Jesus of Nazareth

 

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A vision – possibly offering some explanations

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051008

 

Early on Easter Sunday of this year, I had a most unusual, dreamlike vision. In my mind, I found myself standing near a village in rural Galilee as the sun had just risen and saw Jesus and a group of his followers approach. I was most vividly impressed by the great purity and radiance of Jesus—and also by his fragility. As the vision continued in my thoughts over the next few days, I participated in some of the critical phases of Jesus’s wandering during his short life. I felt some of the joy, some of the anxiety, and some of the abysmal fear that pervaded his group of followers over the course of their journey. Let me describe what I saw and felt in observing Jesus and his disciples in the pursuit of their mission and in observing the plot of the adversaries closing around Jesus’s existence on Earth.

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First Picture: A Sermon on a Mount

It was after Jesus’ baptism by John, and only shortly after his return from the retreat in the desert that had given him spiritual clarity about his mission. In spite of his recent asceticism, which left him very slender, Jesus appeared strong and dynamic as he walked with his followers. But what impressed me most was the purity of Jesus’ expression. Only once, somewhere in a small Russian church, had I seen such purity, clarity, and goodness in the face of an adult.

Jesus had already chosen his disciples, and they were almost magnetically, truly spiritually, attracted to him. However, being naïve, they understood little of what he had on his mind. After all, they were drawn from among the fishermen and small-town people of Galilee, who were open to simple commitments, to goodness and compassion. They were not chosen from among the city intellectuals, who were too complex in their thoughts and often already set in their mental tracks, skillfully defending their own perspectives. The group was casually dressed in the Near Eastern fashion of those years and moved with ease through the rural area in the freshness of spring of that year.

This group of young men—soon augmented by more followers, including women—developed a vibrant group spirit, like a team of travelers setting out to hike through distant mountains.

Jesus’s leadership was unquestioned, not because of his words, but because of his personality and his spirit. Every day was full of new experiences, excitement, and expectation. Their coming brought light and joy to the hearts of the people, and Jesus’s healing power brought hope to the suffering and their families.

During this early period, the group moved almost every day, walking from village to village. As curious villagers crowded around them in dusty village centers between low houses, Jesus would speak. After he spoke, he occasionally healed the villagers who were most afflicted. For both of these reasons—the speeches and the healing—the number of his followers grew significantly. Soon, it became impractical to stop in the center of the small villages. They now stopped outside the villages, preferably where Jesus could stand on a small rise.

Late one afternoon, some time before the group reached another village, a low-level priest—we would now consider him a local rabbi—walked with Jesus and challenged him to present his teachings more clearly. Since the crowd was especially large that day and a suitable elevation for giving a speech appeared, Jesus walked up to the small mound and asked for silence. Many people sat down. Some pushed forward with the sick they wanted to present for healing. The disciples stood at the side of the mound, the priest in their midst.

Jesus began to speak with a clarity like never before, as from an internal fire. Every word, every sentence rang loud and clear. In a few simple parables, Jesus pronounced that it was not enough to follow the letter of the laws. Fulfilling the spirit of the laws with full intent of the heart was demanded, thereby fulfilling their moral demand. Reaching rank and wealth in this world would not count. Only those individuals who had clean hearts, who were peacemakers, who were merciful, counted before God. The meek would find reward—the ones with simple thoughts, the mourners, and those suffering from injustice. To love God and to love, forgive, and help each other should be the foremost laws for all people.

Then Jesus prayed with the people, asking God for help in life’s basic struggle. He also asked for forgiveness and pronounced God as the “father in heaven.” This sermon and prayer presented moral clarity in basic terms, comfort for the suffering in the struggle of their often harsh lives, and a new image of God as a loving father.

These were the “good news,” the “Euaγγέlion,” which Jesus had for the simple people of Galilee who listened and were ready to follow him.

The crowd was captivated by what it heard.

Jesus’s voice can still be heard today from the Sermon on the Mount.

It still reverberates in our souls.

The priest walked away in amazement.

