Seeing The Crucifixion Again - For The First Time

  Holy Week is coming to an end. As I reached Good Friday and the events of the crucifixion, I wanted to understand it better. I wanted not to be caught up with the familiarity of routine, and lose the impact of the grim reality of what happened on Calvary more than 2000 years ago. I came across the following excerpt from "When God Weeps" by Steven Estes and Joni Eareckson Tada. Their little description is all I want to share today, keeping in mind what one author said - "As we draw close, don't assume that you already know or understand what happened there. Come to the Cross as if for the first time....as you read, refuse to let the scene be familiar. Let its reality shock you and break your heart." Here we go:

   "The face that Moses had begged to see - was forbidden to see - was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around his own brow...

   'On your back with you!' One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier's heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner's wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier's life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do "all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on - he grants the warriors continued existence. The man swings.

   As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm - the sensations that it would be capable of. The design proves flawless - the nerves perform exquisitely. 'Up you go!' They lift the Cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe.

   But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He beings to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being - the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father's eye turns brown with rot.

   His Father! He must face His Father like this!

   From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes his mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross. Never has the Son seen the Father looking at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.

   'Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped - murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten - fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drink - you, who molest young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp - buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves - relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath?'

   Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have and agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.

   The Father watches as his heart's treasure, the mirror-image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah's stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.

   'Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!'

   But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not reach down or reply.

   The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it The Spirit enabled him. The Father rejected the Son whom he loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted his sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished." [1]

   I hope this little excerpt will help you see the Cross with new eyes, as it has helped me. I did this to Jesus; my sins sent Him there. My sins put the nails in his wrists and feet. My sins drove the crown of thorns into His skull, and the spear into His side. But Jesus took this punishment for me, because He passionately loved me. And because of His perfect sacrifice, I'm free. Praise God.

- The Wisdom Seeker

REFERENCES:

==========

[1] "When God Weeps" - Steve Estes and Joni Eareckson Tada

Humbled By Humility

"...before honour is humility." - Pr. 15:33b, NKJV

   I've just settled down for the evening with my ESV study Bible and some devotional books as I try to keep tracking and immersing myself in the events of Holy Week. Yesterday's readings in the Gospels gave me much to contemplate regarding God's meticulous planning and sovereignty over the events of history, as I thought about the gathering of actors and the setting of the stage for the events leading up to Christ's passion [1]. 

   According to the timeline of the events that have been put together of Christ's final week [2], people in Jerusalem (including Jesus' disciples) have been busy during the day making preparations for the Passover, which begins at sunset. The temple has been extremely busy during the day as lamb after lamb has been sacrificed - some historical estimates place the number around a quarter of a million animals sacrificed for Passover during Christ's time. The disciples have roasted the lamb, and prepared various side dishes for the meal (including bread). They have also prepared the room for celebrating this important meal in their yearly calendar. All Israel is gathering to remember the night of God's deliverance of their ancestors from the land of Egypt thousands of years ago, with the slaying of Egypt's firstborn and his "passing over" of their houses that had been marked and sprinkled with the blood of slain lambs.

Bread. Wine. Body. Blood.

   It is now evening, and Christ has begun the Passover meal with His disciples. During the meal, He has taken bread, broken it and instituted the future memorial of His body, with the words, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." Passing the cup of wine, He has pronounced its significance: "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" [3]. It is also during the meal that He has identified Judas as his betrayer, though none of the others understand. The Passover meal is almost over; the food is almost over, the dishes almost empty. And now, the incarnate Word of God, in whom, through whom and for whom all things exist, once again shows Himself to be a Man like no other:

"Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside His outer garments and, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around His waist...When He had washed their feet and put on His outer garments and resumed His place, He said to them, 'Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right for so I am . If then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also out to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than His master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent Him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." - John 13:3-5, 12-17, ESV

   I can only imagine the shock on the disciples' faces; washing people's feet was considered to be a task reserved for non-Jewish slaves. In that time and culture where people walked long distances on dusty roads What a Man, and yet God! What a Servant, and yet the King of kings! There is no one else like the Lord of glory. Human imagination cannot concoct such a God, who works miracles beyond comprehension, and then stoops to wash the dirty feet of His followers! This righteous and holy God, who walked the dusty roads of Palestine for thirty three years, assumed the posture of a servant and washed the dust that He Himself had created off the feet of His creation. In the gesture of utmost love for His enemies, He even washed the feet of the one who had already agreed to betray Him.

