Daily Post for Good Friday, April 18, 2014

Special from Jerusalem

A tumultuous week in the Judean city of Jerusalem came to an end today when Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish religious leader who many Jews claimed to be the Messiah but who Sanhedrin and some Roman officials saw as a threat to Pax Romana, was crucified on grounds of treason against the Empire.

Tensions mounted on Sunday when Jesus and his disciples marched into the capital and blocked the entryway to the Jewish Temple where thousands of pilgrims came to celebrate the Jewish Passover Festival.  This was the second time in three years Jesus' protest actions put a temporary stop to Temple transactions.  On Sunday it was reported he disrupted religious ritual by turning over the tables of the Temple Court money changers and chasing those selling sacrificial animals out of the courtyard.  Later Jesus purportedly threatened to take his protests even further.  Witnesses say he threatened to destroy the Temple altogether and to then raise it up after three days.

Jesus' actions jeopardized an already tenuous truce existing between Jewish religious and political authorities and Roman peacekeeping forces during the Passover Festival.  As Passover is a holiday celebrating the ancient Hebrews escape from slavery in Egypt, it has in recent years been a week fraught with clashes between Roman soldiers and pro-liberation extremists.  The actions of Jesus and other zealot-minded Jews necessitated Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea, to move the bulk of his force from the Judean capital of Caesarea Maritima to Jerusalem for the festival to ensure order.  There was speculation Pilate might even go so far as to decide to shut the city down altogether if peace could not be assured.

But Jerusalem religious officials moved quickly Monday to keep crowds in order during the festival.  "The Feast of Passover is a religious event - not a political one.  The great masses of Jews are peace-loving people who are glad for the peace and prosperity Rome has brought to the region," Zacharias of Bethany, a member of the Sanhedrin said in a public statement endorsed by the body.  The statement went on to denounce Jesus.  "We reject the kind of opportunism exhibited in people like Jesus of Nazareth.  He is an extremist, an outside agitator whom the prefect is justified in apprehending."

Rival separatist leaders were quick to release their own statement in turn.  "The so-called peace Rome has brought is no peace at all," the separatist statement said.  God's promise for our people and our land is a promise for freedom.  It is a promise given to our Father Abraham and verified in the blood of the Passover lamb.  Moses did not lead our people across the Red Sea only to in turn now be slaves in our own land."

It was notable, however, that the separatist statement did not mention Jesus by name.  Jewish political observers suggest a leader like Jesus is unlikely to garner the support of pro-liberation Jews because of his apparent openness toward Gentiles, including a highly publicized meeting between Jesus and a Roman centurion in the Galilean town of Capernaum.  As one religious expert put it: "Jesus may wear Moses' sandals, but he does not carry his staff."

But it wasn't Moses who came to mind when Jesus made his way into town Sunday.  Instead it was David, the greatest of Israel's past kings.  As Jesus entered the city, sitting proudly astride a small colt - a gesture intended to reenact an ancient Jewish royal tradition - crowds lined the path shouting, "Hosanna," - a Hebrew word meaning "save" - "to the Son of David."  The crowd's message was clear.  They wanted their king - and they did not mean the Emperor Tiberius.

By Friday, however, it was evident to all in Jerusalem that Jesus was not the king they were looking for.  Late Thursday night he was arrested by Temple police and found guilty by the Sanhedrin in a hastily organized emergency trial.  Early Friday morning the Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to Pilate requesting the execution of the man known as "the Nazorean" on grounds of treason.  By 3pm that afternoon Jesus' body hung bloody and lifeless from a tree atop a high ridge just outside of the city.  At Pilate's order a sign was placed over his body written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews".

The pointedness of the sign was characteristic of Pilate's strong-armed reputation as prefect, but conflicted with what sources close to Pilate say actually happened inside the governor's courtyard.  Those sources reveal the case against Jesus was not as cut and dry as Jesus' accusers, and later the sign, suggested.  The sources said Pilate saw the conflict over Jesus as primarily a struggle for control among the ranks of Jewish leaders; as such, Pilate was inclined to have Jesus simply flogged and released.  In the end, however, political expedience won out, sources say, as Pilate became convinced that Jesus' execution was in the best interest of the Sanhedrin and the region as a whole.  "It is better that one man should die than the whole nation perish," said a Sanhedrin member speaking on condition of anonymity.

Whether that man was innocent or guilty was apparently beside the point for Pilate.  This is Judea - one of the most lawless places in the Roman Empire and insiders within Praetorium say law and order will only be regained if the Jewish people learn not only to avoid treason but also even the appearance of treason.

On Friday afternoon a dark cloud settled over the city as the Nazorean struggled in his final hours of crucifixion.  It was a short time as these things go, but agonizing for those who kept watch.  A commiserate spirit among the onlookers accompanied the man's last gasps.  A woman was heard gently weeping in the distance.  "We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel," she said through her tears.  "We had hoped."  That was when Jesus, "King of the Jews" hung his head and died.

