Jesus' Death and Revolution

We often spend time interpreting Jesus death on the cross by analyzing Paul, John or the book of Hebrews.  But we should spend time looking at what Jesus said about his death, understanding how he interpreted his death.

1.       Free the abused
“The Son of Man has come to seek and save the lost.”
Jesus looked around him and he saw masses of people who were suffering.  People who were running around insane, desperately poor, horribly sick, blind, and imprisoned for their debts.  Instead of helping these needy people, the leaders of his people punished them more.  Preachers spoke to the abused, claiming it was their fault they suffered.  Priests kept them from God because their suffering was seen as a punishment.  Elders passed laws that made their plight more difficult.  Jesus saw the oppressed as “sheep without a shepherd”, a people without a leader, and the leaders as “whitewashed sepultures”—containers of death with a fresh coat of paint on them.  So Jesus had a plan to deliver these people—to give them a new exodus, a deliverance from slavery.  And that deliverance plan included his own death.

2.       Martyrdom
“Blessed are you when men hate you… be glad in that day… for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way the fathers treated the prophets.”
The first deliverer of Jesus’ people, Moses, was a shepherd who had a deep connection with God, and God enacted the deliverance of the oppressed using Moses as a conduit.  There were many like Moses offering deliverance through the years: Deborah, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Esther. These were prophets, people whom God used to deliver his people from oppression.  However, these people, every one, suffered horribly.  Their lives were miserable.  But the misery of their lives was worth the deliverance they brought, and also because they were given the opportunity to live at peace with God after this life was over. Jesus knew that he was to live like these: be led by God to deliver people, suffer horribly, to be resurrected to be at peace in the end.

3.       Demonstrate Love
“Greater love has no one than this: that one lay his life down for his brothers.”

Jesus declared that the law is all about love.  Not just any love, but love for all people, love which helps those in need and love that sacrifices oneself.  Jesus lived out this love every day.  He healed the sick, brought sight to the blind, fed the hungry, raised the dead, delivered the mentally ill, and gave to the poor.  This was good, but he needed to provide a final demonstration of how one should live.  When Jesus died on the cross, he showed what real sacrifice was, and the kind of love we all should share with one another.

4.       Jesus On the Campaign Trail
“This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”
At the moment Jesus was baptized, he had a vision of God the Father quoting Psalm 2 to him, declaring him to be the Son of God, the new king of the Jewish people, the leader of the people of God, and the next emperor of the world.  From this point on, Jesus was campaigning to be this king, to prove himself as more worthy than the current rulers.  But Jesus was never campaigning to the people of God, but campaigning for God himself.  He was showing himself to be more compassionate than Moses, more obedient than David, and having more faith than Elijah.  His death was the ultimate expression of all of these characteristics.

5.       Principle of Humility
“If anyone exalts himself, he will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
There was one principle, however, that Jesus needed to demonstrate above all.  If a person was to rule under God’s power, the one aspect they had to demonstrate above all is humility.    Jesus understood humility to not be an inner sense of unworthiness or lowliness, because he considered himself the next emperor of the world.  Rather, humility is accepting a low standing and allowing God to give you a higher one.  Jesus had to accept the lowest place, the station of ultimate shame and rejection, and then God would establish him on high.  In Jesus’ time, the lowest station he could take on is to be hung in shame on a cross.

6.       Kick the Bums Out
“The vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir, come let us kill him…”
Like David before him, there were already God-appointed rulers over God’s people: the Sanhedrin and the priests of the temple. Jesus couldn’t establish a revolution and kill them, for that would prove him to be unworthy of rule.  Instead, Jesus had to demonstrate the unworthiness of these rulers, and then God himself would take them out of power.  So he established a situation in which they would kill someone making a claim that was true.  That despite their laws and focus on justice, they would kill God’s representative because they didn’t like his claims.  Jesus, of course, put himself in that situation.  He declared himself king by riding on a colt into Jerusalem with followers honoring him as a great conqueror.  He undermined the high priest’s rules by kicking businessmen out of the temple.  He publicly declared them killers of the innocent.  And then, only to them, he admitted that he was king and would be judging them in God’s name.  That was enough for them to crucify him, causing them to be set aside as rulers.

