Don’t Follow Flea Market Jesus®

This year a company that most Americans have never heard of bought five (5) Super Bowl ads.

Temu, which I had never heard of, is like going to a weird flea market on your phone. You can find ten pairs of socks – thinner than a promise from Joe Biden – for 79 cents, and a men’s toupee for less than 3 bucks. There is a dog toy that poops toothpaste for $3.28, and an “I love eating microplastics” muscle shirt for $5.63. For the truly brave, you can skip the high prices at Victoria’s Secret and buy two pieces of women’s lingerie – shipped straight from the factory in China — for just $2.27. They are sure to arrive by Valentine’s Day 2025 or 2026.

“Inauthentic” was the theme of Super Bowl 2024. From the weird Chinese app commercials to the artificial fake news obsession with Taylor Swift. It just does not have the feeling that it used to. I can’t even watch the National Anthem without remembering entire locker rooms taking a knee… the NFL just can’t un-ring that bell.

The worst part of the night was a cringey commercial from an outfit called He Gets Us. I am sure you have heard all about it by now.

A writer for far-left Vox described scenes from the commercial: “[a] post-punk Riot Girl having her feet washed in a crowded high school hallway by an anachronistic 1950s-era cheerleader,” “[a] confused pregnant woman getting her feet washed outside of a family planning clinic by a pissed-off looking anti-abortion protester”, and “[an] androgynous roller skater having their feet washed by a burly ex-con priest, against a thrilling beachside sunset.”

The commercial touched on every tired left-wing trope and cause du jour. It went after protestors outside of abortion clinics. It went after people who oppose illegal immigration. And of course, it took a pot shot at police officers. The message was clear. Any form of conservative activism is a form of hate. And the producers’ version of Christ – a knock-off that I will call Flea Market Jesus® – does not approve.

Flea Market Jesus® kind of looks like the original if you squint hard enough. He has woolly, brown hair and a tan. He is a little unkempt, but probably not from preaching in the desert. This false version of Christ talks a big game about “love,” and if you ask him about funding a wasteful government program he will mumble something about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Flea Market Jesus® is silent. Speaking out is just too divisive. These questions hurt the feelings of today’s powerful and their political supporters.

The real Jesus Christ is not a coward. He would happily show up at the IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C. and say something that is not very mellow or P.C., such as, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore, ye shall receive the greater damnation.”

It is also easy to imagine Him going to a New York City Council Meeting and telling Mayor Eric Adams that, “…if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” after learning about the public school that was shut down for the day to house illegal immigrants.

The ad was meant to symbolize that we should treat each other with kindness and that we should love one another. This is true that Jesus taught us that. But the ad also implies that Jesus was okay with any kind of sinful behavior. He was not. Jesus hung out with sinners to inspire them to “go and sin no more.” He was not there to endorse the sin.

2000 years ago, telling the hard truth got you crucified. Today it can make you a target for rogue state and federal prosecutors, and a victim of cancel culture. Yet the truth always wins in the end. Jesus Christ humiliated the Roman leadership when He rose from the dead.

“What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.”