The Road to Redemption – Jesus as Apocalyptic Prophet

    The era in which Jesus lived was filled with the apocalyptic. There were straight forward apocalyptic books such as Daniel (in the Bible) and Enoch (not in the Bible). There were portions of other canonical books such as Ezekiel (38-39), Joel (3:9-17) and Zechariah (12-14) which offered a glimpse into the apocalyptic world. Even in the Dead Sea Scrolls the apocalyptic vision of a final battle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness was a powerful theme. With this as a cultural background it would not be out of place for Jesus to use the apocalyptic as part of his teaching.    

Before we look at Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet however I want us to be clear what we mean by apocalyptic. The word apocalyptic simply means an unveiling or a revealing. In other words what apocalyptic literature (such as the Revelation of John) does is reveal what God is up to. God's actions need revealing because we as human beings have limited vision. Our vision is limited first because we cannot see the spiritual dimension of life. We are limited to seeing the physical. Our vision is also limited because we cannot see beyond the confines of the earth and into heaven. I realize that these might appear to be the same thing but in first century cosmology (the way people view the earth and the heavens) heaven is a physical place just beyond the sky and is kept hidden by a curtain. Therefore if we really want to know what is going on we need to have someone unveil (apocalypse) heaven for us.

    Apocalyptic literature then needs a couple of things to properly function as a revealing. First it needs a revealer. Sometimes the revealer is God. Other times the revealer is an angel. Second there needs to be a recipient; someone who can receive the revealing. The receiver in the Revelation of John is John the Apostle (at least according to tradition). Finally what is needed is the content that is revealed. Within apocalyptic literature the content will have some basic characteristics. It will allow us to see that the two arenas of physical and spiritual are now one. They interact on an intimate and immediate level. The content will allow us to see the future. We will get to see what God and evil are planning to do, especially the terrible conflict between God's people (children of light) and the enemy (children of darkness). Finally the content will also allow us to see the ultimate outcome of this conflict. We will almost always get a glimpse of God's great victory over the powers and principalities of the world.

    This understanding then allows us to take a fresh look at Jesus as apocalyptic prophet. The most obvious way in which Jesus touches on the apocalyptic is in Mark 13:24-27 where he is the recipient who unveils the future. "But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see "the Son of Man (the Son of Man is an end times character found in the book of Daniel) coming in clouds" with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven." Jesus allows us to catch a glimpse of heaven and earth merging together as well as a vision for God's future victory. The rest of chapter 13 makes it clear that there will be difficult times coming upon God's people (Matthew, Luke and John also have similar apocalyptic passages).

    The second way in which we see Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet is that he claims for himself the title, Son of Man. As noted above this was an apocalyptic title take from Daniel 7:13-14 in which the Son of Man is the one who will rule and reign for God over creation. All nations will come and serve the Son of Man. By claiming this title Jesus not only identifies himself with the apocalyptic visions of Daniel but also declares himself to be a major actor in the unfolding of Daniel's vision. The use of this title and its connection to Daniel would not have been lost on those who heard Jesus use it. Thus Jesus engages the apocalyptic tradition in his teaching in such a way as to further identify himself and his mission.

    

The Road to Redemption – Jesus as Wisdom Teacher

    We begin this week a series of articles in which we will try to gain a more in-depth look at Jesus as he is shown to us through the Gospels. As we noted several weeks ago there is no exact consensus on how we are to see Jesus (messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, rabbi, etc.). The gift of each of these descriptors is that they give us the opportunity to see a much more well-rounded Jesus than if we only had one or two of them. They allow us to examine his ministry and his person. Today we will look at the picture of Jesus as teacher…and more specifically as wisdom teacher.

    Within the Jewish tradition there was a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge concerned the basics of reading and writing; of how to plant and harvest; of how to build a house or restore a roof. Wisdom on the other hand was what one discovered at that sacred intersection of God given insight and the living of a Godly life. This means that wisdom was more than ethics and more than practical advice. Wisdom allowed one to live fully into being a child of God such that one reflected the very wisdom of God into the world. In a sense it allowed one to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Without wisdom one was literally walking in darkness and because of that one would make foolish decisions; decisions that did not honor the fullness of life one might have in God. Jesus spent much of his ministry offering this kind of wisdom to those around him.

