Tag: life of Jesus

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The Once and Future

About eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.  And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.  And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.     Luke 9:28-31

Eight busy days pass—preaching healing traveling—before Jesus has more alone time.  He takes his inner inner circle with him this time: Peter the natural leader, John and disciple he loved, and James . . . just because. Imagine these three, doubtless pleased (and proud) to be selected to accompany the Master.  They might even strut a little, if it’s possible to strut while climbing a mountain, exchanging excited whispers about what might be waiting for them up there.  They sense a new purpose in Jesus, a certain intensity that tells them something big is about to happen.  And they’re in on it!  How lucky is that?

(Looking ahead: James will be the first of the twelve to die, and his brother John the last.)

The reason he takes them: a special executive meeting has been called, and they are witnesses.  But while he is praying, a deep sleep falls upon them.

Remember Abraham in Genesis 15?  After assembling the animals (in halves) for the covenant ceremony, a deep sleep overwhelms him when the LORD approaches, and Abraham awakes to terror and darkness.  Now the Father is approaching the mountain where his Son prays, sending ahead the embodiment of Law and Prophesy, his great Old Testament witnesses and mediators.  The burden of history rolls up the mountain with them: centuries of sacrifice and blood and burning offal; of lawlessness and judgment and captivity.  And here the burden stops.

Moses and Elijah—the real men, not their ghosts—are learning what it was all for.  The plot and its transfigurationessential elements are being explained by the author himself.  Angels have longed to look into these things, and now the great secret is cracking open, degree by degree.  Are the two great witnesses here to encourage Jesus, or to be informed?  Could be either, or both.

Peter, James, and John stir from their deep sleep while the conversation is going on.  They hear voices first, speaking.  Maybe not in a language they know, but they are allowed to catch the drift: “departure” in Jerusalem?  They look up, and their eyes burn.  They know it’s Jesus, but his face! like a bolt of lightning, and his clothes! So dazzling white they burn.  As their eyes become adjusted they see the two figures with him–also radiant–and somehow know who they are.  Moses and Elijah have burned a hole in time and hold the moment suspended, with Peter, James, and John inside.  Then it tops, the glory begins to fade, and Peter has to open his big mouth.

Mark tells us he didn’t what he was saying, but apparently he felt the need to say something.  Typical.  He proposes three tabernacles, or dwelling places, because Jesus is surely equal to Moses and Elijah!  Or maybe even above those two, but still, we have to have three tents right here.

Or perhaps, as some commentators believe, he wanted to stay in this moment forever.  Whatever his motivation, he was silenced by the cloud—a cloud reminiscent of another mountain, well known to Moses, where God came down and spoke directly to his people and terrified them so much they begged he never do it again.

No lightning and earthquakes this time, just the voice.  This is the voice, remember, that summoned light and separated sea from sky and brought green leaves and grass springing joyfully from barren land.  At its sound the trembling deer give birth and all in his temple cry “Glory!”  That’s the voice these mortal men hear, and even understand—it crowds their crowded minds, packs them with a handful of words that swell and echo until their heads threaten to explode.  This is my beloved son.  Listen to him!

Then time shrinks to its normal size, and “only Jesus was found.”

Only him, and all him.  Not the successor to Moses and Elijah, but their author and finisher.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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The Real Messiah Project

Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him.  And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”          Luke 9:18

In all his preaching and teaching about the kingdom (see the capsule sermon in 6:20-49), Jesus has left out one vital element: himself.  His doctrine is radical—a fact that the miracle-working and storm-calming overshadows.  Loving your enemies? Turning the other cheek?  Going two miles instead of one?  He means it, too: “Why do you call me Lord, and don’t do what I say (6:46).  To date, no one seems to have wrestled with this teaching except the Pharisees–interestingly, they’re the only ones who seem to be really listening to what he says.  For his fans, it’s enough to follow, to marvel, to be around when great things happen.  We’d expect his inner circle to be more attentive, but maybe not.

