The story of Jesus - 28 July 2011 |
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Some thoughts prompted by chapter 2 of Peter Leithart’s The Four.
- The Sadducees were dedicated to maintaining the status quo. Don’t upset the Romans, and they’ll let us keep the temple, where we dominate the priesthood. Everything’s just fine the way it is (no such thing as angels or spirits or resurrection anyway); just don’t rock the boat.
- The Pharisees, by contrast, were “people of hope.” They want the land to be pure so that the LORD will finally send the promised Messiah. So they’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of the filthy Romans (who pollute the land), even taking up arms if necessary. And they want all the Jews to adopt the priestly holiness code too. Just cleanse the land, then God will save us as he promised.
- The Essenes, like the Pharisees, were also people of hope, but their hope took a different form. They regarded the current priesthood as illegitimate, and therefore “refused to participate in the temple worship.” They moved instead to the coast of the Dead Sea to wait for the LORD to return, destroy their enemies – both Jew and Roman in the Promised Land – and lead them in a new conquest back to the land.
- Gabriel is “the angel who delivered visions to Daniel; now, he is coming to tell Zecharias that the Lord is ready to fulfill those visions” (Luke 1). The 490 years are up; time for action.
- The Essenes went into the wilderness to prepare for conquest. They weren’t entirely wrong: “John’s ministry takes place in the wilderness, where the Essenes are. He is in the wilderness for the same reason. They went to the wilderness because they are preparing for a new conquest, and so is John. He starts baptizing in the wilderness because he is getting the people ready for a new Joshua to come and lead them in conquest.”
- John’s prophecy of judgment (”The Axe is at the root of the tree…”) alludes to Isaiah’s prophecy of Israel’s judgment at the hand of Assyria, and thus depicts Rome as a new Assyria, the LORD’s weapon against his people: “”The axe is already laid at the root of the tree,” John says (Lk. 3:9). He is alluding to a prophecy of Isaiah which described Assyria as the Lord’s axe against the northern kingdom of Israel (Is. 10:15). Rome is the new axe in the hand of the Lord, and He is getting ready to swing. The judgment that John talked about is the threat of the Romans finally destroying the rebellious Jews. John is gathering people together who will be saved from that judgment, who will pass through the fire of the Roman war against Judea and be preserved as the ‘remnant,’ the burned but lively seed of the new Israel.”
- The birth of Jesus is announced to Mary in terms alluding to the creation of the world, and therefore to the world’s re-creation: “Whenever God gives a miracle child to an old couple, it is a sign that He is beginning something new. An old couple having their first child means a new life. But a virgin who conceives must mark the beginning of a new creation. The angel not only gives Mary the news that she will conceive and have a child, but tells her that the child will be born when the Spirit overshadows Mary (Lk. 1:35). Just as the Spirit overshadows the water at the beginning of the world, and forms the first creation, so the Spirit is going to overshadow Mary to form a new creation in her womb. Hers will be the womb of a new world.”
- Jesus’ visit to the temple at the age of twelve foreshadows his later visit to Jerusalem when he is crucified. Both times he goes at the time of a feast; both times he teaches the law to the people; both times (huh – get this) it’s all about the rites of purification. The reaction of the Jewish leaders changes though – from astonishment to fear and hatred.
- When Jesus goes to the temple at the age of twelve, his parents lose track of him. They start back home, thinking that Jesus is among the traveling pilgrims, but then they discover he is missing. They finally return to Jerusalem and find Jesus in the temple. This takes three days, and the three days when Jesus is missing foreshadow the three days he will be “missing” in the tomb. His entire visit to Jerusalem at twelve foreshadows his later arrival in Jerusalem, his teaching in the temple, his arrest and trial, his crucifixion, and his reappearance from the grave three days later.
- Elijah and John the Baptist: both are filled with the same Spirit and confront a wicked king who has a bloodthirsty wife yet is fascinated by the prophet.
- John and Jesus; Elijah and Elisha and their disciples: “The most important difference between the ministry of Elijah and that of Elisha is that Elijah is a lone prophet and Elisha formed a community of disciples. That does not exactly fit John and Jesus, because we know that John has his own disciples. But the disciples of John are not nearly as prominent in the gospel story as the disciples of Jesus. In Elisha’s ministry, the sons of the prophets formed the core of a faithful Israel within Israel, a renewal movement within the northern kingdom of Israel. Jesus’ disciples play the same role.”
- Jesus took on not the Romans as such, but the real evil power behind their oppression. [FWIW, I think this points the way to an important critique of NT Wright, though Leithart himself doesn't go there, at least not at this juncture. Here it is in a nutshell: Wright's well-worn trail takes him back through Israel to Abraham. The Bible takes us back to Adam. Just worth pondering, I guess.] “Throughout His ministry, Jesus is at war with the devil and the demons who serve him. Casting out demons is one of Jesus’ most common miracles. He comes to deliver Israel, but to deliver Israel from the real oppressor. He comes to free Israel from the slavery that started in the garden of Eden, not primarily the one that started with Pompey.”
- For Jesus, the real problem with Israel was not their external oppression but their internal corruption. So he was more fussed about the ungodliness of the Jews than about the oppression of the Romans. “Some Jews think that their problem is “out there.” Israel does not have problems of its own. Jesus focuses attention instead on Israel’s own sins and problems. He focuses on Israel’s disobedience. He knows that if Israel continues in the direction they are going, provoking the Romans, assassinating Gentiles, planning a war with Rome, then the Romans are going to destroy the temple and the city of Jerusalem. Many Jews think that they have to oppose the Romans, with violence, to be faithful to the covenant. Jesus says the opposite: Opposing the Romans with the sword is unfaithful to the covenant…”
- Camels and gnats are both unclean, but camels are bigger.
- Jesus doesn’t encourage Sabbath-violation. He points the way to Sabbath-keeping. It’s about giving rest to others, which he does by raising the dead and cleansing lepers and healing the sick. Pulling an ox out of a ditch is not a “permitted exception”to Sabbath-keeping; it’s precisely how to keep the Sabbath faithfully.
- Jesus intends to provoke the Jews precisely by doing stuff to which he knows they will object. Like healing on the Sabbath etc.
- Table fellowship with Gentiles blurs the boundaries that the Pharisees wanted to keep nice and sharp. The feeding of the multitudes is perhaps the most extravagant example of this – no boundaries anywhere, just an abundance of blessing for anyone who wants to eat.
- Jesus healed lots of lepers. At first sight this is a puzzling emphasis, bbecause the disease referred to as “leprosy” in Scripture was not clinically very serious. It wan’t like modern “leprosy,” which severely damaged human tissue. It was just a fairly benign skin disease. So why the fuss? The answer is that leprosy made people unclean, and (though not clinically serious) this was crippling in regard to the suffer’s place in the people of God. They couldn’t enter the temple, serve as priests, and so on. It therefore depicted the moral violation of Israel’s holiness that prevented having fellowship with God. In healing them, Jesus was enacting the purification that Israel needed.
- Jesus’ parables are intended by him to address the specific circumstance confronting him at the moment he tells them. They’re not designed “to teach things like ‘God is good’ or ‘God forgives sins’.” Think of the parables of the tenants, or the wedding, or the three lost things.
- Like Samson, who wrote mocking poems about the Philistines, Jesus’ parables are designed to make his opponents look like fools and thereby to encourage those faithful Israelites who know that their leaders aren’t all they claim to be, but who keep quiet largely out of fear.
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog