Note: Part One of The Death of the Messiah can be found here:
Overview:
Last Wednesday I introduced this series on The Death of the Messiah. I pointed out that, while we may think there is only one story of the death of the Messiah, repeated four times, in fact there are four different renditions of the story of Jesus' death, both in the details and in the portrait of Jesus presented. I also said that there is also a fifth rendition: the one that we create from the other four.
I pointed out that these Gospel stories were divinely inspired and that God was therefore, both mindful of the inconsistencies in the stories, and intentional in his inspiration, in that he wants us to be able to see Jesus' death from four unique vantage points. We do not improve on the Gospel accounts by trying to harmonize them, regardless how tempting it is to try to do so. Ultimately, all attempts at harmonizing the Gospels fail and never give a true picture of what God is saying to us in those sacred texts.
Therefore, I ended part one telling you that having four differing stories was a good thing, in spite of the ulcers that it must give to those who want all of the stories of Jesus to be clear, concise, neat and without factual disagreement. Part of the problem for such people is that they insist on viewing the Gospels as history, which they are not. They are theology told in narratives, stories, and are kerygma, proclamation of the Good News of Jesus the Christ.
Part Two
While our vanity makes this hard to comprehend, the stories in the Bible are not written to meet any human standard. They only meet the standard that God wanted them to meet when s/he inspired the writers of the Gospels to write them, a standard which God has not felt it necessary to justify to us. I'm comfortable with that, since s/he is God and I am not.
But, as I told you last week, many are not comfortable with that at all, and have, unsuccessfully, tried to "harmonize" the Gospels, doing away with troublesome inconsistencies. We are not going to do that. In fact, we're going to look at a couple of those inconsistencies today, and then use them to make the point I ended with last week: It is a good thing that we have four differing accounts of the Death of the Messiah.
First, let's look at the Gospel narratives in general. If you think about it logically, the first thing you will notice is that all the Gospels do hold to a common, basic outline of the events leading to the crucifixion. And that makes perfect sense. After all, there was a basic order of events that took place, indeed, had to take place, and each of the Gospel writers had to take this into account.
Thus, Jesus' arrest had to precede his trial, and the trial had to precede the sentence, and the sentence had to precede His execution. And all the Gospels contain these elements. In other words, all share a common plot. And that is just what it is: a plot of a drama, one we call "The Death of the Messiah."
And, in this narrative, this drama, there are not only the actions and reactions of Jesus, but also of supporting characters, like Peter and Judas and Pilate. And the drama is heightened by the contrasts between these characters: innocent Jesus and guilty Barabbas, faithful Jesus and betraying Peter, and in one of the Gospels, wise and troubled Pilate versus vile and remorseless "Jews". Even the scoffing Jewish leaders have their antitheses in the Roman soldier who, in two accounts, declares Jesus to be, in fact, the Son of God.
All of these elements, while often used quite differently in the differing Gospels, heighten our awareness of the struggle going on here, between Jesus and the world that, as John puts it, knew him not. The personification of the characters that surround him, the descriptions of their personalities and their desires encourages us, the readers, to participate in the drama by constantly asking ourselves the question: "Where would I have stood had I been one of these players in this drama of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus?"
Perhaps we can see ourselves as being among those who welcomed him into Jerusalem as a hero. But would we be able to see ourselves as Peter, denying him? As Judas, betraying Him? Or as Pilate, either wishing to avoid the issue altogether, as in John's account, or washing his hands of the whole thing, so he might appear blameless, as in Matthew's?
Or could we see ourselves abandoning him, as all the disciples did in three accounts, or staying at the foot of his cross until the end, as did the beloved disciple and Mary in the fourth Gospel? Or, most telling of all, would we see ourselves, could we see ourselves, as being like the religious leaders who condemned him!?
