jesus knows exactly what you’re going through. He is fully human – and it’s not a charade or the hijacking of someone else’s identity. 

The author of the book of Hebrews spells it out: “That’s why [Jesus] had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins, he would have already experienced it all himself—all the pain, all the testing—and would be able to help where help was needed” (Hebrews 2:17-18, The Message).

The very Person whose care and support we most need in the midst of real life has, incredibly, “been there and done that.”

Stanley Kubrick could hardly have come up with a more extraordinary storyline.