Anticipating Jesus' uncomfortable lightThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 9th: Numbers 20:22-29; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; and John 3:1-13. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
In the passage from Numbers, we read of the death of Aaron. Aaron was Moses’ brother and Israel’s first priest. Both Moses and Aaron belong to the tribe of Levi. When the people of Israel thought that Moses had died on the top of Mount Sinai, Aaron took upon himself the task of reassuring them by creating a graven image, maybe something to help the people better envision the unseen God. Aaron created the idol as a symbol of Yahweh, but it was still sacrilegious. Aaron told the people, “‘Tomorrow shall be a festival to Yahweh,’” (Exodus 32:5) but Yahweh warns, “‘Your people, whom you [Moses] brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely …’” (32:7) Did you notice that Yahweh does not say “My people.” Rather, it is “Your people”? They have deserted God and broken the covenant before the covenant was even shared with them. This is symbolized only a few verses later: “As soon as [Moses] came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.” (32:19) Maybe it was because Aaron saw the golden calf as a representation of Yahweh while the others saw it as an idol of a new god, but for some reason Aaron survived the blood-letting that followed. The tribe of Levi gathered around Moses and they were sanctioned to seek vengeance against the other tribes for having abandoned God. They were ordered to “‘kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor.’” And 3,000 were murdered that day at the base of Mount Sinai. It is from this act of religious slaughter that the tribe of Levi is set aside “‘for the service of the Lord.’” (32:29) Aaron’s descendants are the priests and the tribe of Levi are the ones charged with the care of Yahweh’s sanctuaries. Into this religious culture, we then read, “Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp. He called it the Tent of Meeting.” (Exodus 33:7) The Tabernacle, the sanctuary that would be the cultic base of Israel, was Aaron’s domain. This would be the place of ritual and liturgy and priests, and it existed at the center of the people’s gathering. The Tent of Meeting, the place of prophecy, stood outside of camp and separated from the sanctuary. With the passage of generations, as we see in the biblical text, this separation was erased. Prophecy and cult came together under one roof, that of the sanctuary. As the story began, prophecy had its own legitimacy as a vehicle of God’s revelation. Eventually, however, the tension between the unregulated prophetic voice was too much to bear by the established cult, and the cult domesticated prophecy so that it stood for whatever the cult endorsed. The prophetic books are often of those voices that break this agreement, but the establishment will always seek to coopt the enthusiasm of prophecy. And this is not limited to the Old Testament people of Israel. Jesus is a prophetic voice. The established cult could not control Him. And during Lent we concentrate on what the repercussions are. Tomorrow at church we pick-up where today’s Gospel leaves off. I will be preaching on the idea of Jesus’ unpleasant light, that the light came into the world and we thought it uncomfortable. Do we continue to silence or to at least domesticate the radical prophecy that is Jesus and the gospel? I invite you to come and join us as we ask this question tomorrow. Whoever you are, you are welcome at worship with us. If you cannot make it in person, please send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com and I will send you the Zoom login. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Adam reversedThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 8th: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Daniel 12:5-13; and Ephesians 1:7-14. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
On this Lenten Friday, the lectionary leads us to one of the most hope-filled biblical passages about the cross in all the New Testament. Ephesians 1:10 is the basis for the theology called Recapitulation. The biblical myth of Adam’s fall postulates that God’s creation began perfectly good and holy, and then Eve and Adam fell prey to the temptation of “you will be like God.” (Genesis 3:5) This is the idea that is found at the base of all sinfulness, that we are in a position to replace the Divine. It is the epitome of hubris. As humanity’s mythical first parents, their sin and its consequent punishment are passed on through all generations. We suffer the limitations of the human condition and the separation of no longer proverbially walking with God in Eden’s paradise (Genesis 3:8) because of Adam’s fall. Ephesians is a New Testament writing that scholars term Deutero-Pauline. This means that it was composed by someone within the Pauline orbit of churches, and that it was highly influenced by Paul’s authentic writings (Romans, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon). However, it is a second (Deutero) telling of Paul’s first writings. Its date of composition is after Paul’s lifetime. In Romans 5:12-21, Paul sets forth his