Perhaps not; but we certainly don't want anyone coming around to us individually, say, here on OS, telling us we've got our religion all wrong; haven't got a clue what God expects of us; have no compassion for the poor and have indulged our own personal gluttony in the face of God's commandment to love others! I would think our feathers would get just a bit ruffled if someone accused us of that. But that is exactly what Jesus did, isn't it?
Just so, there were many real life factors that colored the writing of the Gospels, which, as we learned last week, were all written 30 to 70 years after the death of Jesus. The memory of what happened at Jesus' death was deeply affected by the life situations of the local Christian communities in which the Gospel writers lived; and each was a little different. Each Gospel, for example, reflects how the writers perceived the Romans and the Jews.
Take the Romans, for instance. How do you get a balanced portrayal of Jesus when writing in a nation occupied by Romans? How do you offset the negative attitude toward Jesus exhibited by Tacitus, the great Roman writer, who treats Jesus as a despicable criminal; worthy of no more than a few lines in his writing?
How would you overcome Tacitus' portrayal? What if, say, you were to portray Pilate as being a spokesman for Jesus, or at least, not against him? Two of the Gospel writers did just that. If you carefully move through the Gospels according to when they were written: Mark first, then Luke, then Matthew, and finally, John; you'll see that Pilate is increasingly portrayed as a fair judge who recognized Jesus as innocent of political ambition. This viewpoint not only rehabilitates Pilate in the eyes of Christian readers, but also rehabilitates Jesus in the eyes of Romans: if a Roman Governor of Pilate's stature saw nothing wrong in Jesus, Tacitus must have been mistaken about Jesus being a common criminal.
Lets look at just one more example: "How would you characterize Jewish involvement in Jesus' death? Who was involved, responsible, for the death of Jesus? Was it "the Jews" If so, was it all of the Jews? Or just the Pharisees? The Priests? All the Priests? The Sanhedrin? What about Joseph of Aramethea, wasn't he in the Sanhedrin?
Well, it depends on which Gospel you read. If you wish to go easy on the Jewish involvement, or want to limit it to a handful of leaders, read Luke. In Luke there is no calling for witnesses against Jesus and there is no Jewish death sentence against Him. In fact, there is no formal night time trial, complete with the high priest Ciaphas in charge, as in Mark and Matthew. There is only a simple questioning in the morning by the Sanhedrin.
John, who is hard on the Jews elsewhere in his Gospel, also does not write that the Jews were heavily involved in deciding Jesus' fate. John records no Sanhedrin session at all after Jesus' arrest, but only a police interrogation conducted by a different high priest, Annas. Confused? Add further confusion: John includes Roman soldiers and their Tribune at the arrest, the others do not. This is important, because no Roman Tribune could have been dispatched without the knowledge of Pilate, which would mean that Pilate was involved far earlier and more deeply than any of the other Gospels report.
On the other hand, if you suspect that it was "all of the Jews" who accused Jesus then Matthew and John are the Gospels that lead you that way; while Mark and Luke limit their accusations to the Jewish leadership, specifically the priests and the Sanhedrin. So while John can go easy on the Jewish leaders during the trial period John believes that the "world" rejected Jesus and so places blame implicitly on everybody, and does not go easy on either the Romans or the Jews as groups. Both are guilty in John's eyes, but then so are we.
We could spend several weeks looking at, and comparing, the Gospel accounts of such things as those above, and things like: How did Jesus view His own death? How did the disciples react at Gesthemene? What did they do at the arrest? Could the Jewish trial even have happened according to Jewish law? What happened at the actual time of death?. i.e.: Did the curtain in the Temple split? Were graves opened? And, later, were there guards at the tomb? And on and on.
But we really don't have time for all that. And, more importantly, if we took the time, would we find out anything that would help us better understand Jesus? Well, I have done that, and can tell you that studying and arguing about such questions does almost nothing to help us learn about Jesus.
What will help us know more about Jesus is to know that each individual portrayal of Jesus" death gives us an insight into who he is such as none of the others give us.