 

Second Picture: The Appearance of Authority

The priest traveled to Jerusalem during the following week. At a meeting with the High Priest of the Jerusalem temple, he described the powerful impression Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount had given him. He also talked about the ever-larger group of followers around Jesus.

            The high priest asked, “Was his teaching correct?” The question presented a problem. Jesus’s preaching seemed not to emphasize the strictness in observing each detail in the Mosaic Law. At times, it even appeared to criticize the unlimited authority of the priestly hierarchy in interpreting the law their way and their demonstration of elite rank.

After further discussion, the High Priest decided to send another priest to distant Galilee—this time a priest from the Jerusalem temple, a man he trusted—to observe and report. That priest from Jerusalem felt honored by his assignment and took some of his students along.

Faithful servants of authority can be dangerous. They are sometimes more unbending and anxious to find error than the men of real authority who send them out. They have to prove their importance to the world by following the rules. These “organization men,” as we might call them today, act as they perceive the organization expects them to act—rather than being guided by their own judgment—or by understanding, compromise, and compassion. However, their critical report, even when it concerns trivia, forces the authorities to take action.

The priest and his students arrived at a small town near Nazareth on the evening before Sabbath, planning to rest there as prescribed by Mosaic Law. The following Sabbath morning, they were surprised to see Jesus and his followers approach their town. Walking through the fields, that group could be seen reaching for some ears of wheat to feed themselves.

The priest looked at his students as if asking a test question. They shook their heads in disapproval. Harvesting, a form of work, was not allowed on a Sabbath.

Jesus and his followers entered the town. After the usual sermon, Jesus healed a suffering man, actually constituting the rendering of a service also not allowed on a Sabbath.

The priest, observing this double breach of the Sabbath rule—first the reaping of wheat, and now the healing—became so irritated that he challenged Jesus in a loud voice. Jesus deflected the challenge calmly. “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

The priest walked to the synagogue in town and, shortly thereafter, departed for Jerusalem, his students in tow.

When Jesus came to the synagogue some time later, he found the doors closed. He was told that there were some renovations going on inside. One of Jesus’s followers commented that the visiting priest from Jerusalem surely had something to do with locking Jesus out.

 

Third Picture: The Noose is Tightening, and Winter is Coming

Only two weeks later, two new groups of delegates from Jerusalem’s authorities appeared to observe Jesus. One group had been sent out by the High Priest and the other by the leaders of the Pharisees. They could be easily recognized by their hats, their manner of dress, and their Jerusalem accent.

From that point on, Jesus could seldom preach a sermon without some observers being present. When one of Jesus’s disciples saw them approach, he notified the others, and warned Jesus to be on guard.

It soon became a war of nerves. These “observers” stood silently, sometimes taking notes. However, when Jesus seemed to have the most success with his audience, they asked loud, disturbing questions.

Initially, Jesus deflected the questions posed by these gadflies. But as the questions turned more critical, he became impatient with them. After that, he preached about the fallibility of priests, Pharisees, and scribes.

Jesus’s followers were well aware of the growing controversy. As time went on, there was hardly a town or village where Jesus was allowed to enter the synagogues. Sometimes, he was asked to remain outside the settlements.

Jesus’s followers stood ever closer around their master. Their faces became somber. At one point, Jesus asked them whether they still believed in him. Their responses were clear expressions of their commitment, but still, their hearts were heavy.

Finally, winter came upon them, with its endless cold rain and sometimes snow on the mountaintops. It became difficult, sometimes impossible for Jesus’s large group—twelve disciples, some women, and some other followers—to find accommodation and food in the villages and small towns. They were wet, hungry, and freezing.

Life became harsh.

At one point, Jesus divided the group, instructing his disciples to go out by themselves, only two in each group, and continue their mission, preaching and healing wherever they went. Some returned to their villages, families, and friends for the winter.

 

Fourth Picture: The Vision on the Mountain

Winter finally came to an end. But even before Jesus could call his dispersed disciples back together, the first critical observers from Jerusalem reappeared.

