Was
this the moment? A veritable legion assembled on the hillside, five thousand
men, organised into brigades and companies waiting for the word. That word was
‘Messiah’. Another martyr force, like so many before them. They would die for
the cause and for him. They would need to. A succession of rebel leaders had
raised a succession of such forces in these Galilean hills, only to see their
leaders beaten and brutally crucified. That seemed to be what happened to Messiahs,
would-be saviours.
Yet
within him he knew the power. He could inspire them and most importantly, feed
them. And they were so eager. They were murmuring, indeed clamouring for him to
raise the royal standard, to declare against Rome, to reclaim God's land for
God's people. To be the chosen people requires sacrifice; everyone knows that.
Something deeper than patriotism drove them to make these gestures. The memory
of triumphs only a few generations earlier still spurred these people to try
again. For over a thousand years foreign armies had stormed into their land and
it had seemed right to resist. And once or twice they had managed to win a
battle, even against the Romans, though never a war. It was more than tradition
or duty, it was obedience to God's will.
Surely this was the moment and he
was to be their leader? He felt the power. If he fed them again, they would
follow him for ever. He could sense it within him and active through him. In
the words of the prophet “The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me”. Now was the
moment: he had to choose not whether to be a Messiah or not but what being Messiah
really meant.
The
crowds waited. His friends waited. Never had the power seemed stronger within
him. What did God want of him? As if the whole world stood at some kind of
cross-roads. If he led them as an army they might conquer, such was the power
with him. They could liberate the land. Would not that victory fulfil so much
of the scriptures, bringing the Lord of the Covenant into prominence as the
true God worthy of universal honour? How could there be another way?
He
felt as he had felt back there in the desert when he first wrestled with his
call, the inevitability of being different, with powers of many kinds to be
used - for what? He could feed these people, as if the stones turned to bread.
He could impress them to the point of amazement but to what purpose? He might
even lead them to victory, establishing what God had promised to David. That
would be glory indeed.
Why
then did he know deep down that he would not go that way? His powers and his
charisma were not for that. Somehow he knew it would be wrong, more wrong than
he could explain.
His
friends were disappointed and puzzled when he sent them away across the lake.
They were not to be his centurions. He would deal with this legion waiting for
their marching orders on the hillside. He would disperse the crowd more easily
without his closest colleagues around to protest. He needed time alone to
think, to plan and above all to pray. What was he to do, as someone who knew he
was himself the key to understanding God's underlying purpose in designating a
chosen people at all?
Barely
a year earlier he had been working in the family business, supporting his
mother in her widowhood until his brothers could take over. He had known since
childhood that he had to be a rabbi. The scripture was his life, in his head
and in his heart. He identified with Jeremiah, that the ‘word was like a fire’ within
him. He identified with Ezekiel, that the role of ‘son of man’ was to be his.
He identified with the mysterious ‘servant of the Lord’ in the book of Isaiah,
a suffering servant vindicated after death. So much in the scriptures seemed to
point to himself. He was called, no doubt, but did not know then what it meant.
But now he was free from family ties and could follow that call.
Like
almost every Jew of his time he had sensed that things were building to a
climax. The Roman occupation was stifling and brutal. Someone had to take a
stand, to protest against the idolatry, the arrogance, the sheer injustice and
corruption of power. He could not share with his cousin John the discipline and
fanaticism of the Essenes. Nor was he tempted into the hills to join the
resistance, though he knew many who were Zealots. As a Galilean he felt
betrayed by the Jerusalem Sadducees, comfortable with compromise, who tried so
hard to avoid confronting the Roman power. He did admire the Pharisees,
especially their scriptural teaching and the moral authority of the great
teachers.
Then
word had reached him that John had left the Essenes in their wilderness retreat
and was drawing great crowds into a movement for spiritual renewal, with the
Essene ritual of baptism transformed into a gesture of personal repentance and
re-commitment. Having believed for many years that God’s judgment was at hand,
apparently John was now convinced that Day of the Lord had actually arrived.