And the reason is simple enough. Each divinely inspired evangelist knows a different facet of our Lord and he portrays, therefore, a different picture.What I'm going to do now is give you a brief summary of what careful study of three of the portrayals of Jesus and the events leading to his death can tell us. We will look at Mark, Luke and John. Matthew's portrayal of Jesus is closely based on Mark's, and while Matthew adds many details about events, a discussion of Matthew's portrayal of Jesus would be covering essentially the same ground as the discussion of Mark's portrayal.
Mark:
Both Mark and Matthew portray a very human, very vulnerable Jesus. Mark portrays a scene of stark human abandonment of Jesus at the time of his Passion. Yet, in the end God turns it all around, and neither the abandonment of the disciples nor Jesus' own questioning of God affects God's moment of supreme grace in raising Jesus from the grave.
Mark's gospel intends to shock. And it does. In Mark, long before the Passion the disciples were almost universally clueless as to whom Jesus really was, and, even when they came close to the truth they could not accept the idea of a dying Messiah. And it only gets worse as the tension mounts toward betrayal and death. In the garden at Gethsemene they fall asleep, not once, but three times. Judas betrays him, but Peter is hardly better, denying that he ever knew him. All flee, one in such haste that he leaves his clothes behind, literally saving his own skin - the very opposite of leaving all things to follow Jesus.
The Roman and Jewish judges are seen by Mark as great cynics. Jesus hangs from the cross for six hours, and three of those hours are filled with mockery and three with utter darkness. And Jesus deeply feels abandonment, even by his heavenly Father. Mark's very human Jesus cries but one thing from the cross, quoting the 22nd Psalm, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
Yet, in the end, God vindicates his Son. If the trial before the Sanhedrin was to assess his threat to tear down the Temple, God in an act of judgment and vindication, tears the veil of the Temple in two. And an outsider, a hated Roman, is heard to say what no Jew, disciple or priest, could ever figure out: "Truly this was the Son of God." In Mark, only after his death on the Cross is it possible to see that Jesus was no false prophet, but was, indeed, the Son of God.
Luke:
Luke portrays a very different Jesus. And the disciples are shown in a far more sympathetic light. They remain faithful to Him in his trials. And, while they fall asleep while Jesus prays, once, not three times, it is only out of their sorrow. Even the enemies of Jesus look better in Luke. There are no false witnesses produced at the Jewish trial, and even Pilate acknowledges three times that Jesus is not guilty.
The people are not rabble calling for his death, but rather are grieved over what has been done to him. And, just as they show great concern for him, so too is he less anguished by what will happen to him than by what happens to them. At the arrest he heals the slave's ear and on the road to Calvary he worries about the fate of the women in the coming trials. Further, he forgives those who crucified him and even promises paradise to a thief who merely asks to be remembered, a scene only in Luke's Gospel.
Thus, in Luke, the crucifixion becomes a time of divine forgiveness and care. Jesus dies in tranquility, unlike in Mark, saying simply. "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
John:
In stark contrast to either Mark or Luke, John portrays a triumphal Jesus, even in death, a Jesus who long before the passion defiantly announced, "I lay down my life and I take it up again; no one takes it from me!" This Jesus knows, in advance, exactly what is going to happen to him and when, and it will happen as and when he says.
When the Roman soldiers and the Jewish police come to arrest him they fall to the ground powerless. In the garden he does not pray for the cup to pass him; for it was for this moment he was born. He is so self assured that he offends the high priest; and even Pilate feels his power. Jesus has no fear of Pilate. saying, bluntly, "You have no power over me." Nor does anyone carry his cross; this is something he is perfectly able to do for himself. Even his royalty is proclaimed in three languages on the cross and is, in fact, confirmed by Pilate.
Totally unlike the three other Gospels, Jesus does not die on the cross abandoned, but with his mother and the beloved disciple with him. And speaking to them from the Cross he gives the beloved disciple and his mother to one another, creating, as it were, a family of loving disciples to carry forward the message.