Pilate ordered the body be pulled down from the cross and given to some of Jesus' followers.  As the soldiers lowered the cross to its parallel position those around could see the body more clearly in its gruesome and mangled state.  One of the soldiers, who stood guard throughout the execution, looked up from the body and toward Jesus' followers and then spoke.  The language was Aramaic, but the words were spoken with the tongue of someone who grew up in perhaps the Palermo region.  "This," he said, "was a son of God."  

It was not altogether obvious what the soldier meant.

Daily Lesson for April 17, 2014

We continue in our Daily Lessons to reflect on the last week of Jesus' life. Today we reflect on Mark chapter 14, remembering the Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples and what he did while at table with them:

22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many."

On that last night, Jesus and his disciples sat for the Passover meal, a meal commemorating the deliverance of God's people from bondage in Egypt. During dinner, Jesus stood for what the disciples would have expected to be a traditional reflection on the meaning of the Passover lamb, whose blood had been offered as a sacrifice in the Temple and whose meat was now before them. Instead Jesus did something quite different. He stood and gave the disciples two powerful images: bread, which he broke with an intent, tearing manner saying, "This is my body." And a cup of wine which he brought to the lips of each of his disciples whispering softly and intimately into their ears, "This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of your sins."

We do not know if it was clear to the disciples on that night what was happening, or if it dawned on them afterward - perhaps during the long, grievous hours when Jesus hung upon the cross. He was reinterpreting the Passover story through his own story. Like the Passover lamb, whose blood had been shed and body flayed for the sake of the Israelites, now Jesus' blood would be shed and body broken for the sake of salvation of all. Blood, a symbol of uncleanness, and a broken body which would never have been allowed to enter into the Temple in Jerusalem, would join together to become a new, holy Temple in the person of Jesus. It is the Temple which was soon to be destroyed, yet would be raised up in three days, and would be open to all people to come and find forgiveness and deliverance from sin. Like the Passover lamb, his blood too would be shed for the deliverance of Israel - and for the rest of the world also.

We do not know that the disciples put all of this together at the table that night. I suspect they didn't. But later, when they thought of the bread and the cup and what Jesus said, they realized why out in the wilderness three years before John the Baptist first introduced Jesus to them with these words, "Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world."

Daily Lesson for April 16, 2014

We continue in our Daily Lessons from the last week of Jesus' life. Today's lesson comes from Mark 12 verse 7:

7 But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’

As Jesus taught in the Temple in that last week of his life, he told a parable to those around the courtyard, including the chief priests and Pharisees in charge of the Temple. It was a thinly disguised story designed to highlight the greed of the ruling class in Jerusalem, and God's patience in sending the prophets to try get them to change, culminating, finally, in the sending of His own Son.

There was a rich man, Jesus began, who planted a vineyard and built a fence around it to protect it. He leased the vineyard out to tenants and then went away to a distant land. When the time was right he sent back a servant to collect some of the fruits from he vineyard. But they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. So the owner of the vineyard sent another servant whom the tenants struck and abused. Then the owner sent another whom they killed. He sent many others, whom the tenants either beat or killed. Finally the vineyard owner decided to send his own son. "They will respect him," he thought. When the tenants saw that the master was sending his own son they decided to kill him also saying, "Come, let's kill the son so the inheritance will be ours." And so they did. They killed him, Jesus said.

"Now," Jesus asked his listeners, "when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" "He will put those wretches to a miserable death," they said.

My interpretation: Their conclusion to the story showed just how little they knew about the heart of God.

Daily Lesson for April 15, 2014

We continue our Daily Lessons from the last week of Jesus' life. Yesterday Jesus disrupted the marketplace in the Temple courtyard. Now the following:

27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, 28 and they said to him, "By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” 29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”

Here is the first of two stories which demonstrate Jesus' political smarts.

After disrupting the Temple, Jesus is confronted by the religious authorities. At least some of these men were already considering having Jesus killed. "With what kind of authority are you doing these things?" they ask. Jesus says he'll answer where he gets his authority so long as they answer where they think John the Baptist got his authority.

John was the last and greatest prophet of ancient Judaism. Born into the priestly line, John would by birthright also have been a priest. But in adulthood he rejected the religious system in Jerusalem and formed an anti-establishment Judaism in the wilderness where he taught against ethnic pride, economic exploitation and military oppression. The community he founded was an ascetic one, dedicated to simplicity of life, the sharing of possessions and the study of Torah.  It was open to anyone who would chose to come and live in its way. John's community was an obvious rejection of the lavishly set apart lifestyle of the religious elites in Jerusalem.  Thousands came to be baptized by John there. After his execution, John's popularity rose to a kind of folk hero status among the masses. 