theology that Jesus is the second Adam. Whereas Adam brought sin and thus death into the world, Jesus reverses the consequences of Adam’s fall: “For just as by the one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s [Jesus’] obedience the many will be made righteous.” (5:19) Jesus’ obedience culminates at the cross. The unknown author of Ephesians picks-up this thought in today’s passage. Adam’s single offense has ongoing effect, but as Paul writes in Romans, Jesus’ single offering of the cross has even greater effect. Jesus clears the way for humanity and creation to return to the perfection of our original creation. Ephesians carries this thought forward: “With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The Greek word for “to gather up” (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι) was translated into the Vulgate’s Latin as “to recapitulate,” and thus the theological terminology based on this passage. The early Christian writer Justin Martyr saw in this passage the revealed promise that in the fullness of time Jesus’ perfect sacrifice, God’s perfect sacrifice, would of necessity be fulfilled. In Christ crucified, God will “gather up all things.” Justin could not fathom that God’s will could be left unfulfilled or even partially fulfilled. Jesus’ cross grants us “redemption” and “the forgiveness of our trespasses,” and this means all of us. Therefore, even if it requires the “fullness of time,” the finite nature of the human transgression must cede to the infinite nature of the divine redemption. God’s will to “gather up all things” cannot be thwarted by our trying to play God (Genesis 3:5). We will all see eventually the blessing of life with God. The original perfection will be restored. We will walk with God in paradise (Genesis 3:8). The cross in Paul, Deutero-Pauline Ephesians, and the early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr saw the cross in a positive light. This does not deny the cruel reality of Jesus’ suffering and death, but the result of that perfect sacrifice on Golgotha is the perfection of salvation in Christ. The cross is the beginning of boundless hope. On this Lenten Friday, may we think and pray with this idea of the hope that Jesus makes real when He loves us enough to endure the cross. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Noah and NukesThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 7th: Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; and Ephesians 1:3-6. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Geology made the news this week, which doesn’t happen all that often. A vote was taken by an official body that rejected the creation of designating a new geological era. The geologists who lost the vote argued that the human impact on a global scale is so significant and pervasive that it deserves to be recognized as a new geological era. They were arguing for the naming of the Anthropocene Era with a start date of 1950 based on the worldwide markers of the remnants of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. As I mentioned, the proposal failed. We continue to live during the Holocene Era, which began with the retreat of the last ice age about 11,000 years ago. This period of a relatively stable climate has allowed for human civilization to develop, and with this a loose sort of collective memory begins to form. It’s interesting that in the four and a half billion-year history of our planet, geologists record five mass extinctions. The most complete of all of them was about 250 million years ago and it ended the Paleozoic Era as unimaginably large and long-lived volcanoes changed the climate. Almost 90% of all species died at that time. Much more famous is the extinction that brought the Mesozoic Era to its demise. This is the end of the dinosaurs as an asteroid plunged into the earth around the Yucatan Peninsula. Obviously, we have no memories of such things. Humans and dinosaurs are separated by some 60 million years, my apologies to fans of the Flintstones. Evidence is found in what lies within the earth as consequences of these events, not memories. However, the rise of human civilization allows for story-telling to be remembered, and to be shared. One of those stories comes from the 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic. Therein we can read of Utnapishtim who boarded his family and animals on an ark as the angry god Ea flooded creation. The Noah story comes along later and picks-up and shares much of the plot. There is no geological record of a universal flood during the Holocene Era. However, as the climate warmed, as glaciers retreated, as ice-dams gave way, shorelines could change dramatically. Entire communities of peoples could be forced to evacuate coastline settlements as waters rose above their usual boundaries. Such a locally destructive cataclysm could be told in all honesty as a world-changing event. The power of myth is not based on its factuality, but on its message. Did George Washington cut down a cherry tree? Probably not, but the message of truthfulness remains. The Noah myth may well be based on some ancient shared memory of cataclysmic flooding, but today’s message is of God’s life-affirming statement of covenant: “‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.’” The Noah covenant is the first in the Bible and it speaks to us of God’s respect for all life, not only human life. There have been five mass extinctions in earth’s history. Somehow life has clawed back, but never the same. Mammals had a chance to become dominant once the dinosaurs went extinct. No lifeform is exempt from cataclysmic extinction. Humans have been around for say five million years. Seems like a long time, like we are destined to be at the top of the food chain forever, but the dinosaurs were around for almost 200 million years and now they’re gone. The Bible holds up for us today the revelation of a life-affirming God. Life borders on the miraculous. It is blessed by a divine covenant. Life is sacred. I see this truth even in the death of Christ. The cross does not glorify death. It glorifies Jesus’ devotion to the value of life, all life, even the lives of His executioners. Jesus even prays for them. All life matters. Jesus would rather die than profane the sanctity of all life. With this said, I don’t know if you’ll be able to read the article or not, but the New York Times is running a series on “The risk of nuclear conflict is rising.” (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/04/opinion/nuclear-war-prevention.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20240304&instance_id=116751&nl=todaysheadlines®i_id=54596592&segment_id=159857&user_id=217c057fdd20aad15e30baf2520d4e00 ) Nuclear war is becoming more tactical where once it was called Mutual Assured Destruction, MAD. The Times writes, “Nuclear war is often described as unimaginable. In fact, it’s not imagined enough.” It is a scary and depressing article, but the topic cannot be ignored, especially by people of faith who trust in God whose first covenant is life-affirming across the board. May we live into that covenant before we bring on ourselves the possibility of the Sixth Mass Extinction. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Faith bought off by political favoursThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 6th: Psalm 84; Ezra 6:1-16; and Acts 15:36-41. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Ezra tells us today about the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius who allowed for the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple. They offered money and platitudes to the defeated people of Israel. This was a wise investment. Before the Persian Empire, the Babylonians and Assyrians had a practice of deporting and repopulating conquered lands. This kept the defeated nations off balance and ill prepared to offer organized resistance to the empires. Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BC. To garner good will among their inherited subjects, the Persians allowed for those in exile to return to their native lands. This did not mean that they were free of Persian rule, that they could become nation states once again. With the case of the Jews and Jerusalem, we read today of Darius’ decree: “‘Now you, Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and you, their associates, the envoys in the province Beyond the River, keep away; let the work on this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site.’” There are still no nations of Israel or Judah. These have been erased from the political map, their names replaced by a province called Beyond the River. The Jerusalem Temple is restored. Sacrifices resume. However, the people remain subjugated and disenfranchised. They once were under the thumb of Egypt’s Pharaoh and now under the control of Persia’s king. Their Passover liberation has been denuded. But Darius bought their good will by giving them their Temple building. In this arrangement, Yahweh cannot act as Israel’s king, their leader and their guide. Yahweh is confined within the Temple building. But Darius bought the people’s acceptance of their servitude by giving them the Temple building: “The people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.” For the cost of this building, the Persians ruled over the People of God until Alexander the Great defeated them some two centuries later. There may be a lesson here for people of faith to be wary of courting political favours. Politicians may offer gifts to appease that are not all that dissimilar to the Persian’s gift of the Jerusalem Temple, and the religious can be blinded to greater issues of the faith. Less than a week before the Roman empire that defeated the Greeks who had defeated the Persians who had defeated the Babylonians executed Jesus, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan write of Palm Sunday. (The Last Week, chap 1) Pontius Pilate marches into Jerusalem prior to the Passover from the west with powerful symbols of imperial power and theology. From the east, Jesus enters riding on a donkey down from the Mount of Olives: “Jesus’ procession deliberately countered what was happening on the other side of the city. Pilate’s procession embodied the power, glory and violence of the empire that ruled the world. Jesus’ procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God.” (p. 4) Lent is a reminder of the humbleness of our crucified Saviour. Jesus persuades by His example and teaching. Power is the antithesis of gospel. To force religious beliefs on others who do not accept them is to disavow Jesus and the persuasive example of a sincerely lived faith. To court political favours to enforce some strange conception of moral choice is not to walk into Jerusalem with Jesus from the east, but to be captivated by the pomp and glory of the show to the west. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Faith doesn't work that wayThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 5th: 2 Chronicles 29:1-11, 16-19; Psalm 84; and Hebrews 9:23-28. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Lent is a season of repentance, a time to focus on God in our lives. If that relationship has broken completely, Lent is the invitation to restore it. Take the example of Judah’s King Hezekiah in today’s first reading. His father King Ahaz was judged unfaithful to Yahweh. He broke with Temple traditions and brought in innovations from foreign lands where foreign gods were worshipped. The Temple was profaned in this way. When Ahaz’s son Hezekiah assumed the throne upon his father’s death, immediately he rescinded his father’s policies and turned back to God. He ordered the priests and Levites to cleanse the Temple so that Israel could return to a proper pattern of worship. Hezekiah believed there was a direct causal link between the faith or faithlessness of Judah and God’s protection or harassment of the nation. He says so much in today’s passage: “‘Therefore the wrath of the Lord came upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes. Our fathers have fallen by the sword and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger may turn away from us.’” Judah’s fortunes soured because they ceased to worship Yahweh properly and Hezekiah hoped to reverse this trend by restoring Temple worship. While many people hold on to this transactional understanding of faith – God blesses the faithful and curses the faithless, many more have distanced themselves from it. The most obvious weakness of this type of theology is all the evidence that is contrary. There are many very evil people in the world who do just fine, and there are so many good people who suffer terribly. Maybe you have heard of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. The good Rabbi felt compelled to write this book as he dealt with his own struggles of faith. His three-year-old son suffered from a degenerative disease that would eventually steal his life away in his early teens. Was the Rabbi somehow responsible? Was some moral fault of his the cause of his son’s punishment by God? Did the child of three do something so heinous as to deserve this disease? Rabbi Kushner worked through such questions in his book and he concluded that the good God does all that is possible to comfort, but God does not will everything that happens in life. God allows for our freedom and this in turn allows for chance. Everything that happens in life and in history cannot be reduced to questions of whether deserve has anything to do with it. Accidents, diseases and tragedies are not willed by God, but they must be allowed by God if life is to be free and meaningful. Hezekiah’s story testifies to the vagaries of life. Good and bad populate his story. His own example stands against the notion of a transactional faith. What his story does convey, however, is the power of a relational faith. In good and bad, Hezekiah knew that God was there. Lent’s repentance is not to promise rewards as payback. We turn toward God, we seek out Jesus, to share in the blessings of their presence with us. Lent stares at a suffering Messiah. Faith’s power is not defined by protection from everything that hurts or harms, and Jesus’ cross makes this abundantly clear. But that cross is Jesus’ testimony that God loves us enough even to suffer and die so that when “bad things happen” we can lean on our faith in a suffering Messiah who knows what it is to be us. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Solomon's gold and Jesus' bodyThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 4th: 1 Kings 6:1-4, 21-22; Psalm 84; and 1 Corinthians 3:10-23. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Solomon’s Temple was richly adorned, as the 1 Kings passage lets us know. Gold was everywhere. This was intended to honour God. The other side of the gold bar, however, is that this opulence sowed the seeds of Israel’s civil war and laid the groundwork for the diminishment of the Davidic kingdom. David’s city was Bethlehem of Judah, and Judah was favoured among the tribes of Israel even after David formed the unified country of Israel. Jerusalem was a strategic choice of a capital. Its story is much like that of Washington, D.C. When the United States existed primarily along the Atlantic coast, Washington, D.C was located between the North and the South. Additionally, it was independent of both. It could not be claimed by either section of the country so that it could be claimed by the entire country. Jerusalem stood between Judah to the south and the ten other tribes to the north. Plus, it was captured from its Canaanite inhabitants so it belonged to no particular Jewish tribe. When