This Jesus can not cry out "Why have you forsaken me?" because the Father has always been with him, literally "in" him, and will be so through death to resurrection and glorious ascension. His last words bear no anxiety or pain, but the simple statement that he has done what he came to do: "It is finished." And only then, when he declared that he has done what was needed, does he hand over his spirit to the Father.
Even in death he continues to dispense life as living water and blood flow from his pierced side. And his burial is not something hurried and unprepared as in the other Gospels, but he lies in state amidst 100 pounds of spices - as befits a king.
In the final two posts in this series we will go into this in more detail. But let me ask you: do you despair because these portraits are so starkly different? Do you think that one is, must be, more correct? Remember, all three descriptions are given to us by one Holy Spirit, the one Spirit that inspired the writers of each Gospel. And, understand this well, no one, or all three combined, exhausts the meaning of Jesus! In fact, a true picture of Jesus can only just begin to emerge because we have at least three differing depictions.
Why, then, is this Good News? Because by having these differing descriptions people with different spiritual needs can find meaning in the cross. And even the same person, at different points in his or her life, can find meaning there.
As Jesus did in Mark's Gospel, have you never needed desperately to cry out "My God, My God Why Have You Forsaken Me?" Have you never felt that? Do you not need to know that when you feel that way, just as Jesus did, that God has not abandoned you and that he can reverse tragedy in your life?
As in Luke's Gospel, have you never been hurt by others, deeply hurt, and have finally found some relief from your anger in forgiveness. Is "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" not something that we need to hear, knowing that our Savior had far more reason to hate than we shall ever have? Don't we, with Luke's Jesus, need from time to time to turn ourselves over fully to God, having been unable to fix things for ourselves? Can we not find hope and comfort in saying, "Into your hands, O God, I place myself."?
Yet, as in John's Gospel, are there not times in your life when you desperately need to know that evil and sin and all the perfidy of this life cannot prevail against God and those who have faith in him? With John don't we often need to worship an all knowing, fully in control, always in command, Jesus who will guide and protect, defend and defeat every foe and evil, be it the prevailing powers, or the principalities or the purveyors of lies?
Jesus is all of these and more, far more than can ever be captured by putting pen to paper. These descriptions do not exhaust the portrayal of Jesus, they begin the task. Each Christian will ultimately find a portrayal of Jesus the Christ that will fit our personal needs. And that portrayal will not be complete for everybody else, and may change over time as we learn more about the One in whom we place out trust. But that portrayal will be what is sufficient for our faith and our love of God.
Hopefully this series of Reflections has begun to outline for you some of the major characteristics of Christ that will give you a basis for a better understanding of the One whom Christians call "Our Lord and Savior."
Listen to Dr. Brown. "To choose one portrayal of the crucified Jesus in a manner that would exclude the other portrayals or to harmonize all the Gospel portrayals into one would deprive the cross of much of its meaning. It is important that some be able to see the head bowed in dejection, while others observe the arms outstretched in forgiveness, and still others perceive in the title on the cross the proclamation of a reigning king."
That, my friends, is good news.
Monte
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Comments
Speaking as somebody reared in the Catholic tradition but who could never find an inkling of "faith" and left it all behind, I still find this an excellent post.
In terms of "free will," the role of both Judas and The Jews (generically) has always been fascinating to me.
Because without Judas' "betrayal" and "The Jews'" sentence/execution, the Messiah would never have died...and in such case, his role in the entire blood-sacrifice could not have been fulfilled.
What value would there have been in a Jesus, Son of God, who did not die a brutal death, but in fact lived to the ripe old age of 80, surrounded by his wife Mary M. and their children and grandchildren? (I believe this is the question--or one of them--raised by "The Last Temptation of Christ").
If one takes as a given that Jesus' death redeemed all of mankind, then it absolutely HAD to happen. And everybody in the story--Judas, Peter, and "The Jews"--had an integral role to play in the events leading up to his pre-ordained sacrifice.
