Who Rules?

Photo credit: Hugo Heikenwaelder

The world and all that is in it is mine, (Psalm 50.12).

________________________

This is my Father’s world:

Oh, let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world,
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

This Is My Father’s World,  Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901

Advent - A Tale of Two Messiahs

How messiahs are supposed to be

As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
     seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah—
from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, 
    one whose origins are in the distant past. 
So the Lord will hand the people of Israel over to their enemies until the time when 
     the woman in labor gives birth. 
Then the rest of the king’s countrymen will return 
     to be reunited with the people of Israel. 
He will assume his post and shepherd the people by the Lord’s strength, 
     by the sovereign authority of the Lord his God. 
They will live securely, for at that time he will be honored 
     even in the distant regions of the earth.


Micah, 5.2 - 4

Christmas marks the point at which God invaded his wayward world. It won't be long now before the invasion takes place, when the True King makes his move and lands on the beaches of our world, armed to the teeth. The Messiah is coming, but when he does he will confound all but a handful of followers. For his battles and weaponry will not be what we expect at all.

When Mary and Joseph made their trek to Bethlehem there was no single, universally accepted idea of what the Messiah would be like. Some people, mostly the monied interests, didn't believe there would be a Messiah at all. Of those that did believe, there were some that thought he would be a supernatural being like an angel, while others said he would just be a mighty warrior, like King David.  This is probably why Herod called for the experts in such things: To cut through the morass of ideas and get some dependable advice. The experts famously replied with today's scripture.

Despite all the squabbling, there were certain things any real Messiah was expected to do. He must ride into Jerusalem, sword drawn, armor gleaming in the sun David-like, and fight the final, bloody, climactic battle against the forces of evil, understood by one and all to be Rome. Once he utterly defeated the pagans, Messiah would restore the glory of Israel and rule over it in peace and security. The gentiles would be forced to admit that Israel was God's chosen people and they would stream to Jerusalem, hoping to enjoy some of Israel's blessings.

This is wildly different from what Mary's child actually did when he grew up, so much so that no one got it at first. Sure he rode into Jerusalem -- though brandishing no razor-sharp sword. But he didn't defeat the Romans; they defeated him. He didn't usher in peace and security: Israel was still in captivity.  Most of the nation rejected him outright. Even his closest followers were completely at a loss how this man who seemed in so many ways to fulfill the Messiah's role utterly failed (they thought) in his mission. Remember those plaintive words in the Gospel of Luke? "But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel!"

Action Figure

The ultimate victory

The Jewish people so dearly yearned for that powerful, action-figure Messiah that they would or could abide no other.  And today many good Christian people pine -- sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously -- for his Second Advent when it is eagerly expected that something much more exciting and bloody will occur. Something more like what the first century Jews hoped would happen, perhaps.

Because the second coming is when evil will really be defeated, the Messiah will finally rule, and then the world will be forced to admit that we were God's chosen people. Right?  

But no. Jesus' Second Coming, for all it's importance is, in the words of the scholar Leon Morris, a mere "mopping up operation." The cosmic, messianic victory that "destroyed the devil's work" was won in the 1st century with the invasion of a baby and the execution of a criminal and we celebrate the start of that victory now.

Make no mistake: Jesus Christ will return on the clouds of Heaven, establish his eternal Kingdom, right all wrongs, and judge the living and the dead.  But also make no mistake that the prophesied King has already come, "whose origins are in the distant past," the child of "the woman in labor who gives birth," as our scripture says.

He did reunite his countrymen in the Israel of God, he did take his post and has shepherded his people for the past 2000 years. He is honored in the distant regions of the Earth, is he not? Peace and security? He gave those to us as well (see the Gospel of John 14.27 and 10.28 - 29).

Most important of all, Jesus did ride triumphantly into Jerusalem where he fought the climactic last battle with the true Enemy, and from that battle he did emerge victorious. Counterintuitive as it is, the true Messiah was the one who invaded quietly as the baby of Bethlehem, won his greatest victory nailed to a cross, and inaugurated his Kingdom by emerging from a tomb.

*          *          *

Our Lord and our God, thank you for invading our world by stealth as a small infant so that you could rise up from among your people and take down the forces of evil. Until you return, help us to be faithful in carrying out our own mopping up operations. In Jesus Christ's name we pray this. Amen

Advent - First Move

Jesus chose to live here

Photo credit: Jonathan McIntosh

How delightful it is to see approaching over the mountains    the feet of a messenger who announces       peace, a messenger who brings good news,      who announces deliverance,      who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” Listen, your watchmen shout;   in unison they shout for joy, for they see with their very own eyes    the Lord’s return to Zion. In unison give a joyful shout,     ruins of Jerusalem! 
For the Lord consoles his people;    he protects Jerusalem. The Lord reveals his royal power     in the sight of all the nations; the entire earth sees    our God deliver.

