PALM SUNDAY
When we see Jeshua as God incarnate we're inclined to read his life as steps taken in fulfilling a program set by the Father – a miracle here, a parable there, a question asked in expectation of a particular answer. Almost robot-like. We don't notice spontaneous decisions mentioned in the gospels, and a mistake seems impossible. It's a bit unreal when we read it this way. Like anyone else, Jesus sometimes made a decision that turned out to be a mistake and there were times he hesitated, not knowing what to do next.
I wonder would we get a better understanding if we imagined his life's journey as he might have experienced it. It is most important to keep in mind that Jeshua experienced life with all its uncertainties exactly as we do. The divine nature did not override the human experience. Luke makes the point not once but twice right at the start:
And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth... And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him. (2:39-40)
And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man. (2:52)
No need to go into these records. Let 's use our imagination to place ourselves within the mind of Jeshua as his life unfolds before him, much as ours unfolds for us day by day and year by year. For Jeshua's journey was just like ours with uncertainties, set-backs, expectations, disappointments as we make our way by trial and error towards an unknown future. There are successes to celebrate too.
(This reflection is longer than usual. I hope it will be an easy read. If short of time, Part II might stand on it's own.)
Glimpses of a Life
Something happened when he went down to the Jordan to get baptised by his cousin John. A flash of light, perhaps just a moment of insight, as he wondered why John had hesitated. To be a son of God – what does it mean? What does it take? We're all children of God, aren't we? Do some have a mission, a special job to do?
Back home Jeshua couldn't settle after that. The experience had made him uneasy and he didn't know why, so as thousands had done before him, he took off to the desert. Out there he immersed himself in the great emptiness and listened to the silence. It was not the peaceful time he'd hoped for and no clarity came. The first week stretched into a second, then a third, and still nothing. Inevitably the whole of life passed through his mind as he wondered about the people he knew at home and on the building sites where he worked. What was it that made everyone unsatisfied? Did their religious practices help them to find a peaceful centre in themselves? What if the rituals were no help? He puzzled about this through his last weeks, fighting off the hunger but getting dangerously weak,
Then it dawned on him that the approach was totally wrong. They were going in the wrong direction, trying to find happiness through rituals when he found it just in the communion of the Spirit with the Father. As he always had since he was a child! The synagogue teaching was very legalistic, but the real problem came from the temple where, as he knew from experience, they were full of their own importance and not humble before God. Wasn't it Micah who said: “This is what the Lord asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God"? Why wasn't this enough?
"I wonder could this be turned around?" he asked himself. “How would you start? Get together a small team to share ideas, to work together maybe... But on what authority? What if the synagogue or the pharisees challenged you? Could you just work a miracle – make stones turn to bread? Or jump off the roof to show that God is supporting you? I don't think so!"
Then the spirit of evil came out of hiding, suggesting the easy way: If you join forces with the powers that run the world, you'll have all the resources you need.
"Attractive certainly, but wait a moment. If you do that, would you retain some independence, or not? To put the question is to know the answer: It's all or nothing with the World of Power. It would be to worship the devil himself..." Time to go home!
Back home. Back at work. Weeks passed as he thought through an approach that wouldn't get him stoned the first day. In the end he could not delay any longer. He left Nazareth for the lakeside town of Caphernaum which was not isolated like Nazareth but busy with trade and travellers. Setting out for the unknown he wondered about the reception he might expect. Would they humiliate him with the popular jibe: Can anything good come from Nazareth?
Learning from experience
Mostly his teaching among the people was so successful it was humbling. So many exciting encounters with people of every kind. When someone came to him with a problem illness or suffering a terrible loss like the death of a child he was instinctively moved to compassion. He put his hands on their head and prayed with them, sharing his deep trust and hope. He was always a little surprised when they felt much better, and the people always crowding around him were amazed.
Early on he had chosen four fishmen to start a team of disciples. These lads were down-to-earth working people who had little time for fancy talk, but still things happened that left them wondering. Like the time on the lake when a storm came up suddenly. It was fierce and very dangerous. He'd been having a nap in the bow while they rowed, and he woke to see they were close to exhaustion and beginning to panic. “Don't be afraid!” he called out over the howling wind. They looked up at him in amazement that he'd say something as stupid as that. Wasn't he afraid?
Then the storm blew itself out and suddenly there was a total calm. The air was still, the sea settling gently. That really spooked them all, himself included. He often thought about this and wondered if they had been protected, and if so, what did it mean? Had he some important job to do, with these lads as helpers?
Was this reasonable? Is it sensible to trust God that much that he would calm a storm at sea to protect you? Well, maybe Yes. Surely God cared for every living creature. Look at the birds in the air, the flowers in the field. So beautiful. So vigorous in their living. How could anyone who made such beauty not care for it, even when in the nature of things death came just naturally, or sometimes suddenly when the lovely creature became a meal for something bigger. The Father must care for us people even more.