Without all of them, acting in tandem, toward a specific end, there could have been no redemption of all mankind, right?
So I've always been confused as an audience member about the institutional scorn and condemnation heaped on the supporting players, whose actions, no matter how cowardly they may initially appear, made possible the final sacrifice.
Thanks for the post.
Thanks for all the hard work Monte.
Much Love
Why, then, is this Good News? Because by having these differing descriptions people with different spiritual needs can find meaning in the cross. And even the same person, at different points in his or her life, can find meaning there.
Thanks again, Monte. You are a fine, fine teacher.
In our art class, seven of us are looking at the same still life to draw. At some point we turn our art around for the others to see and for the teacher to discuss/advise. What has been most beautiful to me is to see how each of us not only sees a thing with a different perspective, but with the beauty of our own soul we draw something more than meets the eyes. I think this is what the gospel writers do, write their account of Jesus with the eyes of their own soul which is both of God and of the earth.
I see now where you're going with this. It's given me an entirely new perspective on the Gospels, with which I've always (naively)had a love/hate affair. Thanks for pushing me back to the love camp.
Clueless, sleepy, cowardly disciples in Mark...how I spend, oh, 75% of my waking hours, unfortunately. In a world full of clever cynics (OS comes to mind!), I feel like an abandoned easter bunny hiding in the reeds. A world full of human frailty, merciless violence, glorified ignorance, the worst of times imaginable . Even a fully human, fearful messiah, crying to his Papa. I (and everyone, sometimes) can identify: "Father (biological or Heavenly), why hast thou forsaken me?" Darkness at the break of noon. Yet: somehow, emerging from this hopeless universe, " the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation".
I agree with you about Luke. A softer world. Reminds me of the contemporary ...what?..."Mother"-ruled ideal welfare state: care, compassion, heroism extolled. Keep yourselves and especially your children, safe . Watch your intake of bad carbohydrates, read to your children at an early age, choose a designated driver, careful with giving your kids those antidepressants, they may cause them to have suicidal ideations. The daily "crucifixion" of our good citizens , the inevitable result of our worship of the body, is ameliorated: made a time of "divine forgiveness and care". Akin to Blakes's "Beulah": a world of wonder and romance, pastoral beauty, guarded over by the beautiful daughters of Beulah, Inspiration. The emphasis on the divine symbolization of the infant Jesus, gentle and innocent lamb of God. 'The child grew, and became strong, and filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him" (2.39)
John: well, "the light shines in the darkness" and baby, the darkness has no chance to overcome it. Full-throttle Messiah.
The word made flesh. An answer to every question we may have of him, no mincing words. In 16.29, those disciples aren't wishy-washy anymore: "Yes! Now yre speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! Now we know that you know all things". Jesus's reply is Gonzo Godman :
"I'm not alone. The Father is with me. I have said this to you so that you may have peace...
In the world you face persecution. But take courage: I have conquered the world!"
Well...!
So: for a shot of courage, go to John. For a shot of love, go to Luke. For encouragement in a desolate fearful wasteland, where "hell is oneself/ hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections, there is nothing to escape from/ And nothing to escape to. One is always alone," in the words of our cheeriest expatriate poet ("The Cocktail Party")... go to Mark. For whichever world you find yourself inhabiting today---self-created from your fear, your compassion, or your unperishing devotion to the Father, a Jesus.
Rated...God bless, Jim
I, like the others who have commented, have taken something positive away from this. It's fascinating to see the interplay of the Gospel writers' interpretations.
I do wonder, though, if one element missing in what they chose to put down is their own ethnicity. We call them Christians, but of course that doesn't say anything about the heritage with which they grew up -- Roman, Jew, Greek? I don't know (although you probably do, Biblical scholar that you are) but I'd be willing to bet that that had an influence on how they chose to interpret the events leading up to and during the crucifixion.