   Attempting to follow in Christ's footsteps, I once tenderly washed someone's feet and dried them with a towel, in an act of love and servanthood. It was an intensely humbling lesson and experience; it made me feel very small and insignificant, a nobody washing the feet of a somebody. I understood through that one small act the attitude and posture that my heart should adopt as a follow and servant of my Lord and Master, and have tried to keep that in mind ever since. The Apostle Paul, thinking about the servant heart and mind of Christ, wrote the following words to the Philippian church:

"Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in your which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a slave, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." - Philippians 2:3-8, NKJV

   That's the God my heart follows and obeys; Christ is the Man who leads from the front by example, not from a safe place at the rear. That's the kind of man I want to be, because I'm no greater than my Master. He humbled himself to obedience and death; so must I. I'm going to think about this as I keep pace with the events of the Passion tonight. Jesus and His disciples have left for the Garden of Gethsemane. The pace of the story is ramping up to its inevitable conclusion in another fifteen hours. Time for me to follow them. I have to run. See you in the next post. Until then, here's a great music video featuring the scenes of The Last Supper enacted in "The Passion of The Christ", featuring the song "Remembrance" by Matt Maher:

- The Wisdom Seeker

REFERENCES:
============
[1] The Approaching Cross
[2] "Harmony of The Events of Holy Week", ESV Study Bible, pg. 1866
[3] Luke 22:19-20, ESV

The Approaching Cross

   It is now mid-way through Holy Week. In my last post, I thought about Jesus' cleansing of the temple and it's significance. Following the events of the Gospels, it is now three days into the fateful week leading up to Christ's passion, and the silhouette of the cross is emerging over the horizon. Christ is occupied with furious confrontation and conflict with the religious leadership over the abuses  of their religious authority and their coming condemnation. I wonder what His feelings must have been in the midst of those events, knowing what was approaching with each passing hour.

   It's now evening as I write this, and the events of the Gospels take note of the plot that is being put together by the religious leadership to kill Jesus. Jesus and His disciples have left Jerusalem and are on the Mount of Olives, as He tells them of the prophetic events of the future; the chief priests, the scribes and elders of the people are assembled at the palace of Caiphas, the high priest, discussing how they might catch and kill Him; Jerusalem is full of worshipers, having come from all across the empire for the Passover. the The stage is now being set; the major actors are now being brought together as the pace of action ramps up to the climactic events of Christ's passion two days later. I thought of the description of these events in Luke's gospel:

"Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called Passover. And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Him, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered Judas, named Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. So he promised and sought opportunity to betray Him to them in the absence of the multitude." - Luke 22:1-6, NKJV

   I can't help but thinking about the meticulous sovereignty of God, in His absolute and total control over every person and event in history, as I approach Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The sequence of events are complex and the characters are many - God the Father; God the Holy Spirit; God the Son; his disciples; the chief priests, scribes, elders, and the high priest; Judas Iscariot; Satan; Pontius Pilate and the Roman garrison at the Praetorium, who are yet to appear; the massive crowd of worshipers who have come to Jerusalem. The actors are playing their parts flawlessly - Judas has already sold himself to the fate that awaits him, and collected his ill-gotten money. In the high priest's palace, the decision has been made. Jesus and his disciples have retired for the night. Jerusalem at night is quiet as worshipers have made their way to their various inns and residences. The temple sits silent, the great veil separating the Holy of Holies from everything else in its premises.

   Thousands of years of prophetic history that began with God's promise in the book of Genesis, to send a Saviour after the Fall in the Garden of Eden are converging to their moment of fulfillment. All of heaven watches with anticipation and bated breath, as God's epic master plan from before the beginning of time unfolds and heads towards its inevitable and promised conclusion with clockwork precision. God has left no loose ends as the greatest demonstration of His power and glory begins to appear on the horizon of history. And at the center of this mighty converging of events is Jesus.