    Jesus went about his wisdom teachings in two very distinct ways. The first was the use of aphorisms. Aphorisms are short, pithy sayings that cause people to see the world in a new way. Examples are: "Let the dead bury their own dead." "No one who puts their hand to the plow looks back." "There is nothing outside of a man that can defile a man. It is the things that come out of a man that defiles him." "Salt is good, but if salt has lost its flavor who will season it?" "For if you love those who love you what reward do you have?" Some of these aphorisms are contextual (the one about the dead burying their own dead) while others can stand alone (the one about loving those who love you). Regardless they allow us to see below the surface of specific moments and actions as they invite us to see life in a new way. These aphorisms are also not supposed to be easily understood. They are supposed to engage our minds, hearts and spirits in a complex process of discernment.

    The second way in which Jesus went about his wisdom teaching was through parables. The parables are far more familiar to us than much of Jesus' other teaching and work. Parables such as the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan have been taught to us since childhood. While the parables are often seen as stand-alone stories, more often than not they are Jesus' way of either answering specific questions or dealing with specific issues. This is what set Jesus apart from other rabbis or teachers. When asked a specific question most rabbis would quote other rabbis and give a history of interpretation. Jesus often went directly into the parables. The parable of the Good Samaritan was in response to a question about who is my neighbor. The parable of the Prodigal Son was in response to the Pharisees critiquing Jesus about eating with sinners. The gift of parables was that they invited persons into a story through which they could see the world differently. This meant that there was no point or counterpoint in which one person could win an argument or score points. Instead it allowed persons to be transformed by participating in a new reality created by the parable.

    The gift of Jesus' wisdom teachings is that they are not bound to a particular place and time. Though some of them may be difficult to understand in our non-agricultural, 21^st Century society, the truths that are contained within them remain eternal. Our task is to continue to allow them to invite us into their world, in order that we too might discover some of Jesus' wisdom for our lives.

    

The Road to Redemption: Jesus as Creator of a New Community

    So what was Jesus up to? That is one of the questions which has occupied New Testament scholars for the past century and a half (at least). The debate was about whether or not Jesus was trying to create something new (the church), reform something old (Judaism) or simply trying to be a prophetic agent and/or wisdom teacher in the rural regions of Judea. There are schools of thought which argue for each of these positions. There is a school of thought which argues that Jesus had abandoned Judaism as corrupt and thus needed to create an alternative community of faith. There is another school of thought which argues that Jesus was simply trying to reform Judaism (as Luther was trying to do with Catholicism) but people like Paul took it too far and began a new community. Finally there are schools of thought which simply see Jesus as a wandering prophet or teacher who had no larger plans than to impact the rural regions of Judea.

    Which is it then? What I would like to argue is that it is a bit of each. As we saw last week, Jesus' game plan was rooted and grounded in Judaism. The language that Jesus used was consistent with the work and words of the great prophets who had preceded him. In that sense what Jesus was about was a continuation of the great story of God's work in the world to restore creation to its original intent. As part of this process Jesus also picks up the idea that not all of the biological children of Abraham were going to be part of this recreated community. Again, this idea is not new, but is rooted in the concept of a "remnant." The Remnant was a subset of God's people who would, through their faithfulness live into and be a part of this new creation. This idea can actually be seen as early as I Kings 19 where we read the story of Elijah the Prophet who when believing he alone is left to defend God's honor, is told by God that no, there is a remnant of seventy thousand who will stand with him. Remnant theology is brought to full flower later in the work of Isaiah.

    At this point it would appear that Jesus is simply working for the reformation of Judaism. However there are also hints that Jesus is about creating something new out of the midst of the old. First Jesus calls twelve disciples. This number appears to be intentional as if he is going to be creating twelve new tribes. Second, Jesus invites women into his inner circle. Though they are not part of the twelve they are still encouraged to be fully engaged in learning and ministry (something which traditional Judaism would never allow). Third Jesus engages with Gentiles and offers them the benefits of being part of this new community (which by the way is actually based in the Old Testament, though it was certainly not a part of the beliefs of Judaism of Jesus' day). Finally (at least for the purpose of this article) Jesus rejects the Temple as essential to the life and work of God in the world. While he teaches in the Temple he is clear that ultimately God is going to be about creating a new community which is Spirit and not ritual powered (again an Old Testament concept).