I'm not necessarily suggesting they merely had an axe to grind, but did have a preconceived set of filters through which they saw and wrote about things. Nor does it obviate God's plan.
Usually the end for each one arguing comes back to where they started from, either believing in preordination or believing in free will. Personally, I have not resolved that to my satisfaction either, but I don't have any heartburn over that fact. I long ago gave up thinking that all religious questions have answers that are satisfactory to our minds.
As to whether or not the Cross was the way Jesus had to die, that too is a huge argument, although far more experts argue for the Cross since it is so central to the Christian message and has been from the beginning. But some scholars, in the minority, argue that how he died is less important than how he lived and what he taught. They can't overcome, however, the key point of the orthodox argument, that "Christ died for us." The death, as you say, is the vehicle from which redemption flows.
Personally, I am comfortable believing that while his death is central to the salvation story, it really doesn't matter whether or not it had to happen as it did when it did, what matters is that it did happen and then, three days later, the resurrection did occur.
So in some sense it could be argued that there was a general preordination in those acts. Bue as for the roles of the supporting players, I would argue that the differing Gospels show them in very different light in each one, but, to your point, they are all key to the drama, to a greater or lesser extent, and that varies from Gospel to Gospel. So, were they preordained to play a particular part or role in such sharply different ways as reported in the different Gospels? That seems hard to support.
But again, at least based on conversations with many members of the churches I served, my position, which does not give a crisp and clear answer to these provocative and insightful questions that you raise, is less than satisfactory to many people.
People simply seem unprepared to deal with the fact that what we do and can know is far less than what we can't know. Those folks struggle with the details and I simply quit doing that about 20 years ago. Until then I was one of those who was involved in that struggle, so I have great empathy for it.
You raise important questions for which you will find many share your answers, but don't express them as clearly as you do. Ultimately, people will make that "leap of faith" without clear answers, or they won't. It took me over 50 years to make it, but I finally did.
Monte
Monte
If the clarity can begin to take some of the doubt out of the death of the Messiah, and if it can, particularly, remove some of the feeling that many have that they are less than perfect because they don't understand some of the contradictions in the Gospel writings, then the effort on this series will be more than worth it.
Too many times people feel inferior if they don't understand because their friends say that they do understand, so what is wrong with you? Actually, it may well be that the ones that don't understand are right. And it takes someone doing what I am doing here to allow them to see that the inconsistencies they see are real and that they were good students in seeing them, not that they were bad believers.
Monte
This was wonderful, I look forward to more.
Pawed with love.
I think you capture the essence of the Gospel intent. Divinely inspired but very human people wrote what had been passed down to them, in the context of their own communities, but also filtered, redacted, through their own souls. Which creates neither a cookbook of moral certitude nor "history" of events. They write, in essence, a theology, a theology which is contained in the story, the narrative, itself.
Monte
I have always been confounded by people who insist that while the writers of the Gospels were human that they were no more than mere instruments, puppets, automatons, doing precisely only what God told them word for word, thought for thought. They are described as being some kind of primitive computer that puts together what God is typing on the keyboard. In no way do they add anything of human experience to the text.
Otherwise brilliant scholars have said that over and over which flies in the face of a plain reading of the text. That has always baffled and amazed me.
Monte
You explain so well that no one has to "pick one." This isn't a contest where you choose Luke or Mark to the exclusion of the others. In our lives which constantly change we may need John today and Matthew tomorrow.
If anyone wants to translate the essence of the Gospel message of the Death of the Messiah into a clear modern understanding of what the Gospels are telling us I would urge them to read your revealing and excellent comments.
Monte
Ethnicity is important and so is where the community of believers of the writer lived. If, say, they were Jewish Christians living in Jerusalem that would be far different than a Jewish Christian living in one of the ten cities that Rome built during its long occupation. If one was a converted Gentile that would also make a big difference.