At this point, Jesus went up to a high mountain to seek spiritual counsel.

From the time of that spiritual encounter on the mountain on, Jesus knew that he could not continue in Galilee alone and that he had to go directly to Jerusalem to confront the powers arrayed against him, face to face. The approaching spring celebrations of Passover in Jerusalem would be the time to implement this decision.

 

Fifth Picture: Spring and the Last Days in Jerusalem

From this time on, Jesus’s sermons acquired new force, clarity, and determination. Not glory in this life, but later reward in Heaven should be expected by all good people. At the same time, Jesus began to warn Jerusalem of impending danger, should it continue on its present path.

Jesus’s disciples had all returned to be around him again, even the one who appeared to have had a rather good time during winter. There are always some weak or unscrupulous followers following great leaders, and great leaders seem to tolerate them. However, some of these followers are more dangerous than others, and some are less trustworthy than others.

One in particular, Judas, had relatives and friends among the priests. They had entertained him during winter in order to learn more about his master’s teachings. He had tried to present a compromise approach while doing some fundraising for Jesus’s group, something he was quite good at.

Then came the time for Jesus and his group to begin their one hundred-kilometer pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. There was heavy traffic on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem as the high holidays approached. Many travelers to the Passover celebrations knew Jesus and welcomed him, as their great preacher and healer and one of their people from the North. Jesus’s reputation, possibly amplified by the Galileans, preceded him to Jerusalem.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the shining city with its great temple and urbane crowds was ready for him. Clothing was spread in his way in the hope that the transient contact with Jesus would bring blessings to the owners. People who could not spare clothing spread branches of trees, palm fronds, on the road. The jubilation of the multitude fed on itself in this glorious moment of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Jesus remained somber, however. He knew that his decisive battle was approaching and that the end required his sacrifice. There was no return, no compromise; but he did not fear it.

On this last day, Jesus was not withdrawn. When he found the merchants and money changers in the court of the great temple precinct, he took action. He did not even talk to the priests about his concerns about the purity of the House of God. He just drove the merchants and money changers out in a fury, acting as the supreme judge and leader of the people.

Just as the Sermon on the Mount was the zenith of Jesus’s spiritual impact on the world, so this day and following dinner meal with his disciples in Jerusalem was the zenith of his forceful actions in the world. This was the day of ultimate strength, clarity of purpose, and leadership, finally turning into the conclusion of his mission.

The day came to an end. Jesus knew what would follow. The priests had to act or their world would crumble.

 

At the dinner, Jesus spoke clearly about his coming sacrifice. He symbolized his sacrifice with the partaking of wine and bread, appealing to his disciples to always remember his mission. Then he turned toward Judas.

Judas may have been a double agent from the winter months on, continuing to contact his friends among the priests while remaining a disciple of Jesus. He may have been the first of Jesus’s followers to know, that day in Jerusalem, that Jesus’s fate had been sealed. He may even have warned Jesus just before the Passover dinner. This might have opened Jesus’s eyes that Judas could not be trusted, as some of his other disciples might have already hinted for some time before.

Jesus suddenly addressed Judas as a traitor and dismissed him.

While Judas rushed out in anger toward full cooperation with the priests, Jesus departed for his last night with his closest followers and for his final prayer to his God and master in the garden of Gethsemane.

The harshness of the end of his mission that had started so radiantly and the approach of his painful death in mental loneliness lay before him.

 

The council of the priestly authorities and the leaders of the Pharisees had to come to a conclusion, in view of the crowds’ jubilation around Jesus and, mainly, in view of Jesus’s authoritative action in clearing the temple, the seat and pillar of their exclusive power.

The council was divided, as most councils are. One member of the council suggested that if Jesus was of God, nothing could be done against him. However, if he was not of God, time would take care of him, as it had done other false prophets not long before.

The council of the priests was controlled by an archconservative. The vote was to kill Jesus immediately, creating “facts on the ground,” before the always unpredictable masses of people congregated to begin the Passover celebrations and before the crowd of Galilean followers had a chance to regroup.

