… but do we?

I blogged about Jesus for a month. Visitors to my site dwindled. Comments shrank and grew fewer.

We think we know the Son of God, Lord and Savior, Master and Friend, Teacher and Rabbi.

But the more we look at Him, the more blurred and muddled our stereotypical picture of Him becomes.

He defies our analyses. He explodes our myths. He refuses to fit our boxes. He will not remain in our tombs.

He says things that provoke us. Things we cannot, try as we might, fully comprehend.

He speaks an eternal language, and though He simplifies with story, the complete meaning simply eludes us.

Even when He asks His closest friends who they think He is, most of them struggle.

One of them has help with the answer.

Can we ever be so confident that we know Him and what He would want us to do/not do/say/not say/live/not live that we no longer seek; no longer ask; no longer knock?

There has never been a time in my life when I felt like I knew all the answers about Jesus. I knew people who thought they did. I was flat-out jealous of them (and a little bit guilty for that envy). I honestly thought they might.

But I don’t anymore.

If they had, they could have made billions writing books that would have outsold even Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew – and I’m pretty sure he’s got a better grasp of the character, in many ways, than I do.

What are some things you were sure you knew about Jesus … concepts that time has capsized and sunk?

In Matthew 15:1-20 and Mark 7:1-23, when the examiners from Jerusalem came to Jesus (presumably still at Gennesaret) to quiz Him about His beliefs, they started with the wrong question:

“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?”

The disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate, apparently.

Good tradition. Good hygiene. Nothing wrong with it. Just not law. You won’t find it as a command in the Old Testament, except for Aaron and his sons before performing the sacrifice. It was tradition.

Jesus’ answer was itself a question: “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?”

Then He went on to decry their “Corban” tradition, saying that it nullified the law of God, which was to provide for aging parents. God could get by without the money.

He said, “And you do many things like that.”

The principle I draw from this is that there may be nothing intrinsically wrong with a tradition, but it is wrong to attribute it to God and enforce it as law … and when it comes to a showdown between what God wants and what man wants, God must win.

Do we Christians do many things like that?

Words you won’t find among those spoken by Jesus in scripture:

Ecclesiology. Ecumenicism. Trinitarianism. Apostolic succession. Eschatology. Dispensationalism. Preterism. Futurism. Millennialism. Soteriology. Salvific. Calvinism. Arminianism. Universalism. Anabaptist. Eucharist. Transsubstantiation. Sacrament. Orthodox. Conservative. Liberal. Denomination. Liturgy. Extra-canonical. Antinomianism.

Words you will find among those spoken by Jesus in scripture:

Go. Do. Sell. Give. Forgive. Teach. Baptize. Remember. Love. Serve. One.

Do we complicate things too much?

– I’m just asking.

Which is the best preaching style: textual, topical, or expository?

For me, it’s a trick question.

The best preaching style is proclamatory.*

I believe Jesus’ preaching style is best described as proclamational.**

That’s what He did when He preached. He proclaimed:

Justice to the nations. Good news to the poor. Freedom for the prisoners. Sight for the blind. Release for the oppressed. The year of the Lord’s favor. The kingdom of God.

And He left the instruction: “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.”

So His followers did.

They proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection of the dead; the good news that Jesus is the Christ; the word of the Lord; through Jesus the forgiveness of sins; to pagans, the worship of an unknown God; to Christians, the whole will of God; the word of faith; the gospel of God; the gospel of Christ; the testimony about God; the Lord’s death until He comes; the mystery of Christ; the word of life, eternal life.

Cheap scholarship, I know: Googling the word “proclaim” on BibleGateway.com. You could have done it yourself. (You still can. Try it!)

But look at those verse excerpts again, first.

These truths weren’t just preached. They were proclaimed.

Look at those definitions again, too.

Announce. Declare. State. Affirm. Extol. Praise. Glorify. Honor. Cry out. Call forth.

Officially. Ostentatiously. Publicly. Openly. Conspicuously. Solemnly. Formally.

Maybe more souls would be drawn to Christ if we did less preaching and more proclaiming.

