A Life of Jesus

A LIFE OF JESUS
a seven-part sermon series

“a man from Nazareth”

In the early Church, the season of Lent was a time of instruction for the catechumenate who were preparing for their Baptism at the Easter Vigil, and Lent has remained a season of teaching in the Church ever since. Accordingly, I now begin a series of seven sermons attempting to sketch the life of Jesus. Most Christians’ images of Jesus are, I fear, formed more by Hollywood than the Scriptures. Thus I think it is vital that we consciously examine the Scriptures and early records to inform our images of Jesus.
However, first a disclaimer, every picture of Jesus will be somewhat subjective in nature. The searches for the historical Jesus that were so popular among German theologians in the nineteenth century resulted in the general acknowledgement that we cannot fashion the numerous conflicting and absent events of Jesus’ life into a purely objective history. All the evidence we have has already been mediated by one person or another, and patterned according to their impressions and concerns. Our own portraits of Jesus will, in a similar way, often tell us as much about ourselves and our own concerns, as they will about Jesus. Thus our personal portraits of Jesus will also naturally change from time to time as we grow in knowledge and maturity in our faith. This series is an attempt to struggle further with my own image of Jesus, and I hope that my picture of Jesus will cause you to struggle with yours.
So let us begin. The very first benchmark in the life of Jesus is that it began in obscurity. The first Christians did not really know or care much about the early years of Jesus’ life. Their interest was in his death and resurrection, and the New Testament Scriptures focus on Jesus’ Passion almost to the neglect of his birth and childhood. It is perhaps surprising how little background information on Jesus is actually confirmed in the earliest sources. For instance, Paul’s epistles (which are the oldest literary material of the New Testament) do not mention Jesus’ parents, or where he was born, or where he grew up, or even when he lived. They also contain no mention of Jesus’ parables or his miracles, no reference to his trial before Pilate, nor of Jerusalem as the place of his execution. The early sermons of the Apostles as recorded in the Book of Acts reveal little more. Nor can we get much more information from the Epistle to the Hebrews or the letters of James, or Jude, or the several letters of John and Peter.
The earliest Gospel accounts, Mark and John, begin their narratives with Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, telling us nothing at all about his earlier life. Only the Gospels of Luke and Matthew record any stories of Jesus’ birth and early childhood, and though they have become so familiar to us as the beloved Christmas story, between themselves Luke and Matthew agree with each other’s account on only a few details, namely, that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that he grew up in Nazareth, and that his parents’ names were Mary and Joseph. Believe it or not, that’s it. The rest of their stories, like those numerous other infancy accounts found in the later apocryphal gospels, seem more to be answering the curiosity of subsequent Christians than the handing down of accurate details of Jesus’ early years.
Thus Jesus’ life begins in virtual obscurity. About the most certain thing we can say about Jesus’ beginnings is that he was conceived out of wedlock. Matthew and Luke both relate that Jesus’ birth was due not to his father Joseph but to the mysterious intervention of the Holy Spirit. The Gospels of Mark and John, however, do not refer to a Virgin birth, nor does Paul in his numerous letters or Peter in his early sermons recorded in Acts. The opponents of Jesus perhaps confirm a dispute about his origins in repeated questions to him about his paternity: “Where is your father?” the crowd says at one point in Jerusalem, “We are not born of fornication . . . We know who our father is” (Jn. 8.19, 41) they cry. Perhaps it was well known that Jesus was an illegitimate child. There is a rumor of this kind among Jewish sources that can be traced back to at least 150 A.D. These references claim that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, but was instead the product of an illegitimate union between Mary and a Roman soldier, variously named Pandera, Pantera, or Panthera. Later Christian writers have tended to dismiss this rumor as a malicious invention, and have even suggested that the unknown name of ‘Panthera’ is a corruption of the Greek word for virgin, “parthenos.” Intriguingly though, there has recently been discovered at Bingerbruck in Germany a tombstone of one Tiberius Julius Abdes Panthera, a Roman archer from Sidon in Palestine, dating to the early first century. There is also a peculiarity in the genealogy ascribed to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. In it there are only four female ancestors named --- Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, and each happens to be a ‘fallen woman.’ Was the author of the Matthean genealogy implying something about the only other woman mentioned there, Mary, the mother of Jesus?
Jesus apparently grew up in very small towns of Galilee, like Nazareth and Capernaum. The Jewish historian Josephus, for instance, lists in his writings what appear to be all the main towns and villages of Galilee, but makes absolutely no mention at all of Nazareth. It was not until 1955 that there was found archaeological evidence for the existence of Nazareth at the time of Jesus. And there was no known mention of the town of Nazareth except in Christian writings until 1962 when archaeologists discovered a Roman inscription that listed the place. But what is just as informative it that Galilee’s larger towns, like Tarichaea, Garaba, and especially Sepphoris, the capital and only four miles from Nazareth, these cities go totally unmentioned in the Gospels and other writings of the early Church. Clearly Jesus was associated only with obscure little towns in his early life.
The Gospel of John records the common saying of that day, that “nothing good comes from Nazareth” (Jn. 1.46). Because the region is notable for extremes of daytime heat and nighttime cold, it is known that many succumbed to pneumonia in that place. Dysentery was also common in the regions adjacent to the Sea of Galilee as was malaria along the River Jordan. Thus there was disease everywhere around Nazareth. And sure enough, miserable cripples and sick people appear one after another on almost every page of the Gospels.
Jesus and his family were also probably poor, which wouldn’t be surprising seeing that they came from such an small back water town. Their poverty is perhaps confirmed at the time of his birth by Mary’s sacrifice in the temple of a “pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons” (Lk. 2.24), which was the poor person’s sacrifice according to Levitical law, when one could not afford the traditional lamb (Lev. 12.6-8). Jesus’ parable of the woman who searched all over her house for a mislaid silver coin may suggest the kind of life he was used to. We should not be surprised that he later instructed his disciples “to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics” (Mk. 6.8-9).
There is some uncertainty in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark as to whether Jesus was himself a carpenter (Mk. 6.3), or simply a carpenter’s son (Mt. 13.55), but whichever was the case the imagery of carpentry and building is present in the sayings and stories of Jesus. There is the familiar parable that ends “Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own” (Mt. 7.3-5; Lk. 6.41). There is also Jesus’ story about the houses built on sand or rocks (Lk. 6.47-9), and his fondness for the words from Psalm 118 about “the stone that was rejected by the builders that became the chief cornerstone” (Lk. 20.17, et al.).
Most carpenters of that day, though, were itinerant workers. Despite the imagery of Hollywood there was no quaint little carpenter’s workshop, but rather carpenters moved about from job to job. That Jesus’ experience of life was somewhat broad can be seen in the keenly observed cast of characters which populate his parables --- the unscrupulous judge, the importune widow, the crafty steward, the virtuous Pharisee, the good Samaritan, and so on. These are not stereotyped figures, but carry the conviction that they, or someone like them, had come from Jesus’ own experience of life. Also many of Jesus sayings and parables reveal an intimate knowledge of country life. Within one chapter of Luke (ch. 13), for example, Jesus is depicted as knowing how to revive a barren fig tree (vv. 6-9), he is sensitive to farm animals’ needs for watering (v. 15), aware of the remarkable growth patterns of the mustard seed (v. 19), well informed on the amount of yeast needed to leaven dough (v. 21), and keenly observant of the characteristic manner in which a hen ‘gathers her brood under her wings’ (v. 34). In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus’ saying is the oldest known record of interpreting a red sky at night as a sign for good weather the following day (Mt. 16.1-3).
Thus the most next surprising element of Jesus’ growing up is its ordinariness. His early life appears to have been a common one. This was almost unbelievable to later Christians who were forever searching in his early life for some proof of his uniqueness. Later apocryphal stories, just like those in Matthew and Luke, suggest all sorts of extraordinary events and actions in his early years. But a more careful reading of Scripture suggests a very mundane life for Jesus. He was simply the illegitimate son of a poor carpenter in Nazareth. It was a life, perhaps, not unlike our own in its ordinariness and obscurity. And perhaps that is what makes it so extraordinary, to think that Jesus humbled himself in a simple human form, and lived out a simple human life like ours. Even his name was commonplace, and his life appeared to follow an uneventful routine no different from others. Perhaps there is the very meaning of the Incarnation, and the assurance of God’s compassion for us. Jesus was not some Greek God disguised as a human. He was a simple a man, living out an ordinary life like ours. No super powers or extraordinary tales, but an austere life in a backwater town.
Together with his contemporaries Jesus experienced the sweat, misery, and poverty of a struggling working class, and yet in the synagogue together with them he would have read from the various books of the prophets of a promised kingdom of God, a kingdom where the blind would see again, the deaf would hear, and the lame would leap for joy. Yet what a gap lay between the wretched realities of Nazareth and this vision of the “kingdom of heaven” which he and his contemporaries heard each week proclaimed from the prophets.
According to Luke’s Gospel (3.23), Jesus began his public ministry when he was thirty years old, a ministry which is believed to have lasted about three years. And yet at one point in John’s Gospel (8.57), Jesus’ opponents in Jerusalem reply that he was not yet fifty years old, an odd reply to a man in his early thirties. Perhaps Jesus simply looked older than his years. I like to think that maybe he was prematurely grey. Or perhaps some shadow of the nameless suffering of the region around Nazareth was cast prematurely across his face. Perhaps weary eyes reflected some measure of interior pain and anguish in the life of that poor carpenter’s son. From time to time perhaps a look of sorrow hovered around his eyes. Jesus was, perhaps, listening intently for the voice of God to answer his cry and the cries of those around him --- when he heard instead another voice, crying out in the wilderness, the voice of John the Baptist there on the banks of the River Jordan. Jesus’ response to that voice is the next stage in his life. And we shall look at it more closely next week. AMEN.