Isaiah 52.7 - 10

Advent, as we noted in the introduction to this series, originally referred to a state visit by the Roman Emperor. For him, messengers would have been sent out far and wide, preparations would have been going on for months, and everyone would know that Caesar Augustus was coming.

For the official state visit of the High King of the Universe there had indeed been an announcement -- but it was made to unknown peasant women.  And preparations were certainly being made, but they were being made in the womb of an unmarried teenage girl.

Make no mistake: The Lord was certainly "returning to Zion" and he would "reveal his royal power" in ways that still reverberate today.  The announcement found in today's scripture would come true; everyone who cared to look would know that God reigns. But the way the Messiah went about mounting his revolution was totally unexpected in almost every respect.

We're all familiar with how this plays out: Mary and Joseph, because of Caesar's orders, must travel 90 miles to an unfamiliar town, live with the work animals, and as a result the transcendent God who normally lives in unapproachable glory is born in a mule's feed box. Then they return to the minuscule, hardscrabble village of Nazareth where Jesus grows up among a few hundred people, most of them barely able to scrape together enough of a living to survive day by day.

But wait a minute. This is the Son of the all-powerful God we're talking about. This was not by chance. His birth could have occurred under any circumstances he desired -- in a palace, in a room at the temple, in the home of a prosperous merchant. Even an ordinary, fairly comfortable home would have been a step up. Perhaps Joseph could have worked a choice carpentry job for a wealthy client before leaving for Bethlehem so he and Mary could have a few hundred denarii in their pockets. With the wave of his hand God could easily have made this story much different.

But that is not how the Messiah wanted to come into this world. Instead he thought it was of supreme importance to be incarnated among the poor and the powerless.

Think about that. What does this say about the kind of God we Christians worship?

All throughout the Hebrew scriptures God had shown intense concern with the weakest members of society. "Don’t oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor..." his prophets had cried.  Now, in his inaugural act as Messiah (an unborn act, no less), he freely chooses to become one of them.

Yes, this is God's strategy for invading the world and fomenting revolution, for founding the Kingdom of God. This King has chosen to stand up from among the weak and helpless of the world whose ranks he purposefully joined and, "announce peace... announce deliverance... and say to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'"

*          *          *

Father of the Fatherless, Advocate of the poor, thank you for becoming one of us at our most abject. In all we do enable us to proclaim peace, deliverance, and Jesus' reign.  It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

The Gospel of Invasion

Jesus Preaching, by Tissot

It might be held... that the ethics of Confucianism have an independent value quite apart from the story of the life of Confucius himself, just as the philosophy of Plato must be considered on its own merits, quite apart from the traditions that have come down to us about the life of Plato and the question of the extent of his indebtedness to Socrates.

But the argument can be applied to the New Testament only if we ignore the real essence of Christianity. For the Christian gospel is not primarily a code of ethics or a metaphysical system; it is first and foremost good news, and as such it was proclaimed by its earliest preachers.

True, they called Christianity 'The Way' and 'The Life'; but Christianity as a way of life depends upon the acceptance of Christianity as good news. And this good news is intimately bound up with the historical order, for it tells how for the world's redemption God entered into history, the eternal came into time, the kingdom of heaven invaded the realm of earth, in the great events of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The first recorded words of our Lord's public preaching in Galilee are: 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe the good news."

F. F. Bruce
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?



(This is a reprint of an earlier post by one of my all-time favorite Bible scholars.)

What We Need the Bible For

An N T Wright quote I like on the purpose and authority of the Bible in the Christian Movement.

We live under scripture because that is the way we live under the authority of God that has been vested in Jesus the Messiah, the Lord.

But what is God’s authority there for? Certainly not to give us a large amount of true but miscellaneous information. Solomon made lists of natural phenomena, but they didn’t get into the Bible. The Bible is not an early version of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Here is the central element: the point about God’s authority is that the whole Bible is about God establishing his kingdom on earth as in heaven, completing (in other words) the project begun but aborted in Genesis 1–3. This is the big story that we must learn how to tell. It isn’t just about how to get saved, with some cosmology bolted onto the side. This is an organic story about God and the world.

God’s authority is exercised not to give his people lots of true information, not even true information about how they get saved (though that comes en route). God’s authority, vested in Jesus the Messiah, is about God reclaiming his proper lordship over all creation. And the way God planned to rule over his creation from the start was through obedient humanity. The Bible’s witness to Jesus declares that he, the obedient Man, has done this. But the Bible is then the God-given equipment through which the followers of Jesus are themselves equipped to be obedient stewards, the royal priesthood, bringing that saving rule of God in Christ to the world.

Advent - The Approaching King

Caesar comes for a visit

Photo by NoJin

This year Advent begins today, November 27th. Every Sunday and Thursday until Christmas, I'll be posting a series of short essays to help us listen for the approaching footsteps of the True King.