God’s People needed to be ready and John was preparing them. He made up his
mind, choosing what he knew to be somehow inevitable: he would join John and
probably lead his movement.
As
he was baptised, his cousin John knew that he was the one. Deep down he knew it
himself, with the power. But nothing was clear at first. He began to interpret
the scriptures and their possible references to himself and his own ministry.
For a while he was busy in an authentic rabbinic ministry like so many others,
bringing God’s healing to hundreds of folk. But with the power he could
interpret the scriptures by intuition as much as by acquired learning.
Increasingly he found himself declaring in fresh and inventive ways how God
wished to rule in human lives and in human society - he was amazed at his own
authority. But he could see where it would end. He was not just another rabbi.
Then
John was executed and the pressure was on him. He withdrew back to northern
Galilee and prepared to make a stand of some kind. Hundreds rallied to him day
after day. Then thousands. Then came this day of decision. They wanted a king,
an anointed one. His own integrity was on the line, facing not merely the
military might of Rome if he succumbed and fought them, but a darker force
which still tempted him to use the power - for good but not ultimately for God.
It
was hours before he was ready to join his friends across the lake. They were
startled to see him coming in the half-light alone, but reassured that he had
come back to them and not gone off without them with his legion. As they walked
together in the quiet northern valley the next week he asked them "what are
people saying about me?" Of course everyone knew of his power, reminiscent
of one of the great prophets. God was undeniably with him. And Peter blurted
out what they were all thinking, "you are the Messiah, the anointed
one". Anointed like the ancient kings, to be the embodiment of God’s power
on earth.
It
was time to share with his friends what he had come to believe about his own
calling to be just that, God's anointed one. Not king but Messiah - and not
Messiah as king. This was a different anointing. He told them of his own
temptations as he wrestled with his call. He tried to explain his strange
behaviour the previous day when he had in effect turned the stones into bread and
been so grievously misunderstood. The power did not give him a licence to lead
a conquering army or even to perform impressive miracles to sway great crowds
into following him. The power constrained him to another way, paradoxically
more powerful than power.
Consider
the works of healing. When he sent away the spirits from the man nicknamed
“legion” the pigs charged to their destruction like wild amateur fighters
facing Rome’s professionals. His power to heal was always a risk, since it
usually provoked people to start typecasting him for the Messiah role of power
again, the very thing he was trying to get away from. He would not sacrifice
thousands of them as he had those pigs by the lake.
Teaching
was another example of the paradox. Why had God chosen this people? If not to
rule for God, then why? But again, crucially, how does God rule anyway? Somehow
the way of power was wrong, though he already knew that powerful forces would
destroy him. Somehow God would vindicate him and what he stood for, if he kept
faith with his call to offer God’s people one last chance to fulfil their
ancient calling. If they would come with him, together they would try and
fulfil the ancient prayer “may God’s kingdom come” by doing God’s will on the
earth and showing that God’s saving love is real power, as the scripture
taught.
From
now on his life, his teaching and his actions, would all be directed to this
"kingdom" of God, the rule of the divine righteous love, to
understand it and help others to do so, to make it a reality and help others to
do so. A few would stay with him. All four Jewish movements would either
despise him or conspire against him. And the thousands who had rallied for him
would turn away hungry and frustrated, despite the good times, thinking he had
missed his chance on that first hillside.
The months went by.
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“So
you are a king, then?” said the Governor. For a moment he was tempted even
then. But it was too late now to use the power in that way. There was a kingdom,
yes, he said. But after so many months only he could see just how different it
was from what everyone assumed and expected. “You wouldn’t understand” he said,
glancing at the Governor’s bodyguard. No-one understood. He would not concede
his integrity now it had come to this. He had wrestled with that during the
previous night. It was not stubbornness but truth, the truth about God that was
at stake. No, even if the power left him, he would not be tempted now. The
kingdom of God mattered more than all this, more than his life or his death.