We are troubled by disasters, like when a tower collapses and kills the builders trapped under the bricks and stones. Were these people more sinful than anyone else? No. In fact we just don't know. But we do know that the Father has as much care for them even in death. What is death anyway? A lot of people today believe life doesn't end in death. It goes on as some kind of state of blessedness “in the Father's bosom” as the old saying has it. Jeshua certainly believed that most strongly.
Testing the limits
He travelled widely, as far west as the sea-coast towns of Tyre and Sidon, outside the Jewish domain for sure, but even there he was surprised to find faith in some who had great needs. He was deeply mortified to remember how badly he had treated a woman who came pestering them.
They often went through Samaria. He liked the Samaritans. They seemed to be more open to new possibilities than the Jews he knew in Galilee. It was not the same over to the south-east beyond the Jordan.
He ventured only once into the Decapolis where they found a poor man in the cemetary, mad and prone to self-harm. Jeshua felt this man was indeed possessed by some evil compulsion and he spoke firmly: "Leave him!" A great peace came over the man, but at that same time a herd of pigs got spooked by something, and bolted down the hill and clean over the cliff and were killed. Probably it was natural for those people to ask him to leave their lands, but all the same he felt they had not much faith or trust and he had better to leave them alone at this stage.
Coming to grips with the mission
Once they went north, all the way up the Jordan valley to Caesarea Philippi, the popular holiday place for the rich at the ancient site where the Greeks had worshiped their nature-god Pan. It felt odd in this pagan place, lolling about beside the clear stream bubbling out of the rock. Jeshua shared some thoughts quietly with those close by: “Who do the people think I am?” He wondered because he had begun to see himself as somehow blessed in a very unusual way. A range of names came from the disciples: John the baptiser, Elijah, just one of the prophets, even Jeremiah (and he wondered why!).
Then he asked them, “And what about you, lads? Who do you think I am?” It was Simon who spoke very softly, even shyly. Unusual for him. “I think you are the Messiah,” he said, looking down at his hands. “You know, Simon,” Jeshua said. “I think that is an insight that can only come from the Spirit. You're beginning to see with other than human eyes. You're blessed for that.”
They sat on in silence for a long while after that. Then Jeshua started to share some of his worries: “It's going to be very hard to finish what we've started, you know,” he said. “We'll need to go up to Jerusalem and let the temple scholars and the priests hear what we've got to say. I wonder will I get out of that alive, or end up on a Roman cross.” Simon was shocked. “Oh, no!” he protested. “Don't think like that. You'll be all right. Nothing will happen to you.” “Simon! Simon! Now you're thinking human thoughts, not G-Ds thoughts at all. You're playing the devil's role now, trying to scare me and weaken my resolve to do what has to be done whatever the risk.”
After another long silence, Jeshua noticed Simon had become very withdrawn, and he said to him: “It's all right, Simon. Don't feel so bad about it. Listen, I call you Peter because you'll be the rock on which the community will be set up. You can be a leader because you are solid, reliable, generous to a fault, and you care. You'll support the others and lead by example. You have spiritual insight too, and that's essential.”
Mistakes there were
Mostly they were good times walking the dusty roads of Galilee but things went wrong occasionally. The day he had a big crowd on the eastern side of the lake nearly ended in disaster. He asked the lads to share what they had for lunch with the crowd. What happened when they did this reminded people of the Elijah story when the prophet asked a poor widow for something to eat but she was at the end of her last reserve. Nevertheless, she agreed to share with him what little was left - and the jar was never empty.
A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd, and he could see groups of men in serious discussion, glancing his way now and then. Were they going to make him king? Can't do that. Herod would send troops to put down the movement before it had even started. So he quietly slipped away up into the hills.
Even worse was that time in Nazareth. Back home to visit the family, they all went to synagogue on the Sabbath. Jeshua was taken a-back when they invited him to speak. He'd always tried to be just one of the men about town in Nazareth. You don't put yourself above the people you grew up with. As he mounted the pulpit he was desperate for an idea. He took the scroll and rolled it off with one hand and on with the other, glancing at every column, looking for a suitable text.
He wished he could get out of it like Jeremiah with his famous and witty pretext: 'Ah-ah-ah. Lord, I can't even speak. I'm a child.' (Jer 1:6) Then he saw it: Isaiah explaining that his mission had been given to him by the Spirit. It was never something he sought. So he took a deep breath and read: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach 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. As he read he was trying to put the emphasis on the Spirit, because it was not himself but the Spirit that had anointed him to preach. But of course these men he had grown up with heard it as boasting. The whole episode nearly ended in him being thrown down the cliff, but somehow he was able to move through the crowd and get out of town safely.