“a disciple of John”

This is the second in a Lenten series of seven sermons sketching the life of Jesus. Last week we looked at the early years of Jesus’ life and discovered how very little we really know about them and how ordinary they appear. We observed that Jesus was from the rural countryside, and grew up in obscure and inconspicuous little towns and villages in Galilee, notorious for their widespread poverty and disease, and sure enough, miserable cripples and sick people appear one after another on almost every page of the Gospels. We also noted that as a good Jew, Jesus would have regularly heard in the synagogue the words of the prophets of a promised kingdom of God where the blind would see again, the deaf would hear, and the lame would leap for joy; where there would be justice and peace on the earth. What a terrible contrast existed between those Jewish hopes, and the realities of squalor and disease in the towns and villages around Nazareth. Jesus, as a young man, may well have been listening intently for the voice of God to answer his cry and the cries of those around him, when he heard another voice, crying out in the wilderness, the voice of John the Baptist.
The second benchmark of this series is that Jesus began his public ministry as a disciple of John the Baptist, something that, I believe, is glossed over in the Gospel accounts. It is indisputable that Jesus’ public ministry started with his baptism by John. All of the Gospels either record or imply that Jesus was baptized by John himself, and that this was the beginning of his public life. It should perhaps also be remembered that Jesus and John the Baptist were said to be cousins, and Jesus’ mother was close enough to John’s mother to visit her and help when she was pregnant. It is repeatedly noted that Jesus greatly loved John the Baptist, and always spoke of him later with much affection and a high regard.
John was a significant figure in Palestine at that time, better remembered in secular accounts of the first century than Jesus ever was. John was out there in the wilderness, as I have said before, in order to separate himself from the corrupt society of his day, so that he would not become ritually defiled. In the same way he encouraged the people that came out to him to prepare for the anticipated coming of the Lord by purifying themselves, by repenting and being baptized, and by strictly keeping the Law of Moses. John’s own simple garment of camel’s hair and leather girdle and his diet of locusts and wild honey (Mt. 3.4; cf. Lev. 11.21-2) confirm his rigid adherence to the Levitical code. John was a holy man in his day, and attracted many followers.
Nevertheless Jesus seems to have distinguished himself among John’s followers by putting into action John’s message. For instance, in the Fourth Gospel it is during Jesus’ first appearance in Jerusalem, shortly after his baptism, that he cleansed the Temple, overturning the tables of the moneychangers, and driving the peddlers and their animals out with a whip, demanding that they “take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade” (Jn. 2.16). This has always seemed to me to be an uncharacteristic action of Jesus. The other Gospels, interestingly enough, record this event at the end of Jesus’ career, the only time they mention Jesus going to Jerusalem, that fateful last week of his life, and that is how the Church has celebrated it ever since. Thus this action has usually been thought of as a provocation of the temple authorities by Jesus that lead his crucifixion; that is certainly the way Hollywood has generally portrayed it. But now I tend to suspect that the Fourth Gospel has it right, that this event was at the beginning, shortly after his baptism, not at the end of Jesus’ ministry. For I see it now as a prophetic acting out of John the Baptist’s message, of cleansing the defiled temple and calling the people to repentance and prayer.
In the same way, I view the severe criticism with which Jesus lashes out against the scribes and Pharisees in the Temple, like that long series of ‘woes to you’ in Luke, such as “Woe to you who clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness (Lk. 20.39) . . .Woe to you who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers” (Lk. 20.47). These harsh judgments of Jesus contrast with many of his later statements, but are not dissimilar to John’s denouncement of the Pharisees and Sadducees who came out to him for baptism, when John cried out, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come?” (Lk. 3.7-9). The difference is that Jesus actually took John’s message into the Temple courtyard, straight to the people concerned, again perhaps distinguishing himself among John’s followers.
After the cleansing of the Temple, it is recorded in the Fourth Gospel that Jesus with his disciples (two of whom we know were first followers of John) returned into the land of Judea and baptized along side of the Baptist (Jn. 3.22). According to Matthew’s Gospel (4.12, 17), Jesus began to preach only later after he heard that John had been arrested; and the message that he preached, according to Matthew (4.17), was the exact same one that Matthew records John had been preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (cf. 3.2). Thus Jesus appears to have taken up John’s message and ministry, only after Herod had imprisoned John. Remember that some would later declare to Herod that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead (Mk. 6.14). The Fourth Gospel notes, that “when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John . . .he left Judea and departed again to Galilee” (Jn. 4.1), clearly Jesus had begun to distinguish himself and perhaps feared for his own life. “So when he came to Galilee,” the Scriptures record, “the Galileans welcomed (Jesus), having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast” (Jn. 4.45).
And then according to Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus heard that King Herod had actually killed John the Baptist, “(Jesus) withdrew . . .to a lonely place apart.” “But when the crowds heard (that Jesus had withdrawn), they followed him . . .and he had compassion on them” (Mt. 14.13-4). According to Mark’s Gospel, “they were like sheep without a shepherd and he began to teach them many things” (Mk. 6.34). There follows the familiar story of the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus seems to be clearly taking over John’s ministry. After this feeding of the five thousand, according to the Fourth Gospel, the people declared, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world! Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him King, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (Jn. 6.14-5).
I have often wondered why Jesus fled from that crowd who would have crowned him king. I believe that this is a turning point in Jesus’ life. And I suspect that Jesus refused the attempts of the followers of John to crown him King, because he knew that the crowds were mistaken about him, that he was not really like John the Baptist.
For whether or not Jesus began as a disciple of John, Jesus’ message was, in the end, radically different from John’s. Jesus spoke less and less of God’s judgment and wrath, and more about God’s mercy and forgiveness. For while John preached repentance and the wrath of God, he said nothing about the love of God. His was a God of anger and punishment and earthly power, while Jesus preached instead about a God of love and forgiveness and spiritual power. John’s was an image of an outraged deity for the people to fear, while Jesus cast an image of the God of love who comes himself to experience the sorrows of humankind. Jesus’ parables and teachings are full of stories about God’s great love for the common people, the poor and forgotten and the lonely, the sinners and tax collectors. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Mt. 5.3).
Jesus’ ministry may have begun out there in the wilderness as a disciple of John, but Jesus did not remain there. Perhaps the story of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness reflects a time of theological struggle for Jesus, a wrestling with his future direction and ministry after his baptism. For the temptations which Jesus is recorded as having suffered in the wilderness boil down to pursuing an earthly salvation for the people, in return for a fullness of power on earth --- which was precisely what John was preaching about, but which according to our story, Jesus rejected.
Unlike John, Jesus did not ultimately seek to separate himself from the sinners and tax-collectors, but instead Jesus ventured in from the wilderness, ventured into the corrupt cities and villages and ate and drank with Pharisees and prostitutes and tax-collectors and Samaritans, and assured them of God’s love and mercy. “For those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk. 2.17). He did not seek to cast judgment or revenge upon his enemies, but to love them, and to teach his followers to love them as well. “You have heard that it is said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt. 5.43). “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5.10). And there are times when Jesus appears to have even disdained the Law of Moses which John the Baptist sought so hard to observe, reminding his hearers, for instance, “that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
The message of Jesus and his ministry began to take a different direction than that of John the Baptist, and where that road leads we will begin to look at next week. AMEN.