Solomon turned David’s rather provincial capital into a cosmopolitan city, it was expensive. This is when we begin to hear of “forced labor.” (1King 4:6) Solomon also superseded the traditional tribes of Israel. He created twelve new administrative districts that were each charged with supplying the monarchy for one month each year. You count those twelve districts in 1 Kings 4:8-19, but then it is written: “And there was one official in the land of Judah.” It seems as if Judah was exempt from this tax that the rest of Israel paid. The opulence of the Temple magnified the divisions among the people, and after Solomon’s reign the nation separated into Israel in the north and the much smaller Judah in the south. The Temple was replaced by other holy sites in the north where the majority of the Israelites lived. The division led at first to different ways of worshipping Yahweh, and eventually to the worship of other gods, as well. The Temple’s opulence remained, but at the cost of the people of God. In yesterday’s Gospel reading in church, Jesus challenged the Temple authorities, “‘You destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” (John 2:19) John inserts an editorial comment a couple of verses later and writes, “[Jesus] was speaking of the temple of his body.” The center of our worship as Christians moves from place to person. Jesus becomes our living temple. Churches become sanctuaries because they are places that help us feel closer to Jesus. If the church building were destroyed by fire on a Saturday night, the church could still gather in the fullness of its worship on Sunday morning because Jesus is our temple. The richness of gold is replaced by the closeness of Christ. Paul takes this another step further today when he writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” The Bible begins with the truth that we are made in the image and likeness of God. The Jesus story begins with His birth as one of us in this world, thus reaffirming the sanctity of all creation. And Paul tells each of us that the Holy Spirit abides within us and we are, therefore, “God’s temple.” I can’t imagine that the God of all creation is impressed by shiny gold, but the life and death of Jesus surely testify to the fact that God values us even more than God’s own self. What an unbelievable richness this is. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 2nd: Exodus 19:16-25; Psalm 19; and Mark 9:2-8. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today’s Gospel is of the Transfiguration and it begins with a time reference: “Six days later.” What does this refer to? If we look back in the text, it is the events of Caesarea Philippi that we talked about last Sunday in church. Peter had declared Jesus to be the Messiah, and then Jesus declared the corrective that He would be the suffering Messiah. The Caesarea Philippi pericope ends with Jesus saying, “‘There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.’” (9:1) It would not be wrong to think that this is a foreshadowing of the resurrection. However, this statement is followed immediately by “Six days later.” They may seem further apart in your biblical text because of how the editors have laid out the page. In my Bible, for example, the New Revised Standard Version, a new paragraph heading of “The Transfiguration” stands between 9:1 and 9:2, between seeing the kingdom of God come with power and “Six days later.” This seems to break up the connection that Mark intends with his time reference. The Transfiguration is chronologically and I would say thematically linked with seeing the coming of the kingdom of God with power. We know that Peter for sure and probably all the other disciples were present at Caesarea Philippi. We then see listed that the disciples Peter, James and John were present at the Transfiguration. It is not implausible to assume, therefore, that these three are the ones represented as “There are some standing here …” They were privileged to witness the glorified Jesus. For these moments of the Transfiguration, the hidden nature of Jesus became the visible nature of Jesus. If this is the case, then they see what may be described as: “[T]he kingdom of God has come with power.” Whatever actually transpired is a separate matter. What is important for Mark is that the Transfiguration reveals that the post-resurrection Jesus is identical with the historical Jesus. Jesus did not assume a divine nature after His suffering and death. Jesus’ divine nature was always linked with His human nature and it was carried to the cross. What is wonderfully radical about all of this is that Mark reveals that the power of the kingdom of God breaking into the world is not inaugurated when Jesus resurrects out of the world. It breaks into the world in Jesus of Nazareth, His life, His ministry, His gospel, and since the Transfiguration is linked intentionally through “Six days later” with Caesarea Philippi, with His suffering and death. What does this mean when the coming of the kingdom of God’s power is not limited to the obvious and glorious triumph of the empty tomb, but to the glory of God inherent in the ministry of Jesus that culminates when He does not retreat before the terrible reality of the cross? Isn’t