    Thus what Jesus is creating is both in continuity and discontinuity with what has come before. There is continuity in that it looks somewhat like First Century Judaism (central beliefs about God, humanity and creation) but at the same time looks very different (women and Gentiles as integral members). This new community which ultimately is called the church was never intended to be a replacement for Judaism but was instead intended to be a community which resembled the teachings of Isaiah in which all nations would come and worship God and be Spirit empowered. This understanding is the basis of Paul's writings (which we will look at this week) in which he wants the church to know that it is a "wild olive shoot" that has been grafted into God's people; meaning that Judaism and its story are the church's roots for which the church must be grateful. In the end then Jesus created a new community which emerged from the old in order to be God's agent of reconciliation and renewal in the world.

    

The Road to Redemption – Jesus’ Messianic Ministry Game Plan

    Last week we looked at the slow but steady rise of messianism (the belief in a messiah) over the centuries prior to Jesus' birth. We also noted that there was during the Second Temple period no real consensus as to the nature or role of the messiah. All of this meant that when Jesus arrived on the scene the messiah field was wide open for interpretation. This can be seen in the wide array of messianic pretenders who came and went before and after Jesus. Each offered their particular slant on the messiah concept. Most, though not all, were leaders of armed gangs who tried to start a people's rebellion (something that succeeded after Jesus' death and ultimately led to the destruction of Israel). Jesus, as we will see, chose a very different tack in his short but world changing ministry.

    Jesus' ministry began in about his 30^th year with his baptism by John the Baptist. While his baptism, proved to be a slight embarrassment (It is embarrassing because the church claims that Jesus was sinless…so why did he need a baptism for remission of sins? It is also embarrassing because the greater baptizes the lesser…so why wasn't Jesus baptizing John?) the church understood that this event was Jesus' "coming out party." It was in his baptism that Jesus received his commission and call to messianic ministry. Jesus' baptism
was followed by his being driven into the wilderness in order to be tempted and tested. Such tempting and testing was a rite of passage for all who would live as prophets of God. The wilderness was that place where prophets learned dependence on God and God alone.

    The Jesus story told by the Gospels diverges at this point. Matthew, Mark and John move directly to Jesus calling disciples. Luke on the other hand has Jesus lay out his ministry game plan before calling followers. For the moment we will go with Luke because the messianic ministry game plan laid out in Luke fits with the work of Jesus in all four gospels. So what is this messianic ministry game plan? It is God's plan for the reclamation of creation. We know this because Luke tells us that Jesus lifted it right out of the words of the prophet Isaiah, who was echoing not only God's word to himself, but was reconfirming what God had been about since the calling if Abram. This longstanding plan was to remake the world into the "good" creation that God had originally designed it to be.

    Jesus' game plan for this work was as follows. He was to preach good news to the poor; proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; set at liberty those who are oppressed; and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord's favor. In other words Jesus was going to set right the world that humanity had mucked up. I say this because if we turn to the Torah, to the most basic statement of God's plan for humanity, what we see is that God's desire for creation did not look much like the world into which Jesus was born. God's desire was that there be no poor (Jesus' world was filled with them), that there be no captives (Rome was all about captives and slavery), that all people know what God desired of them (the people around Jesus were being sucked into a Greco-Roman world with different beliefs and codes of moral conduct), that there be no oppression (the rulers, whether Jewish or Roman used force to keep the people in their place) and finally that the Jubilee year when all debts were cancelled and all land that had been bought was returned to its original owners would be proclaimed (this had never happened though the Torah says it should be done).

    As you can see Jesus' ministry was not simply about "spiritual" matters. Jesus was about restoring the political, economic, religious and social realities of the world in ways that would be God honoring. It is little wonder then that Jesus quickly ran afoul of those who sought to either maintain the status quo or who desired to change the status quo in order to impose their vision of life on the people of Israel. Nevertheless Jesus maintained his course even in the face of persecution and death. Over the next several weeks we will look at how Jesus went about accomplishing this mission.

    

The Road to Redemption: The Jewish Context Part Two

    As we discussed last week Jesus was being born into a Jewish world that was divided in any number of ways. It was divided on the basis of class, wealth, political allegiance and religious orientation. The community in Judea was therefore not a monolithic Jewish nation in which all of God's people got along or even had the same political or social aims for their nation. The divisions within the Jews of the Second Temple Period were much deeper and more antagonistic that anything we experience today. While we can pull together as "Americans" they could not and ultimately would not pull together even in the face of ultimate national annihilation. The divisions were simply too deep.