“a worker of wonders”

This is the third sermon of a series of seven this Lent in which I am attempting to sketch the life of Jesus. Last week, we looked carefully at the event that marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, namely, his baptism by John. By the conclusion of that sermon, it became clear that in the end Jesus’ message and ministry was radically different from John’s.
Unlike John the Baptist, for instance, Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God was accompanied by great “signs and wonders.” The Fourth Gospel states unequivocally “John (the Baptist) did no sign” (Jn. 10.41). But Jesus did. And his signs and wonders, along with his teachings, form the two principal activities of Jesus’ ministry.
The touchstone of this sermon is that Jesus was indeed a “worker of great signs and wonders.” Do not be dazzled, however, or distracted here by Jesus’ miracles, for I mean by “signs and wonders” something more than just “miracles.” For example, last week we looked at Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple, that dramatic and prophetic acting out of John’s message that the Temple was defiled. That cleansing of the Temple, if done at the beginning of his public ministry as the Fourth Gospel records, may have been the first of Jesus’ great signs and wonders, although there was nothing particularly miraculous about it. Nonetheless we are told that crowds of Galileans welcomed Jesus on his return, for they had “seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast” (Jn. 4.45).
Shortly after Jesus returned, there occurs the story of the feeding of the five thousand, another great sign and wonder. You may recall that one of the few things we know John the Baptist preached was that if someone “has two tunics, then let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise” (Lk. 3.10). Some interpreters of the feeding of the five thousand see it not as a miracle, but as another dramatic and prophetic fulfillment of John the Baptist’s message, where those who had brought food on that day were perhaps a little reluctant to let on to that fact for fear that they would have to share with so large a crowd and that there won’t be enough to go around. However they were inspired by Jesus’ willingness to share the young lad’s loaves and fishes such that they brought out their own food and shared with those around them, as John as preached they should do, and there was then more than enough food then to go around. “When the people saw the sign which he had done,” the Scriptures record, “they said ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world! . . .(and) Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the hills by himself” (Jn. 6.15).
Not all of Jesus’ signs and wonders were fulfillment of John’s message, though, for some of them distinguished Jesus from John. For instance, rather than separate himself from the unclean and the unrighteous as John had done out there in the wilderness, Jesus appears to have sought out the company of sinners and tax-collectors in the cities, and the opportunity to mingle and eat with them, and assure them of God’s love and mercy. That sign of Jesus caused many to wonder.
In the same way Jesus appears to have reassured the sick and the diseased of God’s love and mercy. This too was a great sign and wonder. For the Jews of Jesus’ day interpreted all sickness and disease as evidence of God’s punishment or judgment upon them. You may recall that on one occasion Jesus was asked by his own disciples whether a certain man was blind because of his sin, or the sin of his father. Either way the blindness was understood by them as the result of sin, or unrighteousness. This is why the seriously diseased, like the blind or lepers for instance, were usually isolated from the rest of the community. They were social outcasts. They were defiled, and the good Jews of that day did not want to be contaminated by them, to become unclean themselves. Thus Jesus’ actions of repeatedly making contact with the blind, the lame, with lepers, and the possessed was extraordinary, and dramatically different from that of other religious leaders of that day. Jesus’ words and actions in such cases, must have brought with them an immeasurable element of comfort and consolation and even healing to the outcasts and the despised.
The working of mighty acts and healings go hand in hand in the Jewish tradition. Jesus was not unique in this way. Moses, for example, performed many signs and wonders, and also healed many people. So did the prophet Elisha, who even raised a young man from the dead. Jesus was essentially following a long Jewish tradition set by the nabi or the hasid, the wise men and holy ones of Israel. In the century before Jesus we know of a Galilean named Honi the Circle Drawer who was a powerful worker of mighty deeds, and in the century after Jesus there was in Galilee another particularly reputed healer named Hanina ben Dosa.
No, Jesus was not unique as a healer and worker of wonders. So what did his signs and wonders mean? Modern people often get all caught up in debating the nature of miracles in such stories. And this I think misses the more important point. There are no claims to natural laws being broken or supernatural events in the Scriptures. Interpretations of this kind would require a different sort of thinking than was present in first century Palestine. The early Christian writers, and apparently Jesus himself, saw these mighty works as evidence, not of Jesus’ own personal power or divine nature, but of the fact that the kingdom of God was at hand. They were evidence of the fulfillment of his preaching.
And it was apparently Jesus’ might acts and wonders which attracted the big crowds, not his preaching. And there are times when it appears Jesus is aware that his message was getting lost in its medium, times when the crowds weren’t interested in what he had to say but wanted only signs and wonders. On one occasion, “(Jesus) sighed deeply in his spirit, and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign?’” “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe,” he said later (Jn. 4.48). And “Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet believe” (Jn. 20.29).
And that brings us to this week’s pivotal story, the story of Jesus’ homecoming. The first five chapters of Mark are full of the accounts of various signs and wonders that Jesus performed, and Mark duly reports the huge crowds that gathered around him. At one point, Jesus’ family had tried to seize him at Capernaum, where the crowds were so large that they could not get close to him and also where the paralytic had to be let down through the roof. Shortly thereafter, Jesus returns home to Nazareth, the native son done good, the local hero. Luke moved this story of Jesus’ homecoming to the beginning of his ministry right after the temptation in the wilderness, and many a Hollywood movie of Jesus highlights this event at the start of his preaching career. But I think that the older Gospel Mark has it right. It is only after five chapters worth of signs and wonders and healings and huge crowds following him that Jesus returns home to Nazareth.
“And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up;” the Scriptures record, “and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the Sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written; ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’ And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing . . .”
At his own homecoming, “all spoke well of him (at first)” (Lk. 4.22), and then they asked “what we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here also in your own country . . .” (Lk. 4.16-23). “(But) he could do no mighty work there . . .” (Mk. 6.5) and “all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led (Jesus) to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away” (Lk. 4.28-30). And from the Gospels it appears that Jesus never went home again. For his own people had tried to kill him, because he could not or would not perform signs and wonders for them. What a contrast between the crowd of Galileans that had earlier welcomed him after his appearance in Jerusalem, a crowd that would have crowned him king, and this crowd at Nazareth that sought to kill him.
As Jesus began to move from actions to words, from “signs and wonders” to teaching, the crowds began to turn against him, or to simply diminish. What was he saying that so outraged or discouraged them? That is the topic for next week. AMEN.

“a teacher with authority”