7.       Establishing a new nation
“This is the new covenant in my blood.”

After delivering the people of Israel from slavery and giving them a new law, God asked for an eternal agreement between him and his people.  On the day of ratification, Moses had a number of bulls sacrificed.  Moses read the law of God and said, “God wants to be your king and you will be his nation.  Do you agree to these terms?”  All the people agreed.  So Moses had a number of bulls killed and the blood was put in a basin.  Moses then sprinkled the blood on God’s altar and then on all the people.  He said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you.”  Jesus used the same words, speaking of his own blood which was to be spilled on the cross.  Jesus made it clear that he was re-establishing the kingdom of God, a new nation established on the dust of the old, with Jesus as the king.  This is a kingdom whose law is love, who gives an opportunity for repentance, who gives the Spirit to empower one to love.  And Jesus’ blood is the ink with which the constitution is written.

8.       Risen
“He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things… and be killed and after three days rise again.”
All of this was contingent on God’s response.  Jesus had said all along that his death was significant only if God raised him from the dead.
If God raised him from the dead, then Jesus was truly the King, as he claimed.
If God raised him from the dead, then the many scriptures that said God would raise the humble would be fulfilled.
If God raised him from the dead, then the path for the oppressed to live a new life in God is established.
If God raised him from the dead, then the sentence of death upon Jesus is reversed.
If God raised him from the dead, then the old system of temple, priests and elders are declared unworthy and set aside.
If God raised him from the dead, then the law of love is established.
If God raised him from the dead then the new covenant is accepted and the new kingdom of God is established.

God did raise him from the dead.  There is a new nation without abuse or oppression.  It is not led by the church, but by Jesus himself.  And anyone who follows Jesus’ path of humility and mercy to the needy can be a part of it.  All nations are set aside, rejected by anyone who lives in this new kingdom.

The Hidden Question

In the early fourth century, Arius brought the proposition that the Son was begotten and not eternal, thus creating a divide between the nature of God and the Son.  This proposition and the ensuing controversy that followed set the young church on fire.  It is said that merchants on the street of Alexandria would debate with their customers the nature of God, and whether the Son was truly, fully God.

And thus the church was changed forever.  To this day, Arius is refuted in churches, attempting to revive the old debate that was, in every way it could be, won by Athanasius and the majority of bishops. Unfortunately, in the focus of the church to hammer out the nature of God and the relationship between the Father and the Son, instead of the focus of the early church.

There is a debate about the nature of God in the NT, but it contains almost nothing about the nature of God's being, but is strongly debating the nature of God's character.  Is God a force of karma, pouring out judgment on those who deserve it?  Or is God ultimately merciful, forbearing to the point of allowing his reputation to suffer so he can bring sinners further into love?

In understanding the character of God, we also understand our own goals as individuals and as societies.  If God is karma, we need to bring harsh justice onto those who do evil.  If God is love and mercy, we should be forbearing and allow people to take advantage of us because in the end it makes us all who we ought to be.

If we focus on the being of God, we neglect the question of character, God's and our own, in order to explore that which we ultimately cannot know.  The being of God is the more interesting question because it requires in depth analysis, some imagination and curiosity.  It is the question that our human nature wants to explore because it does not require us to change, it allows us to be who we are.

But this is not the focus of Jesus or the rest of the New Testament.  They are constantly telling us to change, to be more merciful, loving and peaceful, both as individuals and communities.  They are telling us that it is hard work and requires our whole focus.

We are so easily distracted.

The proper study of God is his nature as displayed by his actions through Jesus, not his being.

The Big Picture-- What is the purpose of humanity?

In the beginning, God created the ecosystem.

He made all things to fit together so that not a single aspect of creation loses out.  It’s described in Psalm 104:

He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever….

He sends forth springs in the valleys; They flow between the mountains;

They give drink to every beast of the field; The wild donkeys quench their thirst.

Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; They lift up their voices among the branches.

He waters the mountains from His upper chambers; The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works.

He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the labor of man, So that he may bring forth food from the earth,

And wine which makes man's heart glad, So that he may make his face glisten with oil, And food which sustains man's heart.

The trees of the LORD drink their fill, The cedars of Lebanon which He planted,

Where the birds build their nests, And the stork, whose home is the fir trees.