^{*Now there’s a word you won’t find many examples of by Googling it!
**You’ll find that word even less often on Google. I think it may be one of those “sniglet-ish” words.}

On several occasions, Jesus somehow invoked an escape clause and cheated death or at least serious injury at the hands of a mob:

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. – Luke 4:28-30

Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come. – John 7:28-30

Then came the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. – John 10:22-39

And at least once, He foiled an attempt to forcibly make Him an earthly king:

After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. – John 6:14-15

Maybe His escapes were miraculous. Maybe they were, like the ordinary magic of Tolkein’s mythical hobbits, simply the ability to become less visible to mortals. Maybe they were the result of His supernatural knowledge of men’s hearts, well in advance of their intentions to act. I don’t have a clue.

What strikes me about all of these is that He chose to escape. It was up to Him.

And when it was His time, He chose to surrender.

After He had set His face resolutely toward Jerusalem; after He had told His closest friends that He would soon die; after He had washed their feet and celebrated a last Passover with them; after He had prayed in the Garden for the cup to pass from Him (if God would only will it); after He had flattened the crowd who came to arrest Him with His statement, I am; after He had invoked the escape clause for His friends, a few verses later … He surrendered.

He surrendered to the arrest, the imprisonment, the sham trials, the beatings, the humiliation, the torture, and the cross.

And on that cross, He surrendered His Spirit.

When it counted – when He knew it was the right time and what had to be done – He surrendered Himself to doing it, at the cost of everything. He took a leap of faith into the clutches of the enemy; the jaws of Death … and trusted God to deliver Him, and to deliver everyone else who would follow Him.

That may be the most dangerous thing for us to emulate about Him and to pray for in our own lives:

To know when it’s time.

To know what must be done.

To be willing to do it, at whatever cost.

With no escape clause.

Among the twelve whom Jesus chose:
Simon the Zealot. Levi Matthew, tax collector for occupying Rome.

Instructions He gave the twelve – including Simon – when sending them out:
“Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.”

Jesus, to a Samaritan woman when He had to pass through her nation with the twelve:
“You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”

What she told everyone in her town, and the result:
” ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.”

What His fellow countrymen, Galileans, said of Jesus before being foiled in their attempt to force Him to be king by His withdrawal to a desert place:
“Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

What Jesus said of his fellow Galileans:
“Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”

Jesus, on paying taxes:
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

What his accusers said of Him:
“”We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.”

Jesus, on an occupying army officer:
“I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

What his countrymen said about Him:
“Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

Jesus, upon visiting the temple – the capital of his nation’s theocracy:
“Do you see all these things? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

What two of His countrymen finally agreed upon in their testimony against Him:
“This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’ “

Jesus, when asked by the Roman governor if He was, in fact, a king:
“Yes, it is as you say.”

Jesus, when asked by the Roman governor why His own people had handed Him over:
“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

The Roman governor, when petitioned by Jesus’ countrymen to change the sign above His head from “The King of the Jews” to “He said he was the King of the Jews”:
“What I have written, I have written.”

What an occupying army officer said of Him after carrying out orders to crucify Him:
“Surely this was a righteous man; the Son of God.”

I don’t know what you conclude about Jesus from verses like these. My conclusion is that Jesus was a true patriot – a pioneer patriot to the kingdom of heaven, willing to make friends among aliens and enemies among countrymen for her; willing to go wherever she needed Him; willing to live and die for her.

I don’t know what you conclude about our patriotism from verses like these.

I love my country.

I will pay taxes to her government. I will pay respect to her leaders – even those with whom I strongly disagree. I will pay attention and obedience to her laws insofar as I can.

But she is only a babysitter of sorts; a nanny for my immature years on this world; a protector from threats tangible only.

I, too, am called to be a patriot for a kingdom that is and yet is not of this world – and to follow the Pioneer Patriot toward a motherland to which He leads me.

So are you.

I’m not just talking about His wrath at the temple court being made into a marketplace and its tables being used for changing currency.

Jesus said and did some really unusual things, and many of them were around a table.

He invited Himself to stay at Zacchaeus’ house for the day – and probably a meal, as implied by the little ditty which children sing in Bible school.

He accepted an invitation to a meal in His honor from a Pharisee named Simon the Leper in Bethany. A Pharisee. One of those people He had been arguing with and, frankly, insulting. He let a woman of poor reputation douse Him with perfume and wipe His feet with her hair at the table there. (John says it was Mary, the brother of Lazarus.)

He accepted an invitation to the table of another Pharisee (four chapters later, in Luke) and surprised his host by not washing first – and then used it as an object lesson about the Pharisees’ insistence upon having clean skin, but not necessarily a clean heart.