This is the fourth sermon in a series of seven, which I have been preaching this Lent in an attempt to sketch the life of Jesus. Last week we looked at the great signs and wonders which Jesus wrought, the healings and miracles and which first attracted the crowds to him. The touchstone of today’s sermon is that Jesus was also a powerful teacher, and that it was his teaching that frightened the crowds away.
According to Matthew’s Gospel (4.12, 17), Jesus began to preach only after he heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, and the message that he preached, according to Matthew (4.17), was the exact same one that Matthew records John had been preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (cf. 3.2). The Greek verb used repeatedly in speaking of the kingdom of heaven translates such that in one sense the kingdom has already arrived, but also that in another sense it was not yet fulfilled. It is an activity that has begun, but is not yet complete.
In the beginning, Jesus concerned himself with more than simply declaring this message that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, as John the Baptist had done. Jesus demonstrated its emerging presence with great signs and wonders. Those signs and wonders of Jesus were prophetic proof that the kingdom of heaven had finally arrived. This is apparent, I think, with the cleansing of the Temple and the feeding of the five thousand, as Jesus acted out the message of John the Baptist. Jesus’ emphasis on the imagery of Isaiah’s prophecy where “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy” (Is. 35.5) also points to his belief that the kingdom of heaven had begun. For it is to these scriptures that Jesus refers when the messengers from the imprisoned John the Baptist come asking whether Jesus is the one sent from God, or should they look for another. And it is to these scriptures that Jesus turns to read in the synagogue at his homecoming in Nazareth.
Jesus’ primary teaching instrument, however, was the parable, an ancient formula for reinforcing teaching with a story. Numerous of Jesus’ parables, for instance, stress the need for preparedness for the kingdom, like that of the wise and foolish virgins, or of the sheep and the goats, or the thief that comes at night. Others illustrate that the kingdom of heaven was an active process; that it had begun but was not yet complete, like the parable of the sower, the parable of the weeds, or of the net. Other parables simply attempt to explain what was meant by the kingdom of heaven, how it was like the mustard seed, or the leaven in bread, or the salt of the earth. The acceptance of Jesus’ message by the individual hearer was revealed as a matter of great joy, as in the parable of the lost coin, or the pearl of great value, or the treasure hidden in the field or the story of the prodigal son.
Now I grew up thinking that the crowds following Jesus simply grew larger and larger as he went through the towns and villages teaching until the number of his followers climaxed in Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday where the throngs shouted “Hosanna” and then oddly within days turned against him crying “Crucify him”. And Hollywood has certainly contributed to this image. Yet over the years I have come to see that the crowds following Jesus began to diminish and dwindle long before Palm Sunday, and the throngs that turned out on that fateful entrance in Jerusalem were, as the Fourth Gospel tells us plainly, they were there to see Lazarus, the local boy recently raised from the dead after three days. This crowd represented only a resurgence of interest in Jesus, again unfortunately because of signs and wonders.
That the crowds began to diminish is evident in the sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel, and this is the pivotal story for today’s sermon. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus and his disciples have returned from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee. A multitude has followed Jesus from Jerusalem, because they saw the sign that he did there. There follows the familiar story of the feeding of the five thousand, and the attempt to crown Jesus king.
The next morning the crowd tracked down Jesus from the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And the story goes on that as Jesus taught them, the Jews murmured and disputed among themselves (Jn. 6.41, 52). Even “many of (those who traveled with Jesus), when they heard (his teaching there) said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, ‘Do you take offense at this?’” (Jn. 6.60-1). And then the Fourth Gospel records that “After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” (Jn. 6.66). Thereafter Jesus turned to the twelve and said to them, “Do you also wish to go away?” (Jn. 6.67). For Jesus knew that some of them did not believe, and that one of them would betray him” (Jn. 6.64). But they did stay, and after that point the twelve who stayed with Jesus took on a more important and prominent role in his ministry.
There is, I think, another clue in Gospels that the crowds began to thin about this time. In Mark’s Gospel, right after his rejection at Nazareth, it is recorded “that he went about the villages teaching. And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two. “So they departed and went through the villages preaching that men should repent” (Mk. 6.13). In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus sent out seventy of his disciples on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come” (Lk. 10.1), a sort of advance publicity team. But why? Why was Jesus suddenly sending out his disciples to spread the word? We have heard the stories so often that I think we sometimes fail to see what is implied in them. Before the people had been coming to Jesus from afar, a great multitude from Galilee, also from Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from about Tyre and Sidon (Mk. 3.7-8). Now apparently the crowds were not coming to him in the way they had at first. And the importance of the message and teaching was such that Jesus responded by sending out his disciples to them.
From the story in the sixth chapter of The Fourth Gospel, it is clear that Jesus’ teaching was becoming offensive to many. I think we often overlook the harshness of much of Jesus’ teaching. To be a disciple of Jesus was hard. The way is narrow that leads to life. For Jesus required absolute sincerity and singleness of purpose for members of the kingdom of heaven, as the parables of the light, the lamp, the eye, and even the salt are used to illustrate (Lk. 11.34-5, 14.34-5). Jesus required radical acceptance of a new covenant in his followers. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” “You cannot serve two masters.” “Take up your cross and follow me.” Jesus has very hard sayings, for example, about the rich entering the kingdom of God. “Go sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Mt. 19.21). High among the duties is the love of one’s neighbor, especially the outcast. “You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt. 5.48). Ethically Jesus appealed to the highest principles of love, forgiveness, and the mercy of God.
Moreover Jesus took his stand upon a direct, intuitive understanding of God’s will and requirements, not upon scribal practice of authoritative interpretations of tradition (Mk. 7.5-13; Mt. 5.17-48). It was Jesus’ freedom from the scribal tradition, and his unhesitating rejection of scribal authority, which astonished the crowds and roused the antagonism of the religious authorities of his day. His teaching was a threat to their influence over the people, and to their whole system of religious interpretation and regulation.
Matthew provided a long summary of Jesus’ teaching, which we collectively refer to as the Sermon on the Mount, and concludes with the often repeated response that “(the listeners) were astonished at (Jesus’) teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes” (Mt. 7.28-9). There in the Sermon on the Mount is the crux of his message: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake . . .Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. . .Let your light so shine before me, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. . .For unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. . .You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment . . .You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell . . .You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye. . .But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also . . .Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . .Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal . . .Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. . .Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Judge not, least you be judged . . .Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. . .” and so on and so forth (Mt. 5-7).
With teaching like that, perhaps it is not surprising that the crowds were astonished, or that they rejected him. For Jesus’ sayings are indeed “hard” and demanding. It is perhaps not surprising that when the crowds, which were first, attracted to Jesus because of the signs and wonders, when they heard Jesus’ words and understood his teaching, “drew back and no longer went about with him.” Who was Jesus that he demanded such loyalty of those who would follow him? Who did he think he was? But that is the topic of next week’s sermon. AMEN.

“the one sent from God”