Unfortunately while we have a lot of well thought out speculation there is no definitive answer to any of that. Some speculation is better than others but in truth the writers did not tell us. We have to try to dig that information out of the words they use, the slang that they do or do not use, the use of Latin words for some specific things, or the use of Aramaic for others. I won't go into that speculation here but, yes, what their ethnicity was and where they wrote would make a significant difference.
Monte
They wrote from different communities at different times and were writing 30 to 70 years after the fact. Matthew clearly had Mark's text but there is no indication that he knew Mark. In fact there is no indication when these texts were assigned to the writers of the Gospels by name. The naming of the writers appears to have happened after they wrote.
So there were commonalities in the verbal story handed down through time but we cannot tell if any of these authors knew each other or had ever met. Given the dating of the texts I think that unlikely, but, hey, there is no way to know.
Monte
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dcv: thanks for the kind compliment on my writing. What is hard in writing something like this is to avoid talking jargon and using insider slang that smart people are not privy to. I go over and over these Reflections to try to make my writing as clear and transparent as possible.
And yes, the Gospels are a literary art form, the telling of a story of faith. They are kerygma (proclamation) of the good news of Jesus the Christ. And yes, each is subject to our individual interpretations of what they are saying. Some interpretations are more valid than others, but if they work for an individual I am not about to tell them to abandon them and start over. But Christianity does ultimately come down to a personal decision about who Jesus is and what he means to the individual.
Monte
I think that when we concede that we will always know far less about our faith, whatever it is, than we can ever hope to know, then we should shed some of the cockiness that says that we alone know what is right and what is wrong about this or that belief.
When we do that then the metaphors within the stories take on a whole new meaning which can speak to us more clearly. When they are drowned out by propositions, and shoulds and shouldn'ts and when the stories are confused with a moral cookbook then we have allowed our sacred stories to be hijacked by this or that agenda.
The stories must speak for themselves and the parts of the stories that are clearly metaphoric should be allowed to stand as they are, not turned into what the reader demands that they be.
Monte
When you say that you are getting something out of the clarity and honesty that I have tried to give to this series it really warms my heart. I work very hard at doing that. And I particularly never want to "talk over the heads of people." At the same time I refuse to "dumb down" the faith as though it was so unimportant that any old thing we believe is just fine. It is in finding the balance between those two where the truth as I understand it should be written.
Thanks for being such a faithful reader of my posts. I never forget that you are a great gift to me here on OS and it is a pleasure to be your friend.
Monte
i most identify with thomas. jesus said "touch and see", not "talk to the faithful and learn". it is a poor substitute i have here, but i don't think i'm capable of skipping that step. i think i did intuitively grasp that the gospels did not have to be reconcilable. the more religious people i've spoken to, the more i've realized that no one wears their chosen faith in exactly the same way.
I have always been fascinated with doubting Thomas. If we would just admit it most of us are at one time or another a doubting Thomas. What a lot of folks don't realize is that when Jesus offered to Thomas to touch his wounds, and put his hand into his side, Thomas did NOT do it. Instead the offer itself was all that he needed to have faith. Thomas, immediately after the offer, makes the next statement, to Jesus: "My lord and my God."
What Christianity needs today is to offer Christ just that openly to the seeker or the curious. I hope that my Reflections can help in that a little. There is so much nonsense coming from Christians who should know better and so much anger thrown out by those that do not actually understand Christianity that I feel there is a lot of room for someone who tells it like it is written, not how we wish it were.
Thanks again, and I hope you come back to read the final two posts in this four part series.
Monte
The use of s/he and him/her and Father/Mother is something I picked up a long time ago in seminary when feminism was really at its peak. Since I see God as not having gender and since the paternalism that is rampant in much of the Bible was so offensive to feminists I started doing that as a way to recognize that they were as wrong saying "she" as traditionalists were wrong saying "he." Gender descriptions do not actually apply to God.