there a challenge here for us to see the power of God’s kingdom in the life of Jesus and in its sacrifice for the sake of the gospel? The coming of the kingdom of God with power is realized in the life of Jesus, the life that includes Golgotha. What an astonishing revelation. Tomorrow is a Communion Sunday. There are no creedal requirements at our sharing of Jesus’ table. If you feel called, you will be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you are on your spiritual journey. If you can see the hidden glory in the simple gifts of bread and wine, not all that unlike seeing the coming power of God in the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth and especially in the brutality of His suffering and death, then the mystery of Communion should be approached. I invite you to join us in person and if that is not possible, to join us via Zoom. Send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com for the login. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. The most definitely unexpected ChristThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 1st: Exodus 19:9b-15; Psalm 19; and Acts 7:30-40. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Yahweh orders Moses to consecrate the people of Israel in today’s Exodus passage. To consecrate means to set aside for a holy purpose. The entire people of Israel are consecrated so that they may survive the terrifying presence of God, but they are also instruments of God in the world. With the passage of centuries, as Israel changes from nomadic tribes to a nation-state, Israel’s and Judah’s monarchs are consecrated. Oil is poured over them. This act symbolizes that their lives are now set aside to lead God’s people. God is Israel’s ultimate ruler, but the king acts as God’s plenipotentiary, the king’s authority is based on the enactment of God’s authority. This idea of consecration, being the anointed one of God, with the passage of more centuries, develops into anticipation of the Messiah, the consummate anointed one of God. This hope is based on the failure of the consecrated kings to protect the religion and the people of Israel. The Hebrew word Messiah was translated in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) as Christ. The Messiah, the Christ, would be the ideal king, ever faithful to God and to God’s people. Additional centuries later, the followers of Jesus saw in Him the long-awaited Messiah of God. The connection between the person Jesus and the title of Christ became so intertwined that Jesus Christ became a singular reference. It is found 138 times in the New Testament. Mark is the oldest Gospel and it is there in 1:1. Revelation is the last book of the New Testament and again it is found at 1:1. When the divine nature of Jesus is emphasized, especially by Paul, the name and title are transposed so that we read Christ Jesus. This is found an additional 86 times in the Bible. Jesus is the anointed one of God, the one consecrated by God to serve as the divine presence and activity in the world. His Messiahship is unexpected. It does not fulfill the prophetic expectations associated with the Messiah. It takes a new perspective to see Jesus as the Christ, one we within the faith can claim as inspired by God. It is not fair, however, to condemn those who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah because they adhere to their Scripture’s expectations, especially when many who do hurl such condemnations object to any variance in the reading of Christian Scripture. We will arrive eventually at Palm Sunday. The folk in Jerusalem, excited by the Passover celebration of liberation, proclaim Jesus as the Messiah with their cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David.” When Jesus disappoints them, when He does not embrace the warrior motif of David, the religious enthusiasm turns against Him quickly. To this agitated crowd awaiting the Passover, Jesus taunts, “‘What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?’” (Matt. 22:42) Jesus goes on to question the assumption that the Messiah is David’s son. Jesus is distancing Himself and His Messiahship from that of the warrior king. This is unexpected and unwanted, but this is Jesus the redefined Christ of our Christian belief. On this Lenten Friday, as special attention is given to the crucifixion, we may wish to consider more deeply Jesus’ revision of the meaning of the Messiah, the Christ. There are many people and churches who encourage a warrior Messiah again. They seem to revel in the bloody judgment that Jesus will wreak upon humanity. All sorts of sinners and non-believers (who are most always the people not within the community of those preaching the violent Jesus) will be slaughtered and this massive blood-letting, and it is preached and believed almost with glee. Isn’t this the Messiah that Jesus rejected? Isn’t this the Messiah of those who rejected Jesus? As we look to the cross, the unexpected cross, the most definitely unexpected crucified Messiah, and meditate upon the meaning of Jesus Christ to us and to our world, let us keep the focusing words of today’s Psalm in mind: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. |
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