"Listen, I am coming soon!"
(Revelation 22.12, ERV)

Advent has been celebrated by Jesus' followers for millennia but these days it tends to get short shrift. In today's society it's been largely replaced by that hectic period of shopping, card writing, and drunken partying between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But at one time this was perhaps the most seditious season of all. And all because a peasant girl was in her last trimester.

Advent is an old Roman word that means, "the arrival of someone or something important." We use it today when we wonder how anyone managed to live "before the advent of the Internet," for instance.  For the ancient Romans though, an advent was the arrival of the Emperor himself on an official state visit. Heralds were sent out months ahead of time to announce the coming visit.  Buildings would be spruced up, the best food and entertainment would be arranged, and the richest family in the region would open up their estate to Caesar's use.


 We Christians announce the ultimate state visit: The arrival of the Christ, the King of the Universe. As Jesus' early followers understood (and as we still do today if the US President visits us in Montana or Morocco), a time of preparation is the appropriate response to a visit of this magnitude. And that is what the celebration called Advent is: A time of happy preparation for our King's imminent arrival.  As he draws ever nearer, we prepare ourselves for the moment when God invades history in the form of a poor family's baby.

Advent Gospel

It is this arrival of the Universal King that the Gospel -- the "Great Announcement" -- proclaims. The  Christian Movement announces a rival King, not just a sweet little baby in a manger or a man with nice ideas. As we have said elsewhere on this site, if Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not.  That is why authority figures tended to be rather hostile toward us for the first 300 years of our existence (and sporadically since -- when they aren't trying to co-opt us!). The peasant girl's baby that Advent warns of and Christmas extols has been in head-to-head conflict with the powers of this world for the last 2000 years.



You've no doubt been aware of this since you first heard the Christmas story, though it may not have fully registered. But what after all were the "Wise Men" looking for when they arrived in Jerusalem and asked, "'Where is the one who is born king of the Jews?'" (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, verses 1 and 2). Or as the old carols proclaim: "Joy to the world... let Earth receive her King."

Christianity is, in the final analysis, a subversive little religion.

God's Colony

Christians eating the Agape meal soon after "Mathetes" wrote.

Painting from the Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus

As I wrote on Thursday after the US election, the true country and first allegiance of a member of the Christian movement is not any nation on earth. "My kingdom is not from this world," said the one who is our king. Writing to Jesus' followers living in a Roman colony, the Apostle Paul made sure they recognized what nation they were really a colony of...


But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

Philippians 3.20-21

__________________________

Today I've asked an anonymous 2nd century writer (traditionally called Mathetes but never named in his letter) to explain what this meant to his fellow Christians then. 

The Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity...

They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, 5 (AD 130 - 200)

"I Pledge Allegiance..."

Photo by April Sikorski

This is basically my post from the 4th of July with a new introduction. But what I wanted to point out then is the same thing I'm trying to get at now, so I think it is justified.


So we Americans just elected a new President. Whether we're jubilant or depressed by the result we at least ended up doing what we always do: the winner and loser graciously congratulate each other, and move on. The peaceful transition of power, at least, is something to be proud of; it doesn't happen everywhere.

In ancient Rome, of course, you didn't get to vote for the Emperor, but Romans were still proud of being Romans. In fact, most people have probably felt the same way about their homelands down through the ages. Mongols were proud to be mongols, serfs were proud of their lords, and Romans thought it was an illustrious thing to be a Roman. Even St. Paul would pull out his Roman citizenship on occasion:

But Paul said to the police officers, “They had us beaten in public without a proper trial—even though we are Roman citizens—and they threw us in prison. And now they want to send us away secretly? Absolutely not! They themselves must come and escort us out!”

(Book of Acts 16.37)

Where Paul claimed his rights as a Roman

Real Country

Interestingly enough, a few years later Paul wrote a letter to the group of Jesus' followers in Philippi, the city where this happened. In it he makes a point that we 21st century US citizens who claim to follow Jesus of Nazareth would do well to keep in mind as we mull over election results.

To the very people who had witnessed the Apostle forcefully insist on his citizenship in the only superpower of his time, Paul reminds them what country they really belong to.

But our citizenship is in heaven—and we also eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

Philippians 3.20-21

No matter what nation we live in or how much we may love it, members of the Christian movement have given their allegiance to another country and another ruler.

Paul had just finished writing this:

And so God raised him high

     and bestowed on him the name beyond all names,

that at the name of Jesus 

     every knee will bow,

those in heaven, on earth and beneath the earth,

     and every tongue confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

     to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2.9-11  (my own translation)

I'm particularly fond of N.T. Wright's little quote, "If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not." Jesus of Nazareth is our true King now, and eventually every knee will bow down to him.  Our knees -- the knees of the Christian movement -- have already had the privilege of bowing to him. We have independence from every 'Caesar' that rules anywhere. And our true allegiance to Christ's kingdom should condition our actions toward whatever other governments we happen to live under. 

Today, amidst your joy or agony over the election results, remember what country you truly belong to and who you really are.

