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Almost
all we know about Jesus comes from the four accounts of his life
(Gospels) which we find in the New Testament. The account that follows
is based on those Gospels. Although scholars disagree at some points
about the historical value of the Gospel records, the following
general picture is widely agreed. Looking
for liberation Bom
just before the death of Herod the Great, king ofJudea, in 4 bce,
Jesus lived for a little over thirty years, scarcely travelling
outside Palestine throughout his life. The
Jews were a subject people, living either under local princes
appointed by the Roman emperor, or under the direct rule of Rome
itself. A priestly party, the Sadducees, accepted Roman rule, to which
they owed their influence. The Pharisees, who later became the
dominant party, were mostly less concerned with politics, and
concentrated on the study and application of the Old Testament Law.
Some stricter Jews, Essenes, opted out of Jewish society and set up
isolated communities—such as Qumran—where they could devote
themselves to preserving their religious purity. But there were many
Jews who resented Roman rule, and from time to time revolts broke out
leading eventually to the disastrous 'Jewish War' of CE 66-73. The
Jews had long hoped for 'the day of the Lord', when God would act to
save his people. There were several different hopes of a 'Messiah', a
saviour, whom God would send, and such hopes ran high at the time of
Jesus. Some saw the Messiah in more spiritual terms, as a priestly or
prophetic figure, but in popular expectation he was to be a political
liberator, and there were occasional 'messianic' movements centred on
popular leaders. Galilee was known as fertile ground for such
movements. Jesus
was born at Bethlehem in Judea, but was brought up in Galilee, and
most of his public activity was in that region. Judean Jews regarded
Galilee as an uncultured, half-pagan area: Jesus' distinct 'northern
accent' would have been conspicuous in Jerusalem. His family was respectable, if not affluent: he was a 'carpenter', or general builder, an important figure in village life. But Nazareth was an obscure village, and Jesus' background was remote from urban culture. The
birth and early life of
Jesus
Despite its provincial obscurity, Jesus' family had an honourable
pedigree. So his birth took place in King David's town of Bethlehem.
Owing to the overcrowding of the town for the Roman census, however,
the circumstances were not very regal; Luke's
account of the baby, cradled in a manger in a stable, visited by
shepherds, has become one of the best-known stories in the world. But,
along with the very down-to-earth circumstances of his birth, the
Christian Gospels record the fact that it was far from ordinary.
Angels proclaimed him the promised saviour, and it was maintained that
he was not conceived by human intercourse, but by the power of God.
This bringing together of earthly poverty and obscurity with a
miraculous birth is typical of the Gospels' portrait of Jesus, as
truly human but also uniquely the Son of God. Virtually
nothing is known of Jesus' life from his infancy until about the age
of thirty. He clearly received a sound education in the Old Testament
scriptures, presumably in the local synagogue school. However, his
upbringing was not in academic studies, but in the practical work of
the carpenter. The event which launched Jesus on his public ministry
was the mission of his relative, John 'the Baptist', down in Judea.
John called Israel to return to God, and baptized those who responded
in the River Jordan. He attracted a large following, and Jesus joined
him, was baptized, and himself began preaching. When John was put in
prison, Jesus moved back to Galilee, and continued to preach in
public. Healing and preaching The
Gospels summarize Jesus' activity as 'preaching, teaching and
healing', and that is how he would have appeared to his contemporaries
during the three years or so of his public ministry. He
and his closest followers deliberately adopted a wandering and
dependent style of life. They had no permanent home, but moved around
as a group, accepting gifts and hospitality when offered. Jesus spoke
frequently of the danger of becoming preoccupied with possessions, and
called his followers instead to an almost reckless generosity. As
a preacher he drew large crowds, who followed him constantly. He
taught with a vivid simplicity and an authority which contrasted
sharply with other Jewish religious teachers. We shall consider the
content of his preaching later. Jesus
was clearly well-known as a healer from the beginning of his public
activity. The Gospels record his curing of many different types of
illness and deformity, usually by a simple word and a touch, sometimes
by a word alone. There is no elaborate ritual, nor any search for
patients; rather
a power which responded to physical need as he met it. He is also
recorded as an exorcist, driving out demons by a word of command. It
was apparently as much for his healing power as for his teaching that
he was sought out by the Galilean crowds. Most
of Jesus' recorded miracles are healings, but a number of incidents
are recorded where he displayed a supernatural control over nature.