    One of the places where these divisions were too deep was the concept of the messiah. While we take it for granted that the scriptures speak clearly of a messiah and we have been led to believe that all Jews were expecting a messiah to save them, this is not quite true. The idea of a messiah as we conceive it was not actually a clearly defined Old Testament concept. The only Old Testament use of the term as would recognize it is in relation to Cyrus the Great of Persia. Isaiah refers to Cyrus as the messiah because Cyrus not only allowed the Jews to return home from Babylon but helped them rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. While there are references to leadership figures in the Torah and in the books of Isaiah, Haggai and Zechariah they are leadership figures who rule after God has completed God's work of defeating the enemies of God's people. The main focus of the scriptures was always on God's actions of restoration rather than those of human agency.

    Where did the idea of messiah as we know it come from? The idea first begins to take shape in the period between the last of the prophets and coming of Jesus. During this time there arose three great figures in the Jewish religious writing. There was the Davidic King, the ideal priest and the final great prophet. Each of these three persons was to play a role in the restoration of the Jewish nation. This can be seen clearly in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in early Christianity where Jesus plays all three roles. The Davidic messianic concept began to gain prominence when the Maccabees gained the kingship, thus displacing the Davidic lineage as well as during the time of Roman rule. This was so because many Jews believed that God would raise up the new Davidic king in order to throw out the imposter kings. In addition, books written during this period, such as the Psalms of Solomon, IV Ezra and the Syrian Apocalypse of Baruch focused solely on the Davidic king as the savior of the people. These newer writings thus allowed Jews and later the Christians to return to their older scriptures and find numerous "references" to this messianic figure.

    Were the people of Jesus' day actually looking for a messiah? The answer is yes and no. There were many who believed in the concept of the messiah and thus were ready to follow anyone who would claim the title. The Book of Acts mentions Theudas and Judas the Galilean as two would-be messiahs. Josephus mentions others. The most famous Jewish messiah/rebel was Bar Kokhba who led the final Jewish rebellion from 132-136 BCE. There were however many Jews of Jesus' day and beyond who had no need of a messiah. These Jews were more than content to fight a war of independence without a messiah (any old leader would do), to follow a Jewish King (such as Herod had been), to get along with the Romans or to live in religious isolation (the Dead Sea Scroll sect). While much rabbinic literature and popular imagination sought a king like messiah, the Jewish people were not of one mind on the subject.

    What this meant for Jesus was that just as he was entering a religiously and politically divided nation, he was also entering a nation divided on the person and role of the king/prophet/priest/messiah. We will witness the impact of these divisions on Jesus' ministry as he juggles the hopes, dreams, fears and expectations of the people with his own vision of ministry.

    

The Road to Redemption: The Jewish Context Part One

    Jesus was a Jew. That statement is one that ought to cause most of us 21^st Century Christians to stop and take notice. It ought to do so because across the centuries the church has often tried to remove Jesus from his Jewish roots. We have pretended that Jesus existed in some sort of religious neutral territory with the Jews on one side and the Romans on the other. This could not be farther from the truth. Jesus was born a Jew. He grew up as a Jew. He lived and worked within a Jewish context. Finally he envisioned his mission and ministry as an extension of God's work through the Jewish people as laid out in the Jewish scriptures.

    The Jewish community of the First Century within Judea was fragmented into a wide variety of religious/political denominations. These divisions were complicated even more by geographical divisions within Judea itself (an example is that the Galileans were considered by Jews in Jerusalem to be low class rebels who were always advocating for political independence). The Jewish community into which Jesus was born then was not a monolithic religious community, but a highly fractured faith family. In order to help make sense of Jesus' interaction with this fractured family we will take a few moments to find out who the players were.

    Pharisees: the Pharisees were a populist/democratic movement. The Pharisees (and we are not sure where the name comes from) were a logical outgrowth of the struggle for Judaism to maintain its traditions after the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. The issue for the Jews was how to remain faithful without the rituals of the Temple. Jews did so by congregating in small worshipping, praying and learning communities eventually called synagogues. After the restoration of Israel and the rebuilding of the Second Temple in 515 B.C. these communities did not vanish. Instead they became the gathering and learning centers for the poor and middle class. Their focus was on following the Law (both written and oral) and not on Temple ritual. Again we need to note that the Pharisees were subdivided into a wide variety of sects and never spoke with a single voice. One of their sayings was, "A learned illegitimate child (mamzer) takes precedence over an ignorant High Priest."