But now, in the middle of a prayer it seems, he breaks off and asks his disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

Remember, he hasn’t really been mingling so much with “the crowds” lately, with the notable exception of that hillside picnic for 5000+.  But they have.  They’ve been on the road, preaching and healing, accepting hospitality and meals.  Presumably there’s been some conversation around the tables, and it’s time to talk about that.  So . . . What are they saying about me?  What’s the word on the street?

They’ve heard an earful—even that he’s John the Baptist, returned from the dead!  That rumor has apparently reached the court of Herod himself (9:7)–proving that far-fetched conspiracy theories are not new.  Elijah is a popular guess, or failing that, one of the other prophets somehow risen from the dead, brushed up and recycled.  Imagine the conversation: “Yes, I heard that one too—but you won’t believe what somebody else told me . . .”  They may have had a good laugh about some of the crazy  ideas circulating out there.  Eventually the Master says, Okay, fine; but you know me.  We’ve been together for a while now.  What do you say?

Does it matter?

Infinitely.

Peter speaks up, with a classroom-perfect answer: “God’s Messiah!”

Matthew, who was there, makes a lot more of this answer, including Jesus’ response (“Blessed are you, Simon bar-Jonah . . .”) and his later rebuke (“Get behind me, Satan!”).  Luke skips over that interesting exchange and gets right to the point of what Messiah means.  You want to talk prophets?  How about Isaiah?  ‘Bruised for our transgressions, cursed for our iniquities . . the punishment that brought us peace was on him . . .’  Does that ring a bell with anyone?

The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and raised on the third day.

Whoa.  Run that by again?  They didn’t catch it.  But Jesus continues with a personal application, something about dying to one’s self, picking up a cross (a cross?), following him (But aren’t we doing that already?), losing your life in order to save it— Not what anyone expected to hear.  Not what anyone expects to hear.  They like the part about the poor being exalted and the hungry being fed and the sorrowful rejoicing, but he seems to be leaving off the good parts this time.  Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.  Which makes no sense.  He’s gone off on a tangent, like he does sometimes.  Peter corrects him (Matt. 16:22) and gets slapped down for it, but he only had the nerve to say what they all were thinking: “Far be it from you, Lord! This will never happen to you!” And by extension, it will never happen to us.

The moment passes, but it was very uncomfortable.  And they won’t quite forget it, especially since the their understanding of the mission is about to be dazzled.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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Alien Country

Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.  When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons.  For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs.  Luke 8:26-27

It was his intention, remember, to go to “the other side,” where the Gentiles live—why?  No one appears to ask him.  They may still be a little shaken up after the storm; perhaps in their confusion they imagine themselves to be blown off-course.  But with Jesus one is never off-course.  They have an appointment, and as soon as their boat runs aground the appointment runs to meet them.  Screaming.

You have to feel some sympathy for the disciples (who remain strangely silent throughout this dramatic episode): barely recovered from the worst scare of their lives, they now encounter a human nightmare.  Or rather, an inhuman nightmare.  Demons have been running loose in Palestine, and they’ve seen how Jesus deals with them, but this is a special case.  It’s a whole welcoming party in one body.  For all they know, this is how the Gentiles do demon-possession: in multiples.

Try to see it as the demons do.  For years, they have possessed their host.  We don’t know how these things begin–perhaps he left an opening for evil spirit, and after it had kicked aside his normal affections for family and friends, there was room for more.  By now they’ve driven him from all human company and made him an object of terror and loathing, even to himself.  He lives among the tombs but they won’t let him join the company of the dead; he cuts himself, but is prevented from cutting too deep.  In a twilight world they carouse and brawl and gleefully fight off any attempt to restrain them.  Their host has the strength of ten, because they are Legion.

gerasene-demoniac

Then the Man arrives. They see his boat approaching, and somehow know who is on it.  They raise such an unbearable clamor that their hapless host tries to silence them by slashing at himself with a flint-sharpened rock (which never works).  They hurl him, tripping and stumbling, onto the rocky beach where the boat has scraped ground.