   As I immerse myself in Scripture, allow the Holy Spirit to bring the words on its pages to life, and carefully track the story 2,000 years later, there is the accompanying tension as I know what awaited Jesus in less than twenty four hours. Somewhere in the Roman garrison, the cross has been made by unwitting carpenters and kept ready for its intended purpose. The hammer and nails, forged by similarly unwitting craftsmen lie ready to be pounded into unresisting hands and feet. The whip used for scourging lies waiting for the body on which it will be used. The thornbush sits silently, its thorns ready to be cut and fashioned into a crown. Every one of them is there for a purpose, orchestrated by God for the part that He has intended them to play. There is not one unintended object that should not be there, not one wasted moment, not one event that happens by "luck" or "chance." 

   But at the same time, there is a tremendous sense of gratitude and wonder as I contemplate God's eternal mind and plan. Before He had even willed the first events of creation, He had seen and planned my own life. Knowing the kind of sinner and fool that I am, whose life would be hopelessly lost without Him, He had planned to draw me to salvation through faith in Him at the right time. He undertook this entire enterprise with the intent that I should see His glory in the Cross, be blinded by it and follow Him all the days of my life. I could only write the following prayer of gratitude as I thought over these things:

   Awesome God. Awesome God. I have no words to describe the love that fills my heart for You, that You would thus demonstrate your love for a wretched man like me. Master, what shall I do to show my gratitude? I am poor, my possessions are miserable, my mind is foolish and my hands are empty. I can only throw my heart and my life into your hands tonight. I will lose my life, that I may find it in You.

- The Wisdom Seeker

The Equation Of The Gospel

 "What in the world makes us so embarrassed about the Gospel?"

- John MacArthur [1]

Over the last two weeks, I've been trying to write a follow-up to my last post on the disturbing reality of the "prosperity gospel" and its purveyors. It's been difficult going, because I've also wanted to draw from my own experience of being blinded by subtle variations of the same message. That post still isn't finished, but I hope that I'll be able to dig deep down, find the right words for what I want to say and have it finished soon.

In the meantime, I've managed to finish reading through my Christmas present from my roomate Paulman - Tullian Tchividjian's "Jesus + Nothing = Everything". It's been a great read, one of those precious pieces of Christian literature that when I came to the end of it, knew that God had been at work in my mind and hear to propel a paradigm shift in my understanding of His gospel. I thought I'd share some of my impressions here.

"Jesus + Nothing = Everything" is more than an attempt at creating a catchy Christian jingo that appeals to our generation's short attention span. It is more than just another attempt to deliver an exposition of the New Testament book of Colossians. Pastor Tullian delves deeply, invigoratingly and refreshingly into the life-giving waters of the Gospel, and encouraged me to dive into its depths with him. By the grace of God and the working of His Spirit, I gained more than just an intellectual excursion through the core message of the Christian faith, more than just pithy and stimulating sayings or an entertaining read. No, much more in the little bit of poetry that I wrote to express my gratitude:

I see more clearly now the hollowness of the Nothing, 

The radiant brilliance of the Everything, 

And the pearl of Jesus, and Him alone.

The light of the truth is blinding;

How much better to be blinded by the truth 

Than to have the sight that never sees!

I think that little bit of prose expresses my sentiments about the message of Pastor Tullian's book. God in His mercy has been using to help me see and savour the wonder of His gospel, so that I might better understand the words of the writer of the book of Hebrews, exhorting me to join my fellow believers:

"lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated the right hand of the throne of God." - Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV

I came across the following video depicting a section of a sermon by Matt Chandler, on part of the text of Paul's letter to the Romans. It fit very well with the exposition of Jesus + Nothing = Everything, and I wanted to include it here. It lifts my heart every time I hear these powerful words from the pen of the apostle that have saved lives over the last twenty centuries:

I could think and write all night without stopping on the blinding light of His word that God is beginning to breathe into my mind, heart, and life by the power of His Spirit. I feel like my head will explode if I think about this anymore; I'm so happy. So I'm going to stop here for tonight, and take my thoughts with me as I get ready for bedtime. As I wrote this post, I was listening to part of a sermon by John MacArthur titled "God's Own Defense of Scripture." I'd like to leave you with what he had to say; they were incisive:

"You can't be saved unless you know that God is too righteous to accept your works, and you're too sinful to earn salvation...Does the word of God have to be helped along because it is somehow inept, inadequate, irrelevant, antiquated? Do we need somehow to package it in some culturally sensitive way to make it feel like everything else in this culture feels in order to get an entrance? Do we have to beef it up, by making it seem to promise health, wealth, prosperity, healing, as if God was some divine Mary Kay passing out pink Cadillacs? Do we need to make a syrupy, schmaltzy appeal to the emotions of people based on their feelings, bruised egos, need for self-esteem, desire for trinkets and goodies, and somehow alter the hard gospel so that people will buy it? Does it have to be polluted with promises of material prosperity, material success? Is it insufficient on its own?"