This is the fifth sermon in a series of seven which I have been preaching this Lent in an attempt to sketch the life of Jesus. Last week we looked at Jesus’ teachings, and the occasion in the Fourth Gospel where the crowds began to distance themselves from Jesus. Possibly in response to this, we observed that Jesus then sent out his disciples two by two to preach to the surrounding villages and towns.
Shortly after their return, Jesus asked them that most fateful of questions, “Who do men say that I am?” The touchstone of this sermon is just who did Jesus think he was, and what did he think was going to happen.
Jesus was thought of in many different ways in the Gospels. To Nicodemus, he was a teacher come from God (Jn. 3). To the woman of Samaria, he was the man who had told her all the she ever did (Jn. 4.29). To the man born blind, Jesus was simply the one who restored his sight (Jn. 9.25). To others he was a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners (Mt. 11.19). To the high priest, he was a blasphemer (Mk. 14.64). To the centurion at his crucifixion, he was simply a man of God (Mk. 15.39).
Jesus was called by many names. But there are three titles that are particularly prominent in the Gospels, namely, “Son of God”, “Son of Man”, and “Messiah.” A careful look at the use of these titles is necessary if we want to understand what others really thought of Jesus, and perhaps more importantly, what Jesus thought of himself.
First there is the title “Son of God.” This was an extremely popular title for Jesus in the early Church, and it is the favorite designation for Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. “Son of God,” however, is not found in the Old Testament, except in plural form (Gen. 6.2, 4; Job 1.6, 2.1; Dan. 3.25), where its meaning is obscure. Jesus, moreover, is never quoted as using the phrase himself. The term is only used by others about him. Jesus employed instead the phrase “Son of Man.”
And interestingly the phrase “Son of Man” is only found in words attributed to Jesus himself. But he used this name without explanation. So what exactly is meant by the term, ‘Son of Man’? In the Old Testament, Enoch and Moses and Ezekiel and others were also described as the Son of Man, and it appears at times to be a term for any man. In the Similitudes of the book of Enoch, a popular Jewish work from the time between the Old and New Testaments, there is a description of a Son of man who has righteousness and reveals hidden treasure because the Lord of Spirits has chosen him, one who will remove from their seats the kings and the mighty who have persecuted God’s congregations, who will be a staff to the righteous and a light to the Gentiles. But at the end of the book, Enoch himself is identified with that Son of man. Yet even so, these references may constitute the background for Jesus’ use.
It has been noted by scholars that the term ‘Son of man’ is not found in all parts of Jesus’ recorded teaching. The phrase “Son of Man” is conspicuously missing in the parables, nor is it closely associated with Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. Paul never uses the title either. And beyond the Gospels, this designation of Jesus is found only one other time in the New Testament (Acts 7.56). Thus we cannot be absolutely sure that Jesus himself actually used this phrase.
Finally there is the title of Christ, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, which means simply “anointed one.” There have been many anointed ones in the history of Israel. But we usually think of Messiah in terms of the expectations at end of the Old Testament of an ideal ruler, descended from David, in whose time God will establish a perfect and permanent reign on earth, characterized by peace and prosperity, righteousness, justice, and the knowledge and true worship of God. Messiah is a title that others use of Jesus in the Gospels (e.g. Mk. 8.29, 14.61-2), but it is not a title which Jesus appears to have accepted for himself. Remember earlier that Jesus had fled from the crowd that would have crowned him king.
And so we return to the pivotal story this week, when Jesus asked his returning disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Was he only concerned about his acceptance among the people now that the crowds were diminishing? Maybe, but if so, then why did Jesus then turn to his disciples and repeat the question to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Was he only testing the faith of his disciples, or was he perhaps truly questioning his own place among them? How did Jesus perceive himself? Did he know who he was?
Unlike some other religious leaders of that time, and unlike the portrayal of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus according to the Synoptic Gospels did not make himself the center of his teaching or demand submission or loyalty to himself as a condition of acceptance for admission to the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ whole mission was with announcing the Kingdom of God and its coming. It was not with himself that he was concerned. In fact this lack of consciousness about himself may explain his confusion about who he really was, and therefore the question of “who do men say that I am?”
And who did the people say that Jesus was? There seems to have been no agreement. The twelve answered that some say he was John the Baptist returned from the dead. Others said he was Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets. It appears that most people thought of Jesus as a great prophet. The title Messiah had not come to their minds. And what about his disciples? What did they think? There seems to have been an awkward silence when Jesus asked them, and only Peter’s simple response is recorded, “You are the Christ.” This is the first time in the Gospels that one of his followers declared that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah. He had been called many things before this, rabbi, teacher, Master, Lord, prophet, but never Messiah.
And in a time when there were many messianic pretenders, it is intriguing to think that Jesus never clearly accepts the title of Messiah for himself. Look at his response to Peter. Was it welcoming? Was it time now to reveal himself to his disciples? No, Jesus immediately commanded them to tell this to no one. And if you remove the passion prediction from this passage, as many scholars would, then Jesus’ response to Peter is even more severe, for the text after Peter’s confession would then read, “But turning and seeing his disciples, (Jesus) rebuked Peter, and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.’”
Immediately after Peter’s confession, it is recorded “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Mt. 16.21). This is the first of three predictions of the passion which are recorded in the Synoptic Gospels (Mk. 9.31, Mk. 10.33). On all three occasions Jesus very specifically declares that he will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, who will condemn him to death, even mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and kill him, and after three days he will rise from the dead.
There are two principle reasons for rejecting the idea that Jesus predicted his own arrest and resurrection in this way. First, the passion predictions as recorded are too specific in detail. They read more like a later summary of events projected back into the story, presumably to show that Jesus was not take unaware in Jerusalem and that he knew what he was doing. Secondly, numerous incidents make it hard to imagine that the disciples were ever told so plainly about the passion; for they were so surprised at Jesus’ arrest that they scattered and fled and hid behind close doors for fear of the Jews, they were in despair and shock at his actual death, and none of them appears to have expected his resurrection, or even believed the stories of those who later reported that they had seen him (Mt. 28.17; Mk. 14.29, 31, 32-4, 47; 16.1, 3, 8; Lk. 24.11, 22).
So did Jesus know what was going to happen? Even if Jesus didn’t predict his passion in detail, it would not be surprising that Jesus anticipated trouble if he was heading to Jerusalem. There had been increasing trouble every time he went to Jerusalem. One has to read the Fourth Gospel, to see this, because the Synoptic Gospels make note of only one visit to Jerusalem by Jesus, his last. But the Fourth Gospel records several other visits, each to celebrate Jewish feasts, and each increasing in trouble. And a careful reading of the Fourth Gospel reveals, that unlike the Hollywood portrayal where everything was going well for Jesus until his final entry into Jerusalem, there had already been a series of troubled incidents for Jesus in that great City of David.
You will recall that, according to the Fourth Gospel, it is on his first recorded visit to Jerusalem after his baptism, that Jesus cleansed the temple, driving out the money-changers with a whip, along with their sheep and oxen, pouring out their money and overturning the tables, and causing quite a scene (2.13-6).
In Chapter Five Jesus has again gone up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews, and while there he healed the invalid by the pool at the Sheep Gate. And the scriptures record that “the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working.’ This was,” we are told, “why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father.” (5.1-18).
The next time the Passover was at hand, Jesus appears not to have gone up to Jerusalem (6.4). In fact, the scriptures record that “Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him” (7.1). But soon afterwards the Jewish feast of the Tabernacles was at hand. Jesus’ brothers urged him to go to Jerusalem, but Jesus replied “Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast . . .so saying, he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast,” we are told, “then (Jesus) also went up, not publicly but in private. The Jews were looking for him at the feast . . .About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. . .Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, ‘Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! . . . The Pharisees heard the crowd thus muttering about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. . .So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him” (7.2, 8-11, 14, 25-6, 43-4, 8.2). Jesus went on teaching in the temple the next few days, and on one occasion it is noted that “(the crowds) took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (8.59).
Again Jesus was in Jerusalem later that winter during the feast of the Dedication and he was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon, and the Jews gathered around while he taught, and it is recorded that “The Jews took up stones again to stone him” (10.31), and “again they tried to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands” (10.39).
Now the next time Jesus was near Jerusalem was at the raising of Lazarus. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was ill, he said to his disciples, “‘Let us go into Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?’” (11.7-8). But he did go and raise Lazarus, and it is recorded that some of those who witnessed the raising of Lazarus “went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done . . .So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer went openly among the Jews, but went from there to the country near the wilderness . . .and there he stayed with his disciples. Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover . . .They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?’ Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if any one knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him. Six days before the Passover, Jesus came (back) to Bethany, where Lazarus was . . .When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing Jesus. The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (11.46, 53, 54-7, 12.1, 9-13).
Now did Jesus really know what awaited him in Jerusalem? Yes, and no. That there might be trouble was obvious. The authorities in Jerusalem had already on several previous occasions sought to arrest him and plotted to kill him. The crowds also on several previous occasions had tried to stone him. Jesus could surely read the writing on the wall. He knew that they would eventually get him and what they would do to him when they did. Why did he go then? Because he knew he was the Messiah, that he would be killed, and in three days rise again? I think not. But Jesus did trust in God in a radical way, and as a result, his actions began to take on more importance than his words. But we shall look more carefully at those actions next week.

“the suffering servant”