Three more chapters later in Luke, He was dining at a Pharisee’s house – and being watched – so He joked about people being embarrassed to find that the places of honor at table weren’t always reserved for those who chose them for themselves. Someone referred to a blessing on “the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” Then He told a story about a banquet that was given and nobody came; they just sent back ridiculous excuses – and the host gathered the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame to enjoy it in their place.

And though He apparently did not eat with – or even go to the home of – a Gentile centurion whose servant He healed, He did commend the man’s faith, and predicted a feast at which they would sit together: “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

Though He probably wasn’t at a table when He said it, He told His followers “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.”

Later, John says, He fulfilled His own prophecy by washing the feet of the twelve before converting the Passover meal into a memorial for Him, though at the time He was still alive. We still celebrate at that table, at which He showed the full extent of His love.

Finally, He revealed Himself resurrected at the dinner table to two followers with whom He walked toward Emmaus.

It seems to me that in every instance, in one way or another, Jesus turned the tables – on someone who thought too highly of self; into an invitation of honor to someone humble and dishonored; into an opportunity to level the table for all and anticipate a heavenly feast together.

At my home church this morning, youth minister challenged us to see ourselves as Zacchaeus … to welcome others, who might as a result welcome Jesus into their homes and lives. It is an uncomfortable prospect, though I find it totally Christ-like. It could radically change the (pardon an inevitable pun) complexion of our church.

But first, our hearts must be radically changed.

We’ll have to let Him turn the tables on us.

It was the ultimate confrontation between good and evil and absolutely everything in the human cosmos was at stake … and possibly beyond.

The temptation, of course. I’m not even sure the modifer “of Jesus” is necessary. This is the temptation.

Catching Jesus at His worst – which still pretty doggone perfect – Satan plies the lonely, mostly-starved young rabbi-to-be with his best shots. Scripture lets us in on three of them.

And Jesus answers them all the same way.

With proof-texts.

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know I positively have an aversion to catching myself using proof-texts. It offends me less when others do it than when I do – because I truly and deeply value scripture in its full context. I love that so much of it is narrative. I love the story, the back-story, the characters, the conflicts, the values at stake, the gain that can be achieved and the loss that is risked.

I respect context as a would-be and occasional writer. Sometimes that context can be too deep and exhaustive for its value to be included in a blog post, though. And sometimes, scripture just says what it says – whether it’s in context or not.

My guess is that Satan was intimately familiar with it, context and all.

After all, when Jesus’ first and second response is to quote scripture, the devil starts quoting it right back at Him.

So – there are devilish interpretations of scripture, after all. (Notice that Satan quotes a Psalm as if it were a law to be obeyed and proven. Jesus responds from Deuteronomy as if it were a law. Which it certainly would be.)

Do we put the Lord to the test when we insist on interpretations of scripture that aren’t His? I’m betting so.

When we’re presented with interpretations which we cannot see as His, is it permissible to respond with short, simple, devoid-of-context proof-texts from scripture?

Luke 4:14-30 tells a story about Jesus that still shocks me.

After reading Isaiah 61 to his faithful hometown synagogue attendees and commenting that it was a prophecy now fulfilled, they reacted favorably and perhaps even with surprised awe – “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

But, for this understandable misapprehension, Jesus replies in a very confrontative way:

“Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.'”

“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

So, furious, they drove him out of town and would have thrown him over a cliff – except that He walked right through the gathered crowd and went His way.

I wonder if their admiring doubt was all that precipitated this outburst. The description of apparently the same event in Mark’s gospel that I blogged about a few days ago leaves out the attempted murder … and his observation that “He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them” makes me wonder if that lack of faith drove His pointed commentary in the synagogue.

Did they welcome Him in town so they could see the miraculous things He had done elsewhere in Galilee – rather than to actually hear what He had to say? Only to discount what little they saw as impossible, because He was Joseph’s son?

Maybe that’s the rest of the story that we don’t see in Luke.

I know Jesus knew men’s hearts and thoughts (Matthew 12:25 or Luke 11:17; Luke 6:8; and maybe even John 2:24-25). I know that we – well, at least, I – don’t have those abilities. I know we aren’t to judge others.

Yet I also know that He took people on when they doubted God or tried to re-write His Word or thought better of themselves than of others; His brand of meek and lowly had nothing to do with always bowing to the expectations of such people.

(This, obviously, is not the only example. For more, see my post from June 15. Or better yet, a Bible in your neighborhood.)

And I know that He lived an exemplary life, a life worthy of our emulation.

So does Jesus expect us to be as confrontational as He was?