- John MacArthur

The answer, as he clearly laid out, is no. The Word of God alone tells me that Jesus is my Everything. Nothing else. I'll say a happy "Amen" to that.

Grace and Peace to you,

 - The Wisdom Seeker

The Shout of The Gospel!

     I came across the following video a few hours ago, and have been replaying it a few times while clearing up my room. The words of this short but powerful and riveting vignette, created by South Hills Evangelical Church (SHEC) in Missoula, Montana [1] for their Easter 2011 service are a compilation of verses from across the Old and New Testament that relate to the person of Jesus Christ and the saving power of God through His Cross.

     It stirred my heart deeply, because my mind and heart hears once again the thundering shout of the Gospel - the message of the unfathomable love, forgiveness and justice of God upon the evil of the wretched man that I am, visibly demonstrated with real power on the broken body of Jesus Christ that hung on His blood-soaked Cross. I do not compose these words out of maudlin emotion, brought on by a need to vent a superficial sentimentality. Rather, it is grounded upon solid conviction of the reality and depth of my own depraved nature, written with very real grief and sorrow in the kinship that I share with the Apostle Paul who wrote thus of his own desperate struggle:

    "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with ythe law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" - Romans 7:15-25, ESV

    Yet even as I share sorrow with the Apostle over the contemplation of my struggle against sin, I also share his joy and hope as I follow his call to turn my thoughts to the person of Jesus Christ. The call to persevere, struggle and overcome is worthwhile and meaningful because of the One who has won. It is a message with power because of Him who has the power in Himself to save us, because He has done the impossible. A passage that was quoted from in the compilation used in this video is one of the most famous prophecies about Jesus from the Old Testament. It is taken from the book of Isaiah, and says:

    "...he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected2 by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and lwe esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

    All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

    Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities." - Isaiah 53:2-11, ESV

    This is the thundering and victorious roar of the Gospel, its "Good News"- that there is hope for mankind, because God has sent redemption. And it sets my soul on fire because the burning passion of my heart is that same message that brought life to my dead spirit be shouted across the streets and rooftops of this city. I want the millions of parched souls across the GVA to hear the words of the Gospel of John, that "these things are written so that you may believe that that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name." (John 20:31, ESV)

    May I live and breathe this message for the sake of His name and glory.

- The Wisdom Seeker

REFERENCES:

-------------------------

 [1] South Hills Evangelical Church

You Call This "God"?

    While planning for "Redeeming Marriage" is still underway, I've been getting back to my reading of "The Cross of Christ", which I wrote about in "I Must Know Him." I've just made it through the foreword and the first 9-10 pages of the opening section, "Approaching The Cross", and it's already given me cause for much reflection. So I thought I'd put some of my thoughts down here in my apartment's laundry room, while waiting for my clothes to go through the drying cycle. The more I read of Stott, the more conscious I am of my ignorance regarding the depth behind Christ and the Cross.

    At the same time, Pastor John delivered two insightful sermons over last week and today. Titled "What Is Truth?" and "Behold Your King!", respectively, they were a detailed look at the Gospel narrative of the events leading up to Christ's crucifixion. Cautioning us that we sometimes come to the Cross and the statement 'Jesus died' too quickly, he wished to provide a detailed backdrop of the historical and cultural context of the events leading up to the actual crucifixion. Together, John Stott and John Neufeld reminded me that like many others, I too am culpable of skimming over the surface, neglectful of the import of all that lies beneath the statement 'Jesus died on the Cross'. In particular, I was reminded of one of the most crucial implications that I need to keep in mind if I want to understand Jesus better by starting at the Cross:

    The Cross is confounding to human intellect, for God chose to reveal His beauty and glory in an essentially shameful and humiliating death on a horrific instrument of torture devised by his own creation.