The Great Announcement - Part 3

Jesus Before Pilate

Painting by James Tissot

The story so far: In the first two parts of this series (part 1, part 2) we've seen that, despite the widespread idea that the Gospel is mainly a message of God's love and forgiveness (although it is that), Jesus of Nazareth repeatedly defined it differently -- as an announcement of the impending establishment of the Kingdom of God. As we read through the accounts of Jesus' life, this kingdom gets closer and closer until he occasionally speaks of it as actually having arrived.

So now we come to the part of the story everyone knows: Jesus' capture, execution, and return to life. This brief installment will focus on that supreme crisis moment and what Jesus' final words were about the Kingdom of God he'd been proclaiming for so long. Then, in part 4, we'll look at the very different way the resurrected Jesus -- later followed by his students -- began to talk about himself and his kingdom.

The universe changed during these few days, and his Gospel and the kingdom it announced changed too: It changed in the way that something being announced changes when it finally arrives.

Rome

Just before his crucifixion, Jesus is recorded as having made two important statements about the kingdom he's been proclaiming and his position in it, one to the roman authority in Palestine and one to the Jewish authority there.

His discussion with the roman prefect Pontius Pilate is especially interesting as we watch Jesus try to explain to a non-Jewish mind what kind of Messiah he is. Remember, the title "Messiah" carried very militaristic connotations to the average 1st century Jew or roman occupier, connotations Jesus had no use for. This is likely one of the reasons Jesus preferred to call himself "Son of Man," a more vague prophetic term that he could fill with his own meaning. But Pilate shows no sign of being familiar with that concept. So Jesus had to use another approach.

Pilate went back into the palace and called Jesus. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him.

Jesus answered, “Does this question come from you or have others told you about me?”

Pilate replied, “Do you think I am a Jew? It was your own people and the chief priests who handed you over to me. What have you done?”

Jesus said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!”

So Pilate asked him, “Are you a king, then?”

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.”

“And what is truth?” Pilate asked.

(John 18.33-38, GNB)

Jesus confesses that he has a kingdom, but not the kind Pilate means, not a kingdom that "belongs to this world" and deals in battles and bloodshed. But when asked directly (for the second time) if he is in fact a king, Jesus prefers to define for himself what being king of a kingdom that doesn't belong to the world means.

Israel

To the Jewish authorities however Jesus was rather blunt:

Again the high priest questioned him: ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed God?’

‘I am,’ said Jesus; ‘and you will all see the Son of Man seated at the right side of the Almighty and coming with the clouds of heaven.’

(Mark 14.61-62, GNB, and also Matthew 26.63-64)

Jesus blatantly called forth the image of the famous prophetic passage in Daniel 7 that the term "Son of Man" comes from:

I saw in the night visions,
     and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
     and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
     And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
     that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
     his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
     and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.

(Daniel 7.13-14, ESV)

Yes, he affirms, he definitely is the expected Messiah, the apocalyptic "Son of Man," on familiar terms with the "Ancient of Days" and inheritor of a kingdom that encompasses all the earth and will never pass away. The Jewish authorities were familiar with these terms, and knew precisely what he was claiming.

Dregs

Jesus has one more brief discussion about his kingdom, this time not with leaders and scholars but, appropriately enough for Jesus, with the dregs of society -- a crucified criminal. “Jesus," he says, "remember me when you come in your kingdom.”

And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

(Luke 23.42-43)

One does not enter paradise with the Messiah without being a citizen of the Messiah's kingdom. Just to draw the meaning of these pregnant words out a bit, Jesus is saying, "That day when I come in my kingdom? That day is today, and you will be there with me. The kingdom starts now."

On Loving Your Country

U.S. Navy photo

If you live in the United States, like the bulk of this blog's readers do, you'll probably spend today celebrating Independence Day. This is where we band together and enjoy the fact that, despite it's many, many problems, flaws, disagreements, and odd way of choosing Presidents, we have a pretty good country here. Personally, I'm a big fan of the US and proud to be a citizen of this country.

Of course, most people probably felt the same way about their homelands down through the ages. Mongols were proud to be mongols, serfs were proud of their lords, and Romans thought it was an illustrious thing to be a Roman. Even St. Paul would pull out his Roman citizenship on occasion:

But Paul said to the police officers, “They had us beaten in public without a proper trial—even though we are Roman citizens—and they threw us in prison. And now they want to send us away secretly? Absolutely not! They themselves must come and escort us out!”

(Book of Acts 16.37)

Where Paul claimed his rights as a Roman

Real Country

Interestingly enough, a few years later Paul wrote a letter to the group of Jesus' followers in Philippi, the city where this happened. In it he makes a point that we 21st century US citizens would do well to keep in mind as we celebrate our country.

To the very people who had witnessed the Apostle forcefully insist on his citizenship in the only superpower of his time, Paul reminds them what country they really belong to.