The high mountains are for the wild goats; The cliffs are a refuge for the wild goats.

He made the moon for the seasons; The sun knows the place of its setting.

You appoint darkness and it becomes night, In which all the beasts of the forest prowl about.

The young lions roar after their prey And seek their food from God.

When the sun rises they withdraw And lie down in their dens.

Man goes forth to his work And to his labor until evening.

O LORD, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all!

 (Psalm 104:5, 10-24)

The earth is one large community, working together to meet each other’s needs.  And human beings play an essential role. Human beings are supposed to be the fail-safe, the fix-it-guys, and they were supposed to improve on creation, filling it with creations of their own.  Mind you, humans couldn’t do it on their own.  They needed God’s guidance and power to make it happen.  But it was a good plan.

A community which is self-sustaining and meets the needs of all parts within it, both survival needs and social and security needs is a community of peace, it is Shalom.  God’s initial plan was for the world to have perpetual Shalom, and human beings were essential for that plan.

Of course, we know that this plan wasn’t fulfilled.

Mind you, humanity didn’t mess everything up, just enough for the whole planet to become ill, and every creature within it, including humanity, to be in a perpetual state of crisis.  Because we don’t really know what peace is, or how to achieve it.  We need God’s wisdom and power.

Okay, let’s do a huge fast forward.  To the end. If creation is the initial act of God, let’s see what the final peacemaking act of God is, how he completes his creation and what that says about humanity.  

At the very end, there is judgment.

No, that’s not fun to talk about.  Sorry.  No matter how anyone thinks it pans out, it involves separating humanity one from another, some will be a part of the ongoing process of maintaining creation and others will… not.  Or maybe they’ll get fixed, that’s not my place to say right now.

What I’m more interested is how humanity will be divided from each other.  How does God choose the good group from the bad?  The answer in the Bible is strangely uniform.  With all the differences in Scripture and the different wording and the different ideas, how humanity is judged is determined by one phrase used quite frequently:

Psalm 28:4—Requite them according to their deeds…

Proverbs 12:14—The deeds of a man hands will return to him.

Isaiah 59:18—According to their deeds, the Lord will repay.

Jeremiah 17:10—I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds. 

Jeremiah 32:18-19—The Lord of Hosts… gives everyone according to their ways; every man according to the fruit of his deeds.

Ezekiel 18:26-27—When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and dies because of it, for his iniquity which he has committed he will die.  Again, when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and righteousness, he will save his life.

Hosea 12:2—He will repay them according to their deeds.

Jonah 3:10—When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. 

Matthew 16:27—The Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay each according to his deeds.

John 5:28-29— An hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

II Corinthians 5:10—We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 

Revelation 20:12-13—And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.

In the end, it isn’t how much a person believes, or how well they did on their doctrine, or what a great relationship they had with God… when the final test comes up, it all has to do with what we do.  The kind of actions matter as well.  For Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, it’s clear that if we are going to pass this final test, we have to do acts of kindness, helping the needy, supporting those who are in the greatest need.

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.  Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you.  Luke 6:36-38

So I said all that to tell you this.

I know what the purpose of humanity is.  And it is revealed in God’s first and last acts in the human story.  First of all, we are to create peace on earth.  We aren’t to wait for God to do it for us, we have to do it ourselves.  And secondly, we are to create peace by means of doing great acts of support for those in need.  It could be we are helping birds in need or puppies or children or homeless people or sick people… but we are to be the kind of people that can’t say “no” to a fellow creature in need.  Peace through compassion.  That’s what God wants of us.

Yes, God wants us to love Him.  No question.  Because without God we don’t have the wisdom or the strength to obtain peace or to keep loving.  Without God, we get confused about what love really means, mixing it up with our own self-interest. 

God is interested in us in propping up the system of peace He originally created and doing this through acts of great love.  And He wants to help us do it, which means we need to connect to Him.  That’s it.  If we can remember this, it will all work out.

Sure, we’ll argue about what peace really looks like and about how to get there.  But if we remember the basics—peace means that everyone’s needs are met, whatever those needs are.  And the method to peace is through compassion and mercy.  If we remember those things, we’ll be okay.  We just need to stick to the basics.

And dream really big.