    Tracing the historical emergence of the Cross as the symbol by which early Christians chose to identify themselves, Stott wrote:

    "The Christians' choice of the cross as the symbol of their faith is more surprising when we remember the horror with which crucifixion was regarded in the ancient world...How could any sane person worship as a god a dead man who had been justly condemned as a criminal and subjected to the most humiliating form of execution? This combination of death, crime and shame put him beyond the pale of respect, let alone of worship...It is probably the most cruel method of execution ever practiced, for it delibrately delayed death until maximum torture had been inflicted. The victim could suffer for days before dying...Cicero in his speeches condemned it as crudelissimum taeterrimumque supplicium, 'a most cruel and disgusting punishment'".

    Reading that, I went back a few pages and reflected on Stott's observation that of all the possible symbols that the early church could have chosen to identify themselves, they did not choose "the crib or the manger in which the baby Jesus was laid, or the carpenter's bench at which he worked as a young man in Nazareth, dignifying manual labor, or the boat from which he taught the crowds in Galilee, or the apron he wore when washing the apostles' feet, which would have spoken of his spirit of humble service. Then there was the stone, which having been rolled from the mouth of Joseph's tomb, would have proclaimed His resurrection. Other possibilities were the throne, symbol of divine sovereignty, which John in his vision saw that Jesus was sharing, or the dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven on the Day of Pentecost. But instead the chosen symbol came to be a simple cross."

    In the process of better trying to understand all that I'm coming across, I'm realizing that I need to develop a better understanding of and respect for the history and traditions of the church over it's 2,000 year history. I think I'm often too dismissive of the sincere traditions and practices of those who have gone on before, without researching their history and asking the all-important question - "Why?". It's sobering as I think of countless men and women of almost two thousand years past who have given their lives under suffering, persecution and ridicule so that the essential truth of the Cross and the Gospel might be preserved, because it was precious to them. I'm so often ignorant of all this, taking so much that I have for granted. I was especially reminded of this in the closing paragraph of the section that I stopped at in "The Cross of Christ":

    "So then, whether their background was Roman or Jewish or both, the early enemies of Christianity lost no opportunity to ridicule the claim that God's anointed and mans' Saviour ended His life on a cross. The idea was crazy. This is well illustrated by a graffito from the second century, discovered on the Palatine Hill in Rome, on the wall of a house considered by some scholars to have beenused as a school for imperial pages. It is the first surviving picture of the crucifixion, and is a caricature. A crude drawing depicts, stretched on a cross, a man with the head of a donkey. To the left stands another man, with one arm raised in worship. Unevenly scribbled underneath are the words ALEXAMENOS CEBETE THEON, 'Alaxamenos worships God.'...Whatever the origin of the accusation of donkey-worship (which was attributed to both Jews and Christians), it was the concept of worshiping a crucified man which was being held up to derision."

    I looked up a picture of this artifact on Google, and have put it below:

"ALAXAMENOS CEBETE THEON" (Alaxamenos woships God)

    As I close this post, I am reminded of the words of Christ in Mark 8:38: "For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." The author of the letter of Hebrews encouraged its recipients to endure, "looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2, ESV).

    As incredible as the shame of the Cross is to those who contemplate it, it seems that the greater shame comes upon those who having encountered it, find only an object of comedy and ridicule. 

May I not be ashamed of the road that my Master walked on.

- The Wisdom Seeker

God Retaliates

Yesterday, I finished watching the 1977 TV mini-series 'Jesus of Nazareth' [1], directed by Franco Zefirelli. I had started watching the first of four parts sometime in December before Christmas, and watched it in installments since then. It brought back a lot of memories of childhood; if I remember correctly, I'd first watched it sometime before the age of 10. Perhaps for that sentimental reason, it will remain in my opinion the best depiction of the gospel narrative on film, although there are other reasons as to why I believe it to be so. But more than these, it brought to mind some thoughts I'd had during an informal bible study with friends at Campus for Christ's Western Winter Conference in Vancouver during the last week of 2009.

At one point in the study, we were looking at the passage of Matthew 6 : 38-42, and thinking about the practical implications of Christ's famous instruction to 'turn the other cheek' and other things concerning retaliation in this passage. What did it mean for everyday life and situations in occasions where others had wronged us, physically or otherwise? Though I don't think I contributed anything much to the discussion at the time and mostly listened to what others had to say, some thoughts did occur to me later on, and were evoked again yesterday.