This is the sixth sermon in a series of seven that I have been preaching this Lent in an attempt to sketch a life of Jesus from beginning to end. Last week we looked at the question of messianic consciousness; that is, who did the people think that Jesus was, and what did Jesus think about himself. Today we look at the end of Jesus’ public ministry.
Each of the four Gospels meticulously details the last few days of Jesus’ life, in what we generally refer to in the Church as “The Passion Narratives.” We have just heard a part of Mark’s Passion, and John’s Passion will be read in most Churches on Good Friday. The Passion Narratives form the largest part of each of the Gospels, emphasizing the Passion as the single most important event in Jesus’ life.
Despite this extensive chronicling, however, the cause of the Passion is usually misunderstood. For instance, it is often thought that what precipitated Jesus’ arrest was a change of attitude by the crowds, or by the authorities, and that is how Hollywood usually portrays the situation. Yet if you will recall that when we reviewed the stories last week, it was clear that there had been trouble every time Jesus went to Jerusalem. It was nothing new that the crowds turned against him, for at least twice before in Jerusalem the crowds had attempted to stone Jesus there (Jn. 8.59, 10.31). It was also nothing new that the authorities had tried to arrest him, for they had so attempted to arrest Jesus there several times before (Jn. 8.20, 10.39). And it was nothing new that the authorities were intent to put Jesus to death, for various times before they had so contrived (Jn. 5.18, 11.53).
Another mistake often made in interpreting the Passion is focusing upon the suffering and pain that Jesus endured. For the earlier life of Jesus also contained elements of hardship and distress, such that if the Passion was about pain and suffering, then Jesus’ Passion would have lasted his whole life. But that is not what is meant when we refer to the Passion. Indeed the English word, “passion”, when rightly understood does not mean to “suffer,” but rather it means, “to be affected”, “to have something happen to oneself”, “to be done to.” When we speak of the Passion of Jesus we are not referring simply to his suffering, not simply to the pains that he endured or the cruel manner in which he was treated by the hands of men. The story of the Passion is not meant to be a commentary on the cruelty of man.
We also miss the point of the Passion, I think, if we focus our attention on Judas Iscariot. Judas is so often blamed for the events that occurred during Jesus’ last trip to Jerusalem. We are all too familiar with the scriptural passages where Judas “betrayed” Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, or where Judas was portrayed as a “traitor.” The fascinating thing to note here, however, is that the words “betrayed” or “traitor” are almost certainly mistranslations of the original Greek.
The English verb “to betray” implies or suggests ill will, disloyalty, unfaithfulness and secrecy on the part of the person, who betrays, and loss, tragedy or hardship for the person who is betrayed. The Greek word for “betrayal” is “prodidomi.” Interestingly there are thirty-three occasions in the New Testament when the deed of Judas Iscariot is mentioned, and only on one of those occasions is the Greek word “prodidomi” used; specifically, when Luke lists the Twelve Disciples by name, and mentions Judas Iscariot as the “traitor.” On thirty-one of the remaining occasions when the deed of Judas is referred to, it is not with the form of the Greek word, “prodidomi,” but rather with the Greek word “paradidomi,” which translates more accurately simply “to hand over.” Translating it as “to betray” is much too strong and misleading.
For this Greek word, “paradidomi,” is used on other occasions in the New Testament. For example, when the Fourth Gospel records that “Jesus bowed his head (on the cross) and ‘handed over’ His spirit,” the Greek word used was “paradidomi.” Or when Luke described the departure of Paul on a missionary journey, he wrote that Paul “was ‘handed over’ to the grace of God by the brethren.” And when Paul refers to his preaching to the Corinthians, he says that “he ‘handed over’ to them” that which he had received. It is apparent in these passages that the Greek word “paradidomi” could not possibly be translated as “betray.” There is no suggestion that the person who hands over in these cases does so in ill will, unfaithfulness, or secrecy; nor that the person who, or the thing which, is handed over is destined for loss or tragedy or hardship. Rather, just the opposite is implied in these passages, “to be handed over” in these instances was to be passed into good hands, with the likelihood of being cared for and preserved.
Thus I find it amazing that all four of the Evangelists used such a neutral word to describe Judas’ action toward Jesus. For the Evangelists have no love for Judas, nor any tendency to play down the evil of his character or the gravity of his offense. They say in various other passages that Judas was a thief, that the concern which he professed for the poor was a pretense, that he was inspired by Satan, and that he was himself a devil. It is astounding then that the word “paradidomi” should ever have been used in the Gospels for the deed of Judas; and it is especially remarkable that it should be used so consistently. The Gospel writers are not nearly so uniform and consistent in their descriptions of any of the other central facts and events of Jesus’ life. The result of their consistent usage in the Passion is that the focus of attention is on what happens to Jesus, and not on what Judas did. But because of our poor translations of ‘betrayal,’ we have focused too often on the action of Judas, we have made too much of his role, and we have missed the point. For the Passion is not a story of betrayal.
What precipitated the Passion was that Jesus allowed himself to be “handed over,” and the reason Jesus allowed himself to be handed over was, I think, the result of an obvious change of heart on Jesus’ part. Remember that on previous occasions after trouble in Jerusalem, Jesus fled across the Jordan or back to the safety of Galilee. And there was an increasing reluctance on the part of Jesus and his disciples to go about openly among the Jews or even to return to Jerusalem for the high feasts. When Jesus set out for Bethany to raise Lazarus, his disciples tried to dissuade him saying, “Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” (Jn. 11.8). And Jesus characteristically fled back into the wilderness after the news of Lazarus’ raising had reached the Pharisees (Jn. 11.53-4).
Shortly thereafter Jesus and his disciples returned to Bethany, six days before the Passover, and great crowds, we are told, turned out to see him and to see Lazarus, waving palms and crying out “Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” And thus begins the final week of Jesus’ ministry, in that triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
The key to the Passion story, I believe, is found in the Garden of Gethsemane, which is the pivotal story for this week. And the key to the Garden of Gethsemane story is there at the end of Jesus’ prayer: “not my will, but thine (Father), be done.” After that prayer, things changed for Jesus. He seemed less troubled, and he responded to the authorities differently. The root of the Passion is found there, I believe, in Jesus’ changed perspective.
For when the angry mob came soon thereafter to arrest Jesus, he did not flee as he had earlier from the crowd that would have crowned him king, nor did he escape through the throng as he had at Nazareth when they sought to throw him off the cliff, or the several times in Jerusalem when the crowds sought to stone him, or the authorities to arrest him. This time was different. Jesus seemed willing to be handed over. “Whom do you seek?” he asked in the Fourth Gospel. “I am he,” he replied. “Whom do you seek?” he repeated. “I am he . . .not my will, but thine, be done.” Jesus even rebuked Peter who had drawn his sword in his defense, “shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?” he added. And so it was that Jesus of Nazareth was finally apprehended.
This more passive approach contrasts sharply with the descriptions of Jesus’ activity in the Gospels before the Passion. For earlier in the Gospels there is a great deal of activity and Jesus is the initiator of that action. Jesus moved decisively: cleansing the temple, healing the sick, exorcising demons, feeding the multitudes. He was a worker of wonders. In the same way, he spoke effectively, changing situations by his words, stilling the storm, confounding his critics, raising the dead. He was a teacher with authority. But after he has been handed over, there is little emphasis on what Jesus has to say. In fact, Jesus rarely speaks, he is oftentimes surprisingly silent, and when he does speak, his words are inevitably disregarded or ineffective or misunderstood. In the same way after he has been “handed over,” Jesus does not seem capable of acting decisively. It is the actions of others that are decisive. He saved others, but he cannot save himself.
From the moment Jesus is handed over in the Garden of Gethsemane in all the Gospels, the perspective radically changes. Jesus is still there at the center of attention, but he is no longer the initiator of the activity; he is now the recipient. He is arrested, he is bound, he is dragged from place to place, he is beaten, he is spit upon, he is scourged, he is nailed to the cross. It is all done to him, not by him. This is the essential feature of the Passion, Jesus being lead about and handed over, like a lamb to the slaughter.
For sometime after that fateful entry into Jerusalem, most likely there in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus begins to react differently to the world about him; he begins to let go and accept whatever happens. He places himself entirely into God’s hands; “not my will, but thine, be done.” He doesn’t flee or try to escape or argue or speak as he had before. For it is only God that matters now and he trusts in Him. Still there are moments of doubt, as in the Garden, and times of despair, as on the cross. But Jesus doesn’t try to change or alter the situation in the least. He accepts it. He lets it be, he has faith in God, and that is enough. And that was the attitude of Jesus to the very end of his life; even his last words from the cross bespeak his trust in God, when he cried with his last breath, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
I do not believe that Jesus knew exactly what would happen to him in being handed over to the authorities. I do not think that he understood what would become of himself or his death. But it didn’t really matter by then. The only thing that mattered was God, and he trusted in Him.
What did become of it all, though, is where the story resumes next week. AMEN.

“the Resurrected One”