But our citizenship is in heaven—and we also eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

(Philippians 3.20-21)

No matter what nation we live in or how much we may love it, members of the Christian movement have given their allegiance to another country and another ruler.

Paul had just finished writing this:

For this reason God raised him to the highest place above
     and gave him the name that is greater than any other name.
And so, in honor of the name of Jesus all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below
     will fall on their knees,
and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord,
     to the glory of God the Father. 

(Philippians 2.9-11, GNB)

I'm particularly fond of N.T. Wright's little quote, "If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not." Jesus of Nazareth is our true King now, and eventually everyone will "fall on their knees" to him.  Our knees -- the knees of the Christian movement -- have already had the privilege of bowing to him. We have independence from every 'Caesar' that rules anywhere.

Today amidst our fireworks and barbecue and current geopolitical dominance, remember who you really are and where you really live.

Seeing the Kingdom

The Kingdom of God, which is the main subject of the Gospel (see here and here for more), is not a far future thing. If you are reigned over by the Messiah Jesus from his throne in Heaven, then you are a citizen of that Kingdom now. Yes, there is a time still future when every knee will bow whether they accept his reign or not, but his reign as High King of the Universe exists in the present.

____________________

Some Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come. 

Jesus: The kingdom of God comes—but not with signs that you can observe. People are not going to say, “Look! Here it is!” They’re not going to say, “Look! It’s over there!” You want to see the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is already here among you.  (Luke 17.20-21, Voice)

He says, “Do not ask about the times in which the season of the kingdom of heaven will again arise and come. Rather, be eager that you may be found worthy of it. It is within you. That is, it depends on your own wills and is in your own power, whether or not you receive it. Everyone that has attained to justification by means of faith in Christ and decorated by every virtue is counted worthy of the kingdom of heaven."

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 375-444)
Commentary on Luke, Homily 117.

If the devil has been driven out and sin no longer reigns, then the kingdom of God is established in us... St. Paul described the nature of this kingdom in this way: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” If the kingdom of God is within us and is righteousness, peace and joy, then someone that remains in these is surely within the kingdom of God. Someone that remains in unrighteousness, conflict and the melancholy that kills the life of the spirit is already a citizen of the devil’s kingdom, of hell and of death. These are the signs whether it is God’s kingdom or the devil’s.

John Cassian  (AD 360-435)
Conference 1.13.

The Great Announcement - Part 2

Hi, I'm still on vacation but as promised on Tuesday here is the 2nd installment of our series on what the Gospel truly is, The Great Announcement. On Sunday there will be the usual mini-sermon from a past champion of the Christian Movement, then next week, heaven willing, I hope to post part 3.

Jesus announces God's Kingdom

In our first installment we found that, as Messiah, Jesus himself preached the gospel (or 'Good News.' On this blog it's usually called 'the Great Announcement'). Its subject was that, "The right time is now here. God's kingdom is very near. Change your hearts and lives, and believe the Good News," (Gospel of Mark chapter 1 verses 14-15 and Gospel of Matthew chapter 4 verse 17, Easy-to-Read Version. ). 

Now, we as get into the Gospel accounts, Jesus continues spreading this message about God's Kingdom and how close it is. Please remember that, as we learned last time, the gospel we usually hear today doesn't have much about a kingdom in it.  In fact one respected site defines it this way: "There is a God, he loves you, and you can know him personally." 

Jesus announces this Kingdom in the towns and synagogues of his home district of Galilee, (Matthew chapter 9 verse 35 ERV), eventually moving into the southern Judean synagogues near Jerusalem as well, (Gospel of Luke chapter 4 verse 44 ERV). Later, he sends out his Apostles (Luke chapter 9 verses 1-2 ERV) and then a larger group (Luke chapter 10 verse 1-10 ERV) to spread the same message: "God’s kingdom is now very near you!"  (Luke chapter 10 verse 9 ERV).

And one must admit, if the Messiah were to canvas Palestine with an important message, God's Kingdom would be the most logical subject. After all, he's supposed to set it up. 

Closer

Continuing through the Gospels, we start to see the time until this Kingdom comes shrinking! Now instead of being "very near you," Jesus begins to announce that it is here. Once, after performing an exorcism, he makes this startling claim: "But I use the power of God (literally, "the finger of God") to force out demons. This shows that God’s kingdom has now come to you," (Luke chapter 11 verse 20 and Matthew chapter12 verse 28 ERV). A few chapters later a group of Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom he talks about will come. Instead of giving them a timetable or list of signs to look for, he tells them this:

“God’s kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you can see it. People will not say, ‘Look, God’s kingdom is here!’ or ‘There it is!’ No, God’s kingdom is here with you."

 (Luke chapter 17 verse 21 ERV)

In Luke's Gospel Jesus sums it up this way:

Before John the Baptizer came, people were taught the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets. But since the time of John, the Good News about God’s kingdom is being told.