God will always remain a mystery to us, even though we are granted to see him much more clearly through Christ. We are fortunate to have that look at the Son who has told us that when you have seen the Son you have seen the Father.
All the Bible says about God is that God is spirit and God is love.
In my ordinary speaking I call God "Father" simply because Jesus called God that. But God has no gender, only some of God's creatures (such as us) have gender.
Monte
I've been following the comments stream and must say you handle it beautifully. I can't tell you how much I apppreciate having a biblical scholar-- a man of good common sense, humility (tho that might be tested by the sheer gratitude coming at you lately) and solid-rock faith two or three seconds away in the noosphere of cyberspace.
Vertical change is what you look to bring. Earthly hope has horizontal imagery: the mad gallop of the blind horses of Progress. Seeking to improve the individual by ameliorating human life as a whole.
Vertical hope, on the other hand, means an ascent of the individual soul "through a medium---the world---which does not itself change substantially but provides stable rungs on which the soul can rise" (Huston Smith)
A secular outlook is just simply not enough. I am an uber-secular humanist, sure, but I'm thereby trapped in time, that most treacherous of human illusions. My soul hears the call to rise. Once you hear that call, the way is pretty much cleared: there are friendly spirits all along the path, if you have the eyes to see, and ears to hear. A new set of eyes and ears for everyone, garcon, toot sweet, please.
Too many hired hands, not enough shepherds these days. Those damn hired hands flee the scene when the wolf comes up, every time, don't they? They suddenly remember they have prior obligations...
God bless, Jim
Speaking of insight, your metaphor of the horizontal and vertical dimensions of life is very profound. I have often used it myself. It is a wonderful way to come to grips with what God wants from us.
There is anthropology (horizontal) and theology (vertical) inherent in our beings. God wired us that way. And Jesus preached on the necessity of harmonizing the two. But what he taught is backwards of how most of us try to approach the issue of faith.
We start with the horizontal and see it as the only option that we have. That is both depressing and untrue. We have to live in the horizontal dimension. But God constantly calls into the vertical.
And Christianity teaches us that the vertical is the permanent part of life and the horizontal is temporal but also is where we can minister to others because when we have the vertical it frees our spirits (or souls if you prefer) to reach out to others to show them that there is another, more compelling, more life honoring, dimension that is also wired into us. The good book teaches us to first love God, and then to love one another.
We have both quoted Augustine recently, but he expresses this wired in need for the vertical so well: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."
The horizontal is ultimately binding. We can only do so much to help one another and without the freedom of knowing the truth of the vertical we often feel like what we do is so small as to not be worth the effort.
But with the vertical, with God, to guide us, we know that God put us here intentionally and that in that intention he knows that every thing that we do for others is always worth the effort. It is part of his ultimate design for us.
Free will gives us not only to ability to choose to live only in the horizontal and eschew the vertical, but the ability to choose to to live in both and to believe that whatever we do does matter.
You know, we have eternal life already. That is something that most people do not pick up on. We are going to live forever so it makes no sense at all to not live the vertical life and the horizontal life in a way that gives honor to the One who placed us here.
Monte
CB
Excellent piece.
rated.
Monte
The whole idea of Jesus dying for our sins is a difficult one for many people to accept in concept. It requires an understanding of the idea, within theology, of ransom which is not one that is easy to grasp in the context of faith. It is one of the hardest concepts in theology to explain. Many people just accept it without understanding it. I think that may be fine for some, but for others a better unpacking of the concept is in order.
I may do a short series on that whole idea later in the year. It took me a long time to accept that concept myself and I still have to remind myself now and then of what that understanding entails. Meanwhile if you are getting something out of the stories themselves then you are getting something that I hoped this series would open more fully to people who read it.
Thanks much,
Monte
Monte
PS: I will get that third one posted either tonight or tomorrow.
I will likely have the third post up later today. Just some minor tweeking to go.
Thanks, and I am glad you are getting some good out of the series.
Monte
Monte