This is the last sermon in a series of seven that I have been preaching during the season of Lent in an endeavor to sketch a life of Jesus from beginning to end. Last Sunday we looked at the final days of Jesus’ public ministry, and how Jesus responded to the events that resulted in his death and Passion.
Two weeks ago, we looked at the several times Jesus predicted his death and resurrection before that triumphant entry in Jerusalem. On three different occasions Jesus is reputed to have told his disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things, that he would be delivered to the chief priests and scribes and be rejected by them, who would condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles, and that they would mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, kill him, and after three days he would rise from the dead. Two weeks ago I expressed my disbelief that Jesus had ever foreseen the exact details of his death and resurrection. The predictions seem to be based upon the later events and then projected backwards by Mark into the story, presumably to show that Jesus was not taken unawares in Jerusalem. But this was Mark’s concern, I think, not Jesus’.
There had been increasing trouble every time Jesus and his disciples went up to Jerusalem. It was nothing new that the crowds turned against Jesus, for at least twice before they had attempted to stone him there (Jn. 8.59, 10.31). It was nothing new that the authorities had tried to arrest him, for they had attempted to arrest Jesus there several times before (Jn 8.20, 10.39). It was nothing new that the authorities were intent to put Jesus to death, for numerous times before they had so contrived (Jn. 5.18, 11.53). Thus it would not be surprising that Jesus had anticipated trouble if he was heading to Jerusalem again. But did he know the exact details of his last days? Did he know specifically that he would be tried and killed, and most importantly, did he know that after three days he would rise from the dead? And did he plainly convey these details to his disciples beforehand? I do not think so.
To begin with, the disciples were surprised and dismayed in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested. Peter even drew his sword to prevent the arrest. And then what did the disciples all do next? According to the Scriptures, they all forsook Jesus and fled (Mk. 14.50). Shortly thereafter Peter panicked and thrice denied knowing Jesus. And Judas, the one who handed Jesus over the authorities, seems so surprised that they condemned Jesus that he repented and hanged himself.
And none of the disciples appear to be expecting the resurrection either. The women who came that first Easter morning to the tomb, came not in anticipation of a predicted resurrection, but came instead with oils and spices to simply finishing burying Jesus. When they reached the place where Jesus was buried, the women discovered that the tomb was empty. To us the Empty Tomb symbolizes the Resurrection, but to the disciples they thought only of a robbed grave. They didn’t strike their foreheads and suddenly remember that Jesus had predicted his rising on the third day. They were instead filled with horror and sadness that his tomb had been desecrated and the body removed.
After a moment of shock, Mary Magdalene broke away from the group and rushed out of the garden to tell Peter and the Beloved Disciple that the tomb was empty. Meanwhile the other women, according to Matthew’s Gospel, met Jesus himself and fell at his feet and worshipped him (Mt. 16.8-9). But when they reported this to the other apostles, according to Luke’s account, their words seemed to be “an idle tale,” and they did not believe them (Lk. 24.9, 11). They were not, it seems, expecting Jesus to live again.
After Mary Magdalene’s report of the Empty Tomb, Peter and the Beloved Disciple ran to see what had happened. The tomb was empty, the linen clothes lying there undisturbed. When the Beloved Disciple entered the tomb after Peter, according to the Fourth Gospel, “he (alone) saw and believed,” but he said nothing. Then the two disciples went back to their homes (Jn. 20.3-10). According to the Fourth Gospel, Mary Magdalene remained outside the tomb, weeping. And as she wept, Jesus appeared to her and asked, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” But she supposing him to be the gardener said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” When he spoke her name, she realized it was the Risen Jesus and she worshipped him (Jn. 20.15-8), and then she went back to the other disciples as “they mourned and wept” and told them that she too had seen the Lord, but according to Mark’s Gospel (Mk. 16.9-11), they would not believe it.
Then later that very day, Jesus appeared to two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who were so excited that they returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven gathered together and told all what had happened and “how (Jesus) had been made know to them in the breaking of the bread” (Lk. 24.35), but according to Mark’s account, the others would not believe it (Mk. 16.13). By the time the two disciples had returned from Emmaus, Jesus had appeared to Simon Peter, because they are told this when they arrived (Lk. 24.33-4). And yet still the company of the disciples did not believe.
And then as they were talking, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. Only Thomas was missing. Yet according to Luke’s Gospel (Lk. 24.36-43), they were startled and frightened by his appearance, and supposed that they saw only a spirit or a ghost, that it wasn’t really Jesus. So Jesus said to them, “Why are you troubled and why do questionings arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And in their joy, we are told, they were disbelieving and still wondering, so he said to them, “Have you anything to eat?” And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he ate before them as if to proved that he was not a ghost, for ghosts do not eat. It was Jesus himself, in all his Resurrected glory. And in Mark’s Gospel, he then upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen (Mk. 16.14).
So it shouldn’t be surprising that when Thomas returned and they told him that they had seen the Lord, that he didn’t believe them; that he demanded proof that it wasn’t just a ghost they saw; that he wanted to see the print of the nails in his hands and put his hand in his side to be sure. Poor Thomas has forever been labelled “the Doubter,” but the other disciples hadn’t come to believe so easily themselves. Except for the Beloved Disciple, none of them had understood the significance of the Empty Tomb, or believed the testimony of the women at the sepulcher, or the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or Mary Magdalene, or even Peter, when they all reported having seen Jesus. And even when they themselves did see him there that night, they thought at first that it was only a spirit, and they questioned in their hearts and disbelieved. Thomas was no different from the others. For belief had not come easily to any of them. None of them seemed to expect or recognize the Resurrection when it happened.
So it is hard for me to imagine that Jesus knew and had thrice predicted the details of his Passion to the disciples that he had spoken plainly to them, that he had foreseen his resurrection after three days. For they seem totally unaware and unbelieving of the events as they unfold. They seem instead only frightened and cowering, and disbelieving, hiding behind closed doors for fear of the Jews.
There is another important clue to the events of that first Easter, hidden in the earliest reports from the Apostles of what had occurred. In all the early sermons as recorded in Acts, as well as in all the letters of Paul, and of Peter, and the one to the Hebrews (cf. Acts 2.23, 2.32, 3.15, 4.10, 5.30 etc.; Rom. 4.24-5, 6.4, 8.11; 1 Cor. 15.4; 2 cor. 4.14; Gal. 1.1; Eph. 1.20; Heb. 13.20, etc.; 1 Pet. 1.21), in all of the earliest accounts of the Resurrection, it is repeatedly and clearly stated that ‘Jesus was raised from the dead.’ The verb in each of these cases is transitive. The subject acting upon the direct object. God raised Jesus. Jesus is simply the recipient of God's activity. Jesus has been raised from the dead by God. It is an action, not of Jesus, but of God. God is the initiator; God is the one who does the thing that is done. It is God's hand that saves.
By the time the Evangelists have written their own accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus, there has been a subtle, but I think, very crucial change in emphasis. For in other places in the four Gospels and in numerous even later accounts, it is stated again and again instead that ‘Jesus rose from the grave.’ The verb tense is changed and becomes intransitive. It appears then to be more Jesus' action, not God's. Jesus rose from the tomb, we now say. "Alleluia Christ is risen" we repeatedly proclaim, "The Lord is risen indeed." He is the active one, and the power seems to belong to Him. Though we may say it in a variety of ways, we have altered the authentic Easter message. And it doing so we make the Resurrection something that Jesus did rather than something which God the Father did. And interestingly, all three of the Passion predictions are in the intransitive form, the later formula, not the earlier one, suggesting again that the Passion predictions are not authentic, but were added later.
Jesus did not know what would happen to him there at the end. He did not know that he would be resurrected. He died like all of us humans, with uncertainty of what lay beyond the grave. As we saw last week, Jesus became passive during his arrest and crucifixion, he allowed himself to be handed over, and he becomes the one acted upon by others. He is arrested. He is bound and dragged from place to place. He is beaten. He is spit upon. He is crucified. He is like a lamb before the slaughter. His own words and actions have become ineffectual.
But Jesus simply trusted in God despite the actions of those around him. He gave no thought of himself, or what would happen to him. It was God’s will that must be done, not his. It was into his Father’s hands that he commended his spirit. Jesus just let go, and let God. It was an act of great and immense trust. It was a redemptive act of faith. And God did not abandon Jesus, but came to his help and rescued him.
And after all the others had done to Jesus as they wished, God is the one who does the thing that is finally done. And it is in the last analysis God's action that matters most, not the others', not Jesus', and not our own.
Thus we are here now to celebrate and proclaim, not that Jesus rose from the tomb, but that God raised him. How He did it, I do not know. I am not even sure why at times. But I am ready to boldly confess my faith in God. For in God and in his activity lies our ultimate hope of eternal life, of our sharing with Jesus in the resurrection of the dead. For God can and will work wonders in our lives, if we but let him, if we but trust in him as Jesus did. For God, and God alone, can make new that which is old in our lives, raise up that which has been put down, recover that which was lost, and bring to life which was dead. And so we sing; Alleluia, Alleluia, God has raised Jesus from the grave. May we also share in his resurrection. Alleluia. AMEN.

BORN IN BETHLEHEM

Micah 5:2 “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel.”

In the seventh chapter of the Fourth Gospel (7:41-2, 52), Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of Booths, and he is teaching in the courtyard of the temple. “Some in the crowd said, ‘This is really the prophet.’ Others said, ‘This is the Messiah.’ But some (there in the crowd) asked, ‘Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he?” “Has not,” they went on to say, “Has not the Scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?’ So there was,” we are told in the Fourth Gospel, “a division in the crowd because of him.” (Jn. 7:40-44).
Earlier in the Fourth Gospel (1:45) “(the Apostle) Philip had gone and found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ (And) Nathanael said to (Philip), “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’” Philip responded, “Come and see.” I, for one, have always been surprised and a little disappointed by Philip’s rather feeble answer to Nathanael’s very serious and thoughtful question, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ For Nathanael’s question, I think, is more than a simple jab at the little town of Nazareth, which is such a small and obscure village in Galilee that is almost lost in the surviving historical and archaeological records. For Nathanael seems instead to be referring to the Hebrew Scriptures. Nathanael seems to be among those Jews in Jesus’ day who believed that the long expected Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. So Nathanael seems to be saying how could Philip believe that he had found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote? How could Philip believe he had found the Messiah, in someone who came not from Bethlehem in Judea but instead came from Nazareth in Galilee? Nathanael is asking a serious question.
The question that haunts me in both of these stories is why didn’t Jesus, or one of his disciples for that matter, simply stand up on either of these two occasions to clarify the situation, to address these serious and legitimate Scriptural concerns? Why didn’t Philip just turn and say to Nathanael in that Gospel story, “No, no, you don’t understand. Jesus is not really from Nazareth of Galilee. He was born in Bethlehem of Judea, like the Scriptures say, like the prophets foretold.
“Don’t you remember the census taken when Quirinius was the governor of Syria? Don’t you recollect that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, and how all the world went to their own towns to be registered? Joseph, Jesus’ father, traveled at that time from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem to be enrolled, and Jesus was born then and there. Don’t you remember the stories told by the shepherds, or by Simeon or Anna from Jerusalem?
“You haven’t forgotten the star that shone brightly in the sky at that time, have you? Don’t you remember the tales of those exotic kings from the East, or the slaughter of innocents in Bethlehem by Herod the King? Don’t you recall the things that Elizabeth his aunt and Mary his mother kept in their hearts? Don’t you know these stories? Don’t you remember?”
Why didn’t Philip or someone else speak up thusly? Why did they leave these important Scriptural questions unaddressed and unanswered here? Did they not really know any of these stories? Were these stories all as unfamiliar to Philip, as they appear to have been to Nathanael? It would seem to me at times that it must have been so.
Nathanael’s question and that from the crowd in Jerusalem raised a serious and significant dilemma for the early Church, if many of the Jews in Jesus’ day did indeed expect the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem. It has been suggested by some scholars that the stories of Jesus being born in Bethlehem were later simply made up later to address these concerns. The stories of Jesus being born in Bethlehem were invented as a means of Christian apologetics against Jewish ridicule of a Messiah who came from Nazareth in Galilee.
And in fact the evidence for Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is much less convincing than one might think. In all of the New Testament, only the second chapters of the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke mention Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. There is no mention of Jesus being born in Bethlehem in any of Paul’s letters, or Peter’s, or John’s, or in the sermons recorded in the book of Acts, all sources earlier than the later Gospels. There is no mention of Jesus being born in Bethlehem in Mark, the earliest of the Gospels, or in the Fourth Gospel. Only Matthew and Luke record this tradition, and they conflict with one and another in their own stories as to how it is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. In Luke’s Gospel, the parents of Jesus appear to live in Nazareth of Galilee, and so a specific reason is given why they were in Bethlehem, where they had no home (2:7), when the child was born --- that famous census under Augustus Caesar that all the world should be enrolled, a census that is otherwise unattested in the historical sources of that time, one that required Joseph to leave Nazareth and to travel to the city of David. Matthew, on the other hand, tells us incidentally that the parents of Jesus lived in Bethlehem, in a house, and that Judea was their homeland (2:11, 22) not Nazareth in Galilee. However, Joseph and Mary in this story had to flee their home in Bethlehem and escape with the child to Egypt because of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, an incident which again is not otherwise historically attested, and then later when the Holy Family returns, as you may remember, Joseph is directed in a dream not to return to Bethlehem, so that the Mary and Joseph settled instead in a new place, in Nazareth of Galilee.
It is with Nazareth that Jesus’ name is most closely connected, as in today’s lesson. For there are numerous references to Jesus being known as a Galilean from Nazareth (Mk. 6:1,4; Mt. 13:54,57; Lk. 4:23,24; Jn. 4:44), but there are only those two references in the early chapters of Luke and Matthew that he was a Judean from that little town of Bethlehem. Even the crowd at the synagogue in his own hometown in Nazareth (Mk. 6:2-3), who were amazed at his teaching; who seemed to know him well and could name his brothers, they seem unaware of any auspicious beginnings or miraculous birth stories for Jesus. “Is not this the carpenter,” they said, “the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” None of his hometown friends and neighbors betrays any knowledge that Jesus had an extraordinary birth in the Davidic city of Bethlehem amidst supernatural signs and wonders and exotic visitors. These neighbors seem instead to be astonished that Jesus has become as famous as he was precisely because such fame was not evidenced by anything extraordinary in his previous family situation at Nazareth; Jesus was just the carpenter’s son.
How can there have been such a general ignorance of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem when his parents as strangers with a small child would have moved to that little town of Nazareth in Galilee, as in Matthew’s account, or else, they would have come back to their home in the village with an infant born to them during a short journey to Bethlehem, as in Luke’s story?
Yet in the end, is it really important to us where Jesus was born? Is it essential to our faith that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, important enough to make up such stories, or to insist upon our believing them when there is so much conflicting evidence? Many might suggest so. But it is here, perhaps, that Philip’s answer to Nathanael makes so much more sense. “Nathanael, Nathanael, you are worrying about details; you are too anxious about the wrong things,” Philip seems to be saying. “Who cares where Jesus was born? ‘Come and see,’” he says instead. “Come and see him for yourself, Nathanael. Get to know him first, before you judge him by any other standards. Just come and see Jesus --- for when you have done so, nothing else will really matter. AMEN.