  (Luke chapter 16 verse 16 ERV)

Last Days

During his last few days teaching in the Jerusalem temple, his constant theme is God's Kingdom (read Matthew chapters 21 through 24 ).  The last time Jesus mentions the gospel before he is executed is to remind his students one more time what to teach: "The Good News I have shared about God’s kingdom will be told throughout the world. It will be spread to every nation. Then the end will come," (Matthew chapter 24 verse 14 ERV).

(Well, not exactly the last time. Being Jesus of Nazareth, friend of babies and fishermen, he made sure that Mary of Bethany's loving and possibly prophetic act would be remembered forever whenever the Great Announcement is made. And it has been, hasn't it. Another prophecy of his come true.)

My main point this time was to show that when Jesus said "gospel" he meant "Kingdom," and that this is rather different from what we mean when we say "gospel" today. In part 3 we'll cross through the Messiah's execution and resurrection to see how that pivot of history affected -- and did not affect -- the message Jesus proclaimed.

The Great Announcement - Part 1

(I'm on vacation this week.  Since I've almost finished the 3rd installment of my series The Great Announcement (about what the gospel really is) I thought it might be helpful if I reprint parts 1 and 2 while I'm gone. Here is the first; Part 2 will follow on Thursday.)

(Photo courtesy of Hannahmw)

God has a message for us, one that is so important and powerful that accepting it can transform the very nature of your existence -- not just in a nice metaphorical way, but a real, actual change. The Christian Movement was founded in large part to spread this message. I'm talking about the Gospel, of course. Anyone who's ever taken a cursory glance at Christianity knows it teaches that to "be saved" (whatever that means) you have to believe "the Gospel."

So what is the message? What does it say? That's what this occasional series will be about: What the Gospel is.

Probably the most common answer to the question runs something like this (which I'm taking from a site that named itself after this message): "So what is it? Here it is: There is a God, he loves you, and you can know him personally. That's it."

But, not to be a spoil sport or anything, that's not really it. 'It' is in there, it's part of the gospel and it's wonderful, but wonderful as it is it's almost a side issue to the main thing God wants said. It's not the "point" of the Gospel "spear."

Just as a side point think about this: Has it ever struck you as odd that the Gospel message we usually hear is, well, rather self-centered? I mean, stripped down to its bare bones, the Gospel is often presented as, "Avoid Hell. Believe this so you can go to Heaven when you die." Jesus and his greatest champions down through history did not do self-centered. His followers do self-sacrifice.  Does it make sense then that the main point of God's message would be about getting something?

So let's take a look through Christianity's founding documents and see what Christ and his messengers said this "Gospel" (a.k.a. "Good News") was really about.

Where Are We?

How Messiahs are supposed to look (Judas
Maccabeus,  a Messiah from a century and a
half before Jesus)

First a bit of background.

The nation of Israel was set up by God so that, "All the nations of the earth will be blessed because of your descendants," (Genesis chapter 22 verse 18 CEB). But by the time Jesus showed up, they had fallen far from the heady days of of David and Solomon. For the last approximately 600 years they had been subject to other nations, the current one being Rome. Although the nation technically had some liberty the Romans kept them them on a very short leash and soldiers were everywhere.

But many Jews believed that their prophetic books promised them a "Messiah" to deliver them from their oppressors and make them an independent kingdom once again. There were a plethora of views on what exactly this Messiah would be like and do, but mainstream opinion included at least this much: That he would be a mighty warrior who would march into town, cleanse the Temple of pagan influences, defeat Israel's enemies, and set up the "Kingdom of God" (or "of Heaven," which was a respectful way to refer to God).

Meet Jesus

So now we encounter Jesus of Nazareth for the first time. He is proclaiming a message that he calls "The Gospel." How does it go? "After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news, saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” (Gospel of Mark chapter 1 verses 14-15, Common English Version).

Interesting. Not much like the Gospel I quoted at the beginning. I used the Common English Version instead of my usual translation so we could feel a little of the impact this would have had on the average oppressed 1st century Jew. It would have been rather incendiary!  Matthew's Gospel tells us that, "Jesus went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, (Gospel of Matthew chapter 4 verse 23).

In our next installment we'll follow this gospel message through Christ's resurrection, into the early Christian Movement and see where it takes us.

Independence Day

If you live in the United States, like the bulk of this blog's readers do, you'll probably spend today celebrating Independence Day. This is where we band together and enjoy the fact that, despite it's many, many problems, flaws, and disagreements, we have a pretty good country here. Personally, I'm a big fan of the US and proud to be a citizen of this country.

Most people have probably felt the same way about their homelands down through the ages. Mongols were proud to be mongols, serfs were proud of their lords, and romans thought it was an illustrious thing to be a roman. Even St. Paul would pull out his roman citizenship on occasion:

Paul (loud enough that the police can hear):  Just a minute. This is unjust. We’ve been stripped naked, beaten in public, and thrown into jail, all without a trial of any kind. Now they want to release us secretly as if nothing happened? No way: we’re Roman citizens—we shouldn’t be treated like this! If the city officials want to release us, then they can come and tell us to our faces [that we're free].