This little section occurs in the context of the greatest sermon ever preached, The Sermon on the Mount. Following His teaching on oaths and prior to His instruction on giving to those who are in need, Jesus speaks a few sentences on retaliation that have created tremendous controversy in their interpretation, as with everything else that He said and did. As I glanced over Matthew's recording of Jesus' flow of thought in the sections preceding and succeeding this little section, there seemed to be a most interesting pattern emerging.

As Christ speaks on how He has come to fulfil, not abolish the Law, He concludes with the sentence "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 6 : 17-20, ESV). He then launches into a series of thoughts on anger, lust, divorce, oaths and finally retaliation and the treatment of one's enemies, each marked with a variation of the phrase 'You have heard that it was said...' With each section that He addresses, He raises the standard of conduct to a seemingly impossible level. It seemed interesting to me that He should conclude these with the matter of violence, retaliation and responding to one's enemies. Might there be a reason for that? If so, what could it be?

Christ begins His sequence of thoughts in Matthew 6 : 38-42 with a reference to the statements of the Mosaic Law in Ex. 21:24, Lev. 24:20 and Deut 19:21. As He then raises the bar, He speaks of a retaliation to the perpetration of physical violence, confiscation of clothing and the forced bearing of someone else's burden for more than the required distance. Though He could have used any other series of illustrations, I found it extremely significant that He selects these in particular. It suddenly occured to me that the specific actions that Christ was listing were mirrored exactly in the same order in His passion and crucifixion; His whipping and beating (Matt. 26:67-68, 27:26, Mark 14:65, 15:15, Luke 22:63-64, John 18:22), the confiscation of His clothes (Matt. 27:28, Mark 15:17, John 19:2) and the forced carrying of His cross to Calvary (Matt. 27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26, John 19:17). In addition, Jesus' instruction of loving one's enemies in the following verses (Matt. 6:43-45) are also exactly mirrored in sequence on the cross, as he prays "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34).

As I continued to reflect on this incredible correlation, I came back to the matter of why Christ might have intentionally ended with retaliation to violence and loving one's enemies. Within the massive spectrum of edicts beginning with 'You shall not...' that could be issued by God or anyone else, I think the denial of retaliating in kind to the violation or desecration of one's body, possessions or rights by someone else is the hardest to comprehend, let alone live out. I can imagine the incredulousness, if not anger, building up in those hearing these words, for Jersualem and all Israel was under the domination of Roman rule at the time. One could somehow stomach the decree of an impossibly high standard of conduct on every other issue - their anger; lust; greed; pride; divorcing a spouse they bitterly regret having married; the words itching to come off their tounge. This however, seems too much to bear. Someone has violated my body and inflicted some manner of indignity upon it; something precious to me has been taken away or destroyed; my rights have been violated by an imposition demanding that I do something, for someone I have no desire to serve. Millenia later, those words and their implications fly in the face of all reason and emotion; one's immediate instinct is to jump up, shake one's fist at God and shout 'How dare You say such a thing!'

And yet, of all the beings in existence, does God not have the most reason and highest prerogative to retaliate? He who abhors any form of evil, should He not conduct a massive slaughter on a spectrum from individuals to entire nations for all that they perpetrate upon one another? As expressed by Robert Burns, 'Man's inhumanity to man'[2] is one of the most verifiable features of our existence. In saying these words, Christ set the bar to such an impossible height that the only one who could even dare to attempt to meet it was Himself. He essentially issued a prophecy pointing to His cross as the real-life demonstration of this command. In the manner of a true leader, He led from the front and not from behind a desk, by being the first down the road in carrying out His own order. And in the counterperspective of Jesus Christ, God retaliates in a form that defies any and all human thinking; in a shocking turning of the tables, He releases in one mighty deluge the full fury of His anger and disgust for all of mankind's violations upon ...Himself.

It is no wonder then, that the Bible is authoritative in describing the power of the cross in its destruction of sin, Satan, death and their hold over everything in this world. As Paul wrote in his epistle to the Colossians:

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him." (Colossians 2 : 13-15, ESV)

REFERENCES:

[1] Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
[2] Man's Inhumanity to Man