- Feb 5, 2002
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Among the ads at this year’s Super Bowl was one from the organization He Gets Us (HGU), the latest in a series of TV and social media videos that have appeared over the past few years. The 2024 Super Bowl ad features a series of still photographs of a wide variety of people washing the feet of others. No narrative or captions accompany the photos. Rather, at the end of the video, banner-style messages state, “JESUS DIDN’T TEACH HATE,” “HE WASHED FEET,” “He gets us. All of us.”
Of course, it is certainly true that Jesus gets us. It’s not at all clear, however, that He Gets Us gets Jesus. Indeed, it seems that the ads reduce the concrete particularity of Jesus Christ to a vague admonition to be nice and not to judge. Being nice and not judging others are good ideas. But you don’t need Jesus to know that. And knowing Jesus is much, much more. More to the point, being nice and not judging are not means of salvation.
Staged in various contexts, the Super Bowl ad features unlikely photos of people washing the feet of others who are portrayed as having disparate interests and perspectives. For example, an oil field worker washes the feet of an environmental activist against the backdrop of land riddled with oil drilling equipment; a rancher washes the feet of a native American; a woman washes the feet of another woman in front of a “Family Planning Clinic,” while anti-abortion protestors mill about indifferently in the background; an apparently non-Muslim woman washes the feet of an apparently Muslim woman, while the non-Muslim woman’s husband looks on suspiciously; an apparently Catholic priest washes the feet of a man in a caricature of an effeminate pose. And so forth.
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
Of course, it is certainly true that Jesus gets us. It’s not at all clear, however, that He Gets Us gets Jesus. Indeed, it seems that the ads reduce the concrete particularity of Jesus Christ to a vague admonition to be nice and not to judge. Being nice and not judging others are good ideas. But you don’t need Jesus to know that. And knowing Jesus is much, much more. More to the point, being nice and not judging are not means of salvation.
Staged in various contexts, the Super Bowl ad features unlikely photos of people washing the feet of others who are portrayed as having disparate interests and perspectives. For example, an oil field worker washes the feet of an environmental activist against the backdrop of land riddled with oil drilling equipment; a rancher washes the feet of a native American; a woman washes the feet of another woman in front of a “Family Planning Clinic,” while anti-abortion protestors mill about indifferently in the background; an apparently non-Muslim woman washes the feet of an apparently Muslim woman, while the non-Muslim woman’s husband looks on suspiciously; an apparently Catholic priest washes the feet of a man in a caricature of an effeminate pose. And so forth.
What about salvation?
Continued below.
The popular 'He Gets Us' Super Bowl ad doesn't get Jesus
The Super Bowl ad created by He Gets Us features a series of still photographs of a wide variety of people washing the feet of others, and HGU’s website explains that the ad is built on a premise of love and unity. What they do not say is that love and unity comes from salvation in Christ...
www.oursundayvisitor.com