(Book of Acts 16.37, Voice)

Where Paul claimed his rights as a Roman

Real Country

Interestingly enough, a few years later Paul wrote a letter to the group of Jesus' followers in Philippi, the city where this happened. In it he makes a point that we 21st century US citizens would do well to keep in mind as we celebrate our country.

To the very people who had witnessed the Apostle forcefully insist on his citizenship in the only superpower of his time, Paul reminds them what country they really belong to.

 We are citizens of heaven, exiles on earth waiting eagerly for a Liberator, our Lord Jesus the Anointed, to come and transform these humble, earthly bodies into the form of His glorious body by the same power that brings all things under His control. 

(Philippians 3.20-21, Voice)

No matter what nation we live in or how much we may love it, members of the Christian Movement have given their allegiance to another country and another ruler.

Paul had just finished writing this:

So God raised Him up to the highest place
     and gave Him the name above all.
So when His name is called,
     every knee will bow,
     in heaven, on earth, and below.
And every tongue will confess
     “Jesus, the Anointed One, is Lord,”
      to the glory of God our Father!

(Philippians 2.9-11, Voice)

I'm particularly fond of N.T. Wright's little quote, "If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not." Jesus of Nazareth is our true King now, and eventually "every knee will bow" to him.  Our knees -- the knees of the Christian Movement -- have already had the privilege of bowing to him. We have independence from every 'Caesar' that rules anywhere.

Today amidst our fireworks and barbeque and current geopolitical dominance, remember who you really are and where you really live.

The Gospel of Invasion

Jesus Preaching, by Tissot

It might be held... that the ethics of Confucianism have an independent value quite apart from the story of the life of Confucius himself, just as the philosophy of Plato must be considered on its own merits, quite apart from the traditions that have come down to us about the life of Plato and the question of the extent of his indebtedness to Socrates.

But the argument can be applied to the New Testament only if we ignore the real essence of Christianity. For the Christian gospel is not primarily a code of ethics or a metaphysical system; it is first and foremost good news, and as such it was proclaimed by its earliest preachers.

True, they called Christianity 'The Way' and 'The Life'; but Christianity as a way of life depends upon the acceptance of Christianity as good news. And this good news is intimately bound up with the historical order, for it tells how for the world's redemption God entered into history, the eternal came into time, the kingdom of heaven invaded the realm of earth, in the great events of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The first recorded words of our Lord's public preaching in Galilee are: 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe the good news."

F. F. Bruce
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

"Thy Will Be Done"

Where I go to church we always have a point where we pray the "Lord's Prayer" together. This is a very old custom for the Christian movement, incidentally. An ancient church manual from about AD 110 called The Didache prescribes that it should be prayed 3 times a day.

In the this prayer, after beginning by asking that God's reputation (his "name") be kept holy, Jesus teaches that the next thing to pray about is the theme of all his teaching: The Kingdom of God. He links our request for the Kingdom to come with another request that explains a little more about what that would mean: "Manifest Your will here on earth, as it is manifest in heaven," (Gospel of Matthew 6.9-13, Voice).

Remember that citizenship in God's Kingdom isn't something we get in the great by-and-by. We are already citizens here and now. The Kingdom comes as we live it on earth, in our daily lives. And the action of the Holy Spirit within us, particularly as he 'floods our hearts with his love,' brings us closer and closer to manifesting it 'as it is in heaven.'

The idea for this post, though, actually occurred to me when I read the BibleGateway's verse of the day, which is a famous Old Testament scripture.

He has told you, mortals, what is good in His sight. What else does the Eternal ask of you But to live justly and to love kindness and to walk with your True God in all humility?

Book of Micah 6.8, Voice

What does it look like for the Kingdom to come in our lives, as we "manifest" it? It looks like that.

Messed Up Gospel

Our Shopping List

Photo by The Italian Voice

All throughout the history of the Christ Movement we've gotten off track in how we understand and teach the Great Announcement of the Gospel.  Part of the reason for this blog is provide a place where people interested in Christianity can get past all that and see what it was that Jesus started.

Here is a random sampling of 14 ways we mess up the Gospel and get off message. They from a blog post by Howard Snyder called 14 Favorite Ways to Twist the Gospel.  By all means  read the whole thing here. It's a good list!

#11. Substitute heaven for the kingdom of God.
In the Bible, the kingdom of God is as comprehensive as the reality, sovereignty, and love of God. No spirit/matter dualism. Most people in Jesus’ days understood this; they knew that “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew, for example, was just another way of saying “kingdom of God.”

In the Bible we see the kingdom of God as both now/future, heavenly/earthly, personal/social, sudden/gradual, inward/outward, in a mysterious dialectic with the church which itself is neither the kingdom of God nor divorceable from God’s kingdom.