As
he had acted out the great parable from Zechariah a few days earlier, he had
known deep down that it was too late. He had longed for the renewal of God’s
people since John had baptised him what seemed like a lifetime ago. Surely it
was too late now. He could sense that, one way or another, the old covenant was
coming to an end, its representatives would be driven to heroic martyrdom, its
symbols broken, its Temple destroyed, its promises set aside and unfulfilled.
Even then as he entered Jerusalem he had prayed in tears that God’s people
might accept their call, though he knew in his heart that they would not.
“So
you are a king, then?” His followers in Jerusalem who had organised the donkey
for him turned out to welcome him and the crowds who had come with him. They
shouted for a king and acclaimed him as Messiah, but they did not know what
they were saying. They would not rise now, even if he fed them.
He
had given up even on his friends. They still did not understand; they were so
unsure and frightened. At supper the previous evening when he had alluded to a
traitor in their midst they had all asked “Is it I?” not trusting their own
experiences, each one not sure whether he had somehow let him down. Then they were off arguing over power and
status as if they were back in Galilee on that hillside with the legion waiting
to march. Had they learned nothing? Surely they knew by now who he was, or
rather what he represented. God is like this; “when you have seen me, you have
seen the Father” he had told Philip. But how does love outflank power. Would
the ‘new covenant’ which he had sought to inaugurate last more than a day?
Would they actually remember him? Would anyone remember him when this all
ended, as it soon would? He was truly
alone.
“So
you are a king, then?” The racism of the colonial administrator was clear. If
this was another king of the Jews it was only what Jews deserved. Well then,
one more death would not cause the Governor to lose sleep, whatever his wife
felt. This is what happens to all their messiahs, after all, he thought as he
ordered the inscription for another cross.
The
burial was a rush. Things had gone so quickly and his friends were not
expecting this. At the end a brave supporter offered the temporary use of his
own tomb over the Sabbath. He could not be left at the place of execution. He
was not an ordinary criminal; even the Governor accepted that when he gave
permission.
For
everyone concerned, the Sabbath was a break: for his followers a day for the
shock and dismay to ebb and flow, for the authorities a holy day when there
would be no protest to deal with, and for everyone else a day when attention
would shift to the Passover rituals. Soon after the Sabbath his friends would
move the body, probably back north. They might build a shrine, to another
Galilean would-be Messiah, maybe alongside that of cousin John. “We thought he
would be the one”, they said. Their memories would blur and fade on and around
their northern lake...
Had
the owner of the tomb moved him so early? It was possible. Mary was unsure, in
her widow-like grief. Then the gardener turned into him through her tears. He
was alive! The men came running after her message. Eventually he appeared to
them all, each time a strange mix of day-dream and a sense of real meeting.
What was reality, what was imagination? He was somehow not ‘there’ like the old
days. Yet he was somehow more ‘there’ than before. And they were the only ones
to see him. If only he would now show himself with power to others, to Caiaphas
or Pilate, to Caesar. If he did that, there would be no doubt. The world would
have come to an end. He would really have overcome the world. Perhaps he would,
and soon. But it was not to be like that. At last they heard him; they saw that
power will not do, is not the way God rules. They loved him in return.
Sometimes
he was with them and they could not see anyone there. They could sense that
familiar impulse to care and love, to heal and preach, to follow him - just like
it used to be. The words in the air, the determination, the authority, the
presence, the vitality, everything bar the physical presence. And they were
becoming more like him. His personality though not his person was with them.
When they prayed, he was there. When they were scared, he was there. When they
were effective, he was there. When they failed, he was there. When they read
the scriptures, he was there. When they preached and healed, he was there. When
they died, he was there. The king had become the kingdom, the seed grain would
become a harvest, the power of love would be embodied for the rest of time.
Then
they never saw him again.
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NOTE:
To
tell the story of Jesus has always required imagination, even on the part of
the first evangelists.
All
four canonical versions of this life are required to tell this story, not
least the emphasis on ‘king’ in John.
Peter Brain