THE SEPTUAGINT AND THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

THE SEPTUAGINT AND THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

Matthew 3:1 “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’’”

About 350 years before Christ, Alexander the Great led his conquering Macedonia armies through the Holy Land on their way to conquer Persia and invade India. Although Alexander himself died young, his extended Empire held sway for hundreds of years thereafter. Even after the Roman Empire superseded the Greek, the Greek language and the Greek culture continued to dominate the Western world.
Jesus may have spoken Aramaic, but the language of arts and letters in his day, even in Palestine, was Greek, not Latin or even Hebrew. That is why all of the books of the New Testament were written in Greek, even though they were all written by Jews. Indeed the Jews in Holy Land appear to have been reading their own Scriptures not from their original Hebrew, but from a Greek translation, known as the Septuagint, made about 250 years before Christ for the famous Greek library in Alexandria. The Septuagint was so influential that in Jesus’ day that Greek translation was more widely read and better known than the Hebrew originals, even in Palestine. For whenever the New Testament writers quote the Hebrew Old Testament, they do so from the Greek translation, and never from the original Hebrew. This is remarkable in and of itself. Yet, we must also remember that all translations contain errors, and this is true of the Septuagint as well. And though most of the errors are minor, there are two major mistranslations in the New Testament that affect its meaning and its impact.
The first of these can be found in the Gospel lesson today. Today’s reading from St. Matthew portrays John the Baptist as fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah. Isaiah wrote that a voice cries out, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” In beautifully poetic language, the author of Isaiah fills the Jewish people in captivity in Babylon with the hope of returning home.
In the Greek Septuagint of the book of Isaiah, there was a slight mistranslation that altered the prophet’s image and the prophet’s meaning, and this can be seen reflected in the Gospel reading of this morning. In the original Hebrew, the prepositional phrase “in the wilderness” modified “the way of the Lord,” that is, the way of the Lord, the highway back to Jerusalem, would be out there in the wilderness, out in the desert between their captivity in Babylon and their homeland in Judea. In the Greek Septuagint, however, that phrase “in the wilderness” was mistranslated so as to modify not where the way of the Lord was to be found, but instead to modify where the voice was, that was calling the people to prepare for the way, that ‘voice crying out in the wilderness,’ a phrase so familiar to us all especially at this season of Advent that we are often surprised that it is not there in the Hebrew original of the Book of Isaiah.
Because of the mistranslation and because the Septuagint version was so popular, the Jews in Jesus’ days, reading the Greek translation of their own Hebrew Scriptures, were looking for a voice to be crying out in the wilderness to bring them back to God. Whole communities, like the one at Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found, moved out into the dessert to await the great day of the Lord, to be there when the voice appeared. And so it is little wonder that people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem are reported in today’s reading as going out to see and to hear John the Baptist. It is no surprise that the Baptist crying out on Jordan’s bank was perceived by many as the one fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy, that he was seen and understood as that voice crying out in the wilderness.
So what real difference does it make, if this prophecy was mistranslated in this way? Both talk about preparing for the coming Kingdom of God. Both talk about the way of the Lord in the desert. But in the Greek version, the voice itself is out in the wilderness like a new Moses, reminding the Jewish people of that long and hard Exodus from their slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. The wilderness for them represents hardship and struggle. John confirms this understanding in today’s reading with his attire and his diet, wearing camel’s hair and eating locust and honey. This time of preparing is going to be hard, it is a time of sacrifice and preparation, of judgment and condemnation, of repentances and washing clean our sins, of bearing good fruit lest we be burned as chaff in an unquenchable fire. John the Baptist’s message is one of urgency, judgment and condemnation. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come,” he tells the Pharisees and Sadducees from Jerusalem, that “brood of vipers.” “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” We must prepare ourselves for the coming Kingdom of God.
In Isaiah, the original Hebrew emphasis was different. The prophetic voice was to be found, not out in the desert, but amongst the people there in captivity in Babylon. It was not a distant cry they heard, not a stranger who spoke out, but one among them who proclaimed comforting words, a fellow captive who prophesied to them that there long time of captivity was drawing to an end. And the voice they heard was not telling them to prepare themselves, was not telling them to repent or make amends. The voice of the prophet Isaiah was a voice of consolation. “Comfort, O comfort ye my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid. . .”
What a contrast these words make with those of John the Baptizer there on Jordan’s bank, who hurled curses that those from the city who came to hear him preach. John spoke words of judgment and condemnation, while Isaiah spoke words of comfort and consolation.
I find Isaiah’s original message more reassuring than John’s interpretation. In Isaiah, God knows that we are exiled and that we long to go home, and that we cannot get there on our own; God knows that we are captives here, prisoners behind this vale of tears. In Isaiah, it is God who is going to come and rescue us. It is God’s activity that matters here, not ours. The prophet of the exile reassures his people, not with a call to repentance, but with glad tidings, with reassurances that the Lord has heard their plea, and that the Lord will come, with a promise that the pathway through the wilderness back home will be made easy and smooth this time, the high places will be brought low and the low places raised up, to create level ground upon which for the people of God to return to the Promised Land, not like that Exodus of long ago with Moses. This time in the dessert the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them home. The message of Isaiah, like that of Jesus, is of God of mercy and compassion, a loving father who will gather us up in his arms and carry us home.
This, I believe, is the true message of Advent, the promise of Christ’s coming. It is not a time of judgment and damnation, it is not a season of penitence and foreboding, but it is a time of hope and comfort and longing. It is the season of a light shining in the darkness. God knows that we are exiled here, that our life is hard, that we long for a better world than this, that we yearn to be freed from the pain and sorrow of our lives, and that we cannot save ourselves. And we hear God’s voice in reply, not calling us from the wastelands, but we hear his voice here among us in our captivity. And then we find him born amongst us, showing us the way home. AMEN.