#2. Focus solely on “personal salvation.”
The Bible does not teach “personal salvation” in the private, individualistic way that phrase has come to mean. Rather it teaches in multiple ways and through many metaphors the reconciliation of all things (e.g., Eph. 1, Col. 1)—though not without judgment.


#12. Faith just a part of life.
We compartmentalize. Our Christian walk gets reduced to just one part of our lives, and that one part is often reduced to simply what we believe.

But now abide faith, hope, and love—and the Bible makes clear which is the “greatest” and most comprehensive. According to the gospel, faith is not the ultimate reality; it is the means to the end of loving God and others and all God’s creation with our whole being. And that 24/7, as the saying goes.

The biblical picture is faith working by love; love enabled by faith and powered by hope—full confidence in God’s amazing full-salvation-for-all-creation promises.


#5. Thinking economics and politics are not directly gospel concerns.
Walling off economics and politics from the gospel, placing them outside our discipleship, is unbiblical dualism. The gospel is an economic and political reality, so by definition the church is both economic and political. But economics and politics are to be understood in light of the gospel, not the other way round. The kingdom of God is the comprehensive framework.

Love of Country

Photo by Standard221

July 4th is the day when we celebrate the independence of our nation here in the United States. There is nothing wrong with feeling proud of your nation. St. Paul was willing (when it was to his advantage) to boast that he was a roman citizen (Acts of the Apostles 22.25 - 28). Even Jesus is known to have attended the Feast of Dedication (Gospel of John 10.22), an 8 day national holiday celebrating the retaking of Jerusalem by Jewish soldiers in 165 BC. Today it's known as Hanukkah.

But the Christian Movement has always had to remember that really, we don't belong here anymore. We are aliens. God's Kingdom is a real nation, not just a pleasant religious concept. When push comes to shove, the Messiah Jesus, King of the universe, is who we pledge our truest allegiance to.

But the government that rules us is in heaven. We are waiting for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from there. He will change our humble bodies and make them like his own glorious body. Christ can do this by his power, with which he is able to rule everything.

Letter to the Philippians 3.20-21, ERV

"...I know only one Lord..."

Thoughts for a Sunday Afternoon

Those who declare publicly that they belong to me, I will do the same for them before my Father in heaven. But those who reject me publicly, I will reject before my Father in heaven.

(Gospel of Matthew chapter 10 verse 32 - 33, Good News Translation)

Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, a king, and the ancients understood this well enough (see Gospel of Luke 23.2 or Acts of the Apostles 17.7 for example). He sits on a high and lofty throne ruling a very real kingdom of which we are citizens (Letter to the Philippians 3.20).  In New Testament times "declaring publicly that you belong" to this king (or "confess him," as the old Bibles put it) was seen as nothing less than sheer disloyalty to the empire and, as most people know, could get you tortured and killed. 

Over the past 2000 years though this fact -- that Christianity is a clash of kingdoms and in today's scripture Jesus is asking us to choose sides in the conflict -- has mostly been stripped away. In the 21st century we see "confessing Jesus" as simply picking a belief system that we feel comfortable with. And the unspoken assumption often is that we can always switch to another system if the first one gets uncomfortable.

But for Jesus, we don't declare allegiance to a belief system, we declare allegiance to him as king. And the stakes are rather serious.

_________________________

Saturnius said, "...Swear by the genius of our lord the Caesar!" 

Speratus answered, "I do not recognize any empire of this present age. I serve that God whom no person has seen, or can see with these eyes. I have not stolen. On the contrary, when I buy anything I pay my taxes, for I know only one Lord, the king of kings, the ruler of all nations.

(Acts of Martyrs, official court minutes from Carthage, July 17, 180)

What is the Bible For?

Another N T Wright quote of the day:

We live under scripture because that is the way we live under the authority of God that has been vested in Jesus the Messiah, the Lord.

But what is God’s authority there for? Certainly not to give us a large amount of true but miscellaneous information. Solomon made lists of natural phenomena, but they didn’t get into the Bible. The Bible is not an early version of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Here is the central element: the point about God’s authority is that the whole Bible is about God establishing his kingdom on earth as in heaven, completing (in other words) the project begun but aborted in Genesis 1–3. This is the big story that we must learn how to tell. It isn’t just about how to get saved, with some cosmology bolted onto the side. This is an organic story about God and the world.

God’s authority is exercised not to give his people lots of true information, not even true information about how they get saved (though that comes en route). God’s authority, vested in Jesus the Messiah, is about God reclaiming his proper lordship over all creation. And the way God planned to rule over his creation from the start was through obedient humanity. The Bible’s witness to Jesus declares that he, the obedient Man, has done this. But the Bible is then the God-given equipment through which the followers of Jesus are themselves equipped to be obedient stewards, the royal priesthood, bringing that saving rule of God in Christ to the world.