With the arrival of Judas and the police in the garden of Gethsemane, the establishment began to exterminate its perceived subverter, step by step, through interrogation, false witnesses, torture, condemnation, and quick execution.

How horrible these last hours of his life must have been for Jesus.

Nobody came out in support of Jesus in those last hours.

None of the crowd that had welcomed him jubilantly the day before.

What must have been on Jesus’s mind when none of those spoke up to whose aid he had come and for whose sake he had brought his message of mercy and peace, his vision of respecting the meek and the peacemakers, and his demand that they help those who suffered from injustice?

His own disciples had fled, and one had even denied him.

 

For whom was Jesus going to sacrifice himself?

 

The reports about Jesus’s last moments differ. One speaks of an ending in great despair. Another tells us of Jesus looking up to God and passing away in great peace, saying, “My work is done.”

 

Postscript: The Persecutions of the Early Christians and Paulus

The Galileans returned to the north. Jesus’s immediate followers stayed in Jerusalem, close to their executed master’s grave, going “underground” to evade persecution. The crowds in Jerusalem, which had cheered Jesus only a few days earlier, had turned around or acted in submission and passivity, as all crowds do. The Christ’s teachings were finished, or so it seemed.

Then came the apparitions of Jesus to his followers: the ascension phenomenon and, most dramatically, Pentecost. This overwhelming spiritual experience gave Jesus’s followers renewed strength. Groups of committed “Christians” began to form.

It did not take long for the authorities to hear about Jesus’s resurrection and the reappearance of Jesus’s followers—the Christians. One of Jesus’s priestly judges had predicted, “If (Jesus) was not of God, time would take care of him.” But time had not taken care of Jesus’s teachings or the Christians. Was God with them, after all? Their numbers grew. It became necessary to act. The persecutions set in. The groups dispersed and then found new followers in distant cities.

The brash and ambitious Saulus made himself a name as an exterminator of Jesus’s adherents—but only of those who did not strictly submit to Judaic Laws and priestly authority. After cleaning up Jerusalem, he traveled to Damascus, which was many days of travel away. Then the unexplainable occurred: Saulus became Paulus, a most ardent Christian.

Paulus gave Jesus’s teachings a new turn. From now on, his teachings were presented on the level of a coherent theology and philosophy, as influenced by Greek thought. Sin and redemption, faith in Christ, and the goal of reaching heaven moved into the foreground, sometimes at the expense of the basic teachings of the Sermon on that Mount. The group of followers, previously restricted to Jews, was opened up to the people of all nations. The dramatic growth of Christianity away from Judaism, which Jesus had cared for most, began.

A small group in Jerusalem attempted to restrain Paulus (or Paul, as he is known to us)—to no avail.

Then, the hierarchy of priests in Jerusalem was swept away in the destruction of that splendid city by the Romans. Only a few Pharisees escaped to become the rabbis of Jewish centers in the Diaspora.

The original groups of Christians dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. Those who had stayed in Jerusalem remained together and migrated to what later became Arabia. They were later known by Muhammad and, thereby, influenced the origin of the teachings of Islam.

The Roman Christians and followers of Paul became dominant in the West, forming and participating in Europe’s triumph in the world—all too often failing to follow the teachings of their master about humility, a clean heart, peacemaking, and being merciful; all too often overlooking the meek, those with simple thoughts, the mourners, and those suffering from injustice.

The world went its way toward modernity, remembering Christ in one basic symbol, not one related to his light-filled mission and essential ethical teaching of the first days, not related to his most forceful action of later days, but to his darkest moment on the cross.

 

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What if Rome had not become Christian? What course would the Western world have taken through history? Where would our civilization stand in regard to ethics and other social thought? Would there have been welfare, a Red Cross, all the charitable work in the world, and foreign assistance among nations? Shouldn’t we be glad to live in our civilization as it is now? Do we gladly remember Jesus for his mission and its effect?