What will it take?
By the third year people in Galilee were losing their enthusiasm, even getting disillusioned. Everyone wanted to see the kingdom of God burst out in an uprising against the Romans and the Herods who ruled under Roman protection, but this must not happen. He was convinced the kingdom could only come through a change in how we think, not through violence but through an individual, personal change of heart - in fact a U-TURN in how we see things. Each one had to see the truth for themselves and learn to live it.
Going through the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness, he felt so much compassion for the distressed and dispirited crowds that it hurt - a never-ending heartache. They were like sheep without a shepherd. Sometimes he realised that the intensity of his feeling came from love for them, for all of them. After all, what is it to love but to share the other's pain. The way we give someone a bit of ourselves, to love them and support them is to feel with them. "Compassion" - to be with them in their pain.
But then, there's no support in wishful thinking unless it's backed up with action to help make life better. And he wasn't making much headway with his teaching. If he left off at this point, he'd be quickly forgotten. To make a lasting impact, sooner or later he would have to risk everything.
Bit by bit it became clear that he had go right to the centre and confront the men in Jerusalem, in the temple itself. In spite of his friends warning him that the city had become too dangerous for him, he could see no other way. So as the saying goes, he set his face for Jerusalem. Even then his approach to the city was a series of stops and starts, with a banquet put on by a leading pharisee on one occasion, and a quiet stay with friends in Bethany a bit later. Rumour had it that there were people in the city who actually wanted to see him, to hear what he had to say, but he didn't trust that sort of talk.
On one occasion he let the disciples go on without him, and then changed his mind and followed them quietly a few days later; some of them got their nose out of joint over that but he explained you've just got to do what you've got to do, and like it or not he could not go against what he knew deep down was his purpose, even his destiny, unpleasant as that might turn out to be.
It seemed important at that stage to make sure they understood that anyone who was going to learn from him had to follow his way right to the end, and it wouldn't be easy. Putting his life on the line in Jerusalem was not an option. It was necessary, unavoidable, inevitable, because otherwise his teaching would lack that punch required for people to take him seriously. He could so easily be written off as another gutless pretender with big ideas. He must, himself, stand up in witness to the truth.
Nevertheless he still clung desperately to the idea he could achieve something without too much trouble. It was only later in that last week that he realised it was over, and then he made sure to spend a few last hours of freedom with his friends, in the olive grove outside the city.
Jerusalem for better or for worse
So here they were, on the long climb up from Jericho to top the mount of olives and as always be thrilled at the sight of the city with the temple directly below them, gleaming in the morning light. Suddenly Jeshua had an idea. If he rode a donkey into the city, it would be a sign he came in peace. Wasn't it Zechariah who'd said, "Your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, peaceful and riding on a donkey"? The ones you had to be afraid of came riding on horseback, surrounded by a mounted guard ready to cut down any who dared stand in their way.
When they saw him on the donkey the people remembered that, in the prophecy, it was the great king who would come riding a donkey. Nothing could have been further from Jeshua's purpose, but once the idea had caught on there was no stopping it. They began chanting an old refrain: "Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest". Soon people were coming out of the city to join in. Well, the die was cast now and whatever unfolded from here on, he knew he had to give it his all.
By the time they came to the gates, the whole city was there to see what was going on. Above the chanting and general clamour you could hear people calling out: "What's going on? Who is this riding on a donkey?" And his followers and their friends shouted back, "This is Jeshua the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee." He knew then there was nothing for it but to throw caution to the winds. This was the moment to confront the temple priests and the scholars. It was their turn to hear God's word of truth, to acknowledge the truth and turn around to a different path, to work out a way to give true honour to the Holiest One in spirit, and not just in the sacrifice of animals.
And right there, as they crowded through the temple gate they were confronted with money changers and traders. People had to exchange their Roman coins for temple coins before they could buy their lamb or their dove for Passover. They'd take it home with them now and bring it back on the day before Passover to be slaughtered by the priests and only then could they roast it for that special family dinner. They were fleeced at every turn, of course. It was so unfair that they couldn't bring their own best lamb, and kill it themselves as they did at home, whenever they could afford one for the family. Mostly their lambs had to go to market for the cash needed to pay taxes and buy bread.
Suddenly, spontaneously, without a second thought, Jeshua got really angry. He picked up a bit of rope and started flailing the traders, telling them to get out of the temple court, kicking over the tables of the money changers, spilling coin all over the floor. Luckily the sudden onslaught frightened them so much they grabbed what they could and ran. He was fortunate not to get lynched by the mob right there.
He was just getting his breath back when the priests arrived to demand an explanation. "What right have you got to do this?" In that moment everything had become very serious indeed.