How easy it is to provoke terror in humans!  That’s a primary demonic pleasure, though at the moment pleasure is the last thing on their many manic minds.  He’s standing up, steadying himself with one hand on the mast (like any ordinary man!)—God with us, God against us—how can this be??  His eyes search them out.  He knows them, knows their origin all way back to the moment he threw them out of the Presence, but they never expected to encounter him here.

Come out, he says, with his eyes only.

Don’t torment me! they cry out through the raw vocal chords of their host.  It’s Jesus, they tell themselves—remember, we got the word?—Jesus, the one who—the one that—

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”

The other men are standing around, slack-jawed, keeping their distance.  It’s the kind of situation the demons crave: men approaching stealthily with chains or ropes, trying to sneak up and capture and restrain them.  The demons would have attacked by now, as so many times before—

But the Lord is climbing out of the boat (as awkwardly as any man; they can’t get over it!) with a depthless assurance beyond their experience of humanity.  They throw their host on the ground.  Stampeding over each other, they spin and thrash, screeching in multiple voices.

“What is your name?” he sternly asks.

Their voices come together long enough to scream, “Legion!”—before tumbling into incoherence again, each voice shrieking its own terror.  The abyss is on their collective mind, the pit that waits for all of them where there will be no human meat to feed on; only themselves and the Wrath, forever and ever and ever—

Not yet! they cry.  Hold off! Not now!  In the clamor, one of them mentions the pigs.  Yes, yes—the pigs.  Send us there!  The chaos of voices gradually comes together: The pigs!  Let us go into the pigs!

Their host has become their prison.  He is standing right in front of them, doing what no man or number of men could do before.  They claw and scratch and strain—Will he let us out? Let us out! Out of this—piece of—this pile of—

“Go,” he says.

They nearly tear their host apart, getting out.  With one final scream they leave him, panting and bloody, on the beach.

The fiery air cools.  One sweet breath, then another.  The horizon comes together for him, a clean line separating water and sky.  Blood pounds in his ears, the sound of his heart.  His own heart.  He wills his fingers to move, and they do—his own will.  Knees, legs, arms respond to his timid desire to sit up.  Above his head, that voice says, “Someone get him some clothes.”

The voice seems to cascade around him like the soft, barely-remembered folds of a worn linen tunic.  It gives him back to himself; piece by piece, it puts him together.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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Judging and Being Judged

Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you . . .  (Luke 6:37-42)

The most-quoted passage of scripture is not John 3:16 or Genesis 1:1.  It’s this right here: Judge not.  Smug unbelievers hurl it frequently against smug believers, typically with scraps of tacked on theology like, Who are you to speak for God and You’re not acting very Christ-like are you?  What would Jesus do, you hypocrite?  In other words, judging. We all judge.  We all have some sense of moral hierarchy, and the real question is not, Who are you to speak for God? but Who is God to speak to me?  The point here is not that we can’t make any judgments about anything ever, because we do that practically every time we open our mouths.  However screwed up our morals may be, we are still moral creatures.

The point is, Where does the judging start?  If my judging doesn’t start with judging me—always—I’m in danger of making myself the judge.   judging

To understand Judge not, we must take the Jesus’s previous words in one hand and his subsequent words in the other. “Children of the Most High” who are “merciful as their Father is merciful” (vs. 36) will not reassure fellow sinners that their sins are okay with the Big Guy.  They will not tie blindfolds over their eyes and proceed to lead the blind (vs. 39).  If the Lord has opened your eyes, what do you see?  You see Him and his commands—and most acutely, you see how you’ve broken them every day of your life, both carelessly and willfully.  You see how he’s held on to you while you were pulling away from him.  You see how his mercy reeled you in, whether little by little or all in a rush.  When tears of remorse have washed all the crud out of your eyes, you can see how that friend or relative or fortuitous stranger is making the same dumb assumptions you once did.

What would Jesus do?  He would pay for all those dumb assumptions and willful flaunting and innumerable offenses, because somebody had to.   Judge not doesn’t mean there’s no judging going on, only that we’re not the ones who pronounce sentence.  Someone does, someone will, and someone pays.  See to it that it isn’t you.

For the first post in this series, go here.

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