Sadducees: The Sadducees in general were conservative, aristocratic monarchists. They were responsible for upkeep of the Temple, administration of the state as well as international relations, collecting Jewish taxes to support the Temple and the priesthood, equipping and leading the Jewish Army, regulating relations with the Romans and mediating domestic disputes. Theologically they focused only on the written Torah (they did not believe in the writings or the work of the prophets), did not believe in eternal life and taught that human beings had complete free will. Because of their association with the Second Temple (which had been built with foreign funds) and the Romans they were always slightly suspect to many Jews. They looked down on the Pharisees and members of the early Jesus movement.

Herodians: the Herodians were a minor political party associated with the family and lineage of Herod the Great. It is possible that the Herodians wanted to maintain the concept of theocracy (a Jewish king over Judea insisting on the keeping of Jewish laws) and the idea that somehow Herod the Great had actually been the Messiah. In the Gospels they are usually mentioned with the Pharisees, though they are distinct.

The existence of each of these groups (along with the Essenes who are not mentioned in the Gospels) demonstrates the fractured nature of Second Temple Judaism in the time of Jesus. It also makes it clear why Jesus' mission and ministry would be viewed with suspicion by a wide variety of Jewish groups even while being lauded by the populous.

The Road to Redemption: Born into a Roman World

    I have often found it interesting that Rome appears to play such a minor role in the Gospels. It is only occasionally that we run across clear references to Rome, Romans and their impact an influence on the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Luke sets Jesus' birth in the context of a census ordered by Caesar Augustus (63 B.C.E. – 14 C.E.). Matthew tells us a story about Jesus and a Roman Centurion (a Roman soldier who commanded 80 other men and had won this honor by his bravery in battle). All of the gospels remind us that Roman power was critical in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. These minor references could make one assume that the relationship between Jesus, Judea and Rome was minimal at best; that it had little or no impact upon his ministry. Such an assumption would be a mistake because the Roman presence significantly impacts Jesus' mission and message in three areas.

    The first was economic. As we read about Jesus' ministry, one of things that becomes apparent is that there were a great deal of poor everywhere that Jesus went. Jesus tells stories about day laborers, about fields and vineyards and about the poor in general. These stories are not simply drawn out of thin air. They reflected the living conditions within first century Judea which were brought about by the emergence of Roman domination. Prior to the Romans extending their control to Judea, the Jewish Empire under the Maccabees (the Jewish leaders who had given short lived freedom to the Jewish people from 163 B.C. to 64 B.C.) had experienced not only freedom but expansion. The state had expanded to almost the size of the original David Empire. This meant that Jews had displaced others from their homes and cities. With the coming the Romans, those lands were returned to their original owners, thus driving many Jews into landlessness and poverty. In addition Roman tax policy forced many small land owners to sell their property to larger and more wealth farmers.

    The second was political. The Roman Empire was an interesting phenomenon. Unlike many of its predecessors it was willing to allow minor "kings" to rule areas under their sway as long as those "king" not only offered their allegiance to Rome but were give their titles by the Roman Senate. This is why kings such as Herod the Great (who ruled for 37 years) could rule as long as he did. However what was clear was that though they were referred to as "kings" they were in fact no more than vassals of Caesar. Caesar was the king and the Lord of the Roman Empire. Caesar (whichever one was in power) would brook no other individual who claimed to be the Lord or king of a people independent from his rule. This understanding did not sit well with the Jews. The Jews like many other dominated people desired freedom above all else. For this freedom they looked to the coming kingly messiah. As we read the Jesus stories we will encounter the pressure put upon Jesus to assume this role. We will witness the people wanting to make him King as well as his ultimate conviction and execution for claiming to be King of the Jews.

    Finally there was cultural influence. Jesus was living and working in a time of great cultural transition. Just as there is American cultural imperialism in the world today so too there was Roman cultural imperialism in the first century. This imperialism was seen in the construction or reconstruction of towns in Judea in order that they reflect Roman culture (Roman baths, stadiums and Temples). These towns and what they represented caused further divisions among the Jews as to what it meant to be a faithful follower of God. The temptation was to become a Jew in name and not in practice, in order to be accepted by those in power. We witness these factors playing a role in Jesus' two meetings with Roman Centurions, Jesus' dealings with tax collectors (who had to associate with the Roman authorities) and much of his religious teaching. Thus the Road to Redemption does not exist in a vacuum but instead ran right through the Roman Empire.