The religious elites in Jerusalem, though often the objects of John's contempt while he was alive, knew John was too popular to speak against in his death.

"Where did John the Baptist get the authority to do the things he did? Was it a human thing or God thing?"

We do not know," those confronting Jesus said.

"Well then," Jesus said, "neither will I tell you where I get my authority."

Jesus' point was clear: if you can't recognize the things John did as God things, then you won't be able to recognize the things Jesus was doing either.

And that was another reason to go ahead and have him killed.

Daily Lesson for April 14, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Mark 11:

15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 

It is Holy Week and I want to take this week's lessons to reflect on the last week of Jesus' life and the events which led up to his death.

When Jesus came into Jerusalem that last week he engaged in what was clearly a very intentional protest against the cultic system set up in and around the Temple. The system was set up so that the faithful who came to offer their religious sacrifices in Jerusalem were taken advantage of with exorbitant rates of exchange for temple coins and outrageous costs for "pure" animals to be sacrificed. Thus Jesus called the money changers and those selling pigeons "robbers" and interrupted their business by not allowing anyone to carry animals through the Temple.

It was a drastic measure - but a necessary one. The religious elite in Jerusalem and all the others who profited from the religious trade had set up a pervasive system of religious exploitation which they made them a ton of money through the sale of purification, forgiveness, and atonement with God. Jesus disapproved of the exploitative prices; that is why he labeled the place a den of robbers. But even more to the heart of things, Jesus disapproved of the whole idea that atonement with God is something that can be bought, sold, or gained through the sacrifice of an animal. For Jesus, the Temple cult did not simply need reform - it needed to end altogether.

Psalm 51 says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart . . ." Jesus taught that these are things that one either has or does not have within him or herself. They cannot be sold by or purchased from a religious institution.

And it is for that teaching that the religious institution decided this Jesus of Nazareth had to be killed - because he was bad for business.

Daily Lesson for April 11, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 22 verse 1:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Sometimes someone will come to me struggling with something, some loss or disappointment or perhaps abuse, and because they are good and want to remain faithful they will say, "I know I'm not supposed to question God." When they say that I say back, "Why not? Jesus did."

The truth is we can not not question God. There are too many losses, hurts, injustices, miseries, and mysteries in life not to have questions. The task of faith is not so much not asking God, "Why?", but rather seeking to ask God, "Why?" in trust and in hope.

That's what Jesus did. When on the cross, in the midst of unimaginable physical and emotional torment, he asked, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Gentiles who heard this probably thought he was giving up all faith, but the Jews would have recognized he was actually quoting a psalm - Psalm 22, which is about a man who being tortured to death and asks God, "Why?", yet nevertheless speaks his hope that though he will die, nevertheless he will one day worship God alive. In asking, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus was not renouncing His faith; He was actually clinging to it.

Remaining faithful does not mean never questioning God. Rather, it means going ahead and coming to God with the deep, burdening questions which trouble our souls and test our faith. And it means learning to do so in a spirit of open relationship with God and trust in His goodness and ultimate vindication.

Such trust was beautifully illustrated in the life of the great preacher William Sloane Coffin. In 1983, Coffin's son Alex was killed in an automobile accident. After The accident, Coffin returned to his iconic Riverside Church and preached a sermon titled "Alex's Death". In the sermon he too quoted Psalm 22. Yes, Coffin asked, "My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me?" But then he spoke again, emphatically and with deep conviction, "But . . . My God, My God."

Daily Lesson for April 10, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Exodus 8 verse 15:

"But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to [Moses and Aaron], as the Lord had said."

The desire to escape pain is a real motivator in getting people to stop self-destructive habits temporarily, but it does not in and of itself lead to deep and lasting life transformation unless accompanied by an absolute surrender of the will to God.

Pharaoh is Exhibit A in this. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and asked that the Israelites be given permission to go and worship in the wilderness. Pharaoh refused and so brought forth a plague of blood on the river and a plague of frogs on the land. Pharaoh relented, but as soon as the blood and frogs ceased, his heart was hardened again. He would go through the same ritual of half-conversion and then relapse ten times, until finally his family, his army, and his country had all been decimated. All because he would not allow his heart to be truly changed.

Real change does not happen without total surrender of the will and life to God. This means a radical reorientation of life. For me it meant dropping out of school, changing cities, and moving in with an eighty-some-odd year-old Baptist deacon who I knew wasn't going to get me into trouble. Your transformation may call for something even more radical. If so, do what is necessary; your life and the life of your family depend on it. 

Do not end up like Pharaoh.

In the Battle of Fort Donelson in 1862, Ulysses S. Grant received a request for terms of surrender from the fort's commanding Confederate officer, Simon Bolivar Buckner. Grant wrote back saying, "no terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted."

That's pretty much the same thing God says to everyone of us.