Again these were in response to actual needs, not mere arbitrary
displays of power, as when he multiplied a little food to feed a
hungry crowd, or calmed a dangerous storm on the lake by a command.
The Gospels present him as one who did not go out of his way to gain a
reputation as a miracle-worker, but whose personal authority extended
beyond his words to a practical control over nature which inevitably
made a deep impression on those around him. Like
many other Jewish teachers Jesus quickly gathered a group of committed
followers, known as his 'disciples'. He demanded of them an absolute
commitment to the ideals he preached, and to himself personally, and a
total dependence on God to supply all their needs. They acted as his
spokesmen, going out on preaching and healing missions of their own.
An inner group of twelve disciples were his constant companions. An
increasing amount of time was spent in teaching his disciples
privately, preparing them to continue his mission. He told them that
he would soon be killed, and expected them to be the focus of the new
community created by his work. He taught them to see themselves as
distinct from other people, and to make it their aim to win others to
be his disciples. Opposition While
Jesus was, at least at first, popular with the ordinary people of
Galilee, he very quickly aroused the opposition of the leaders. His
attitude was in many respects unconventional, and he posed a threat to
the Jewish religious establishment. He
refused to recognize the barriers which divided people from one
another in society. His habit of mixing with the ostracized classes,
and even of eating with them, earned him the name of 'friend of
tax-collectors and sinners'. Women held an unconventionally high place
in his following, and not all of them were very respectable. He seemed
to delight in reversing accepted standards, with his slogan: 'The
first shall be last, and the last first.' He
did not share the general Jewish disdain for Samaritans—a despised
minority of mixed blood. He even made a Samaritan the hero of one of
his most famous stories, at the expense of respectable Jewish clerics.
Although he seldom travelled outside Jewish territory, he welcomed the
faith of a non-Jewish soldier and a Syrian woman, and declared that
non-Jews, the Gentiles, would even displace Jews in the kingdom of
God. As for economic barriers, Jesus deliberately gave up a secure
livelihood, and made no secret of his contempt for affluence. It is no
wonder that the establishment found him uncomfortable. On
religious questions he was equally radical. He clashed with the
religious authorities because of his free attitude to the observance
of the Sabbath, the day of rest, and his declaration that ritual
purification mattered less than purity of heart. His bold
reinterpretation of the Old Testament Law moved consistently away from
an external keeping of rules to a deeper and more demanding ethic. He
declared the will of God with a sovereign assurance which cut through
centuries of evolving tradition, and set him on a collision course
with the scribes and Pharisees whose heartless legalism he denounced. Nor
could he please the Sadducees, the priestly rulers. He taught that the
Jewish nation was ripe for God's judgement, and predicted even the
destruction of the temple on which their national religion was
centred. In a symbolic gesture he 'purified' the temple by violently
expelling the traders whose presence the priests encouraged. Moreover
his enthusiastic popular following threatened to upset the delicate
balance of their co-operation with Rome. All this, we may be sure, did
not diminish Jesus' popularity with the ordinary people, who soon came
to see him as the expected deliverer, and even on one occasion tried
to force him to be their king in rebellion against Rome. But Jesus
made it clear that his idea of salvation was not a political
one. So gradually his popular following dwindled, as those who
wanted a military Messiah became disillusioned. Even one of his twelve
closest disciples betrayed him in the end, and none of them understood
his real purpose until after his death. Death
and resurrection The
opposition to Jesus came to its climax at the Passover festival in
Jerusalem. Jesus rode into the city in a deliberately 'messianic’
gesture— though on a peaceable donkey, not a war-horse—and was
enthusiastically welcomed by the crowds, who probably expected him now
to declare himself their national leader. Instead he carried out his
demonstration against the temple regime, and engaged in a series of
increasingly bitter exchanges with the religious authorities; but he
showed no sign of acting against Rome. Eventually he was arrested by the Jewish leaders with the help of Judas, his disillusioned
disciple, and was tried according to Jewish law on a charge of
blasphemy, because he claimed to be the Messiah and the Son of God. A
death sentence was passed, but a Roman conviction was required to make
it effective. This , was secured by a charge of sedition, , pressed
upon the Roman governor ' by the religious leaders with a show of
popular support. So, ironically, the Jesus who had forfeited his
popular following by his refusal to take up arms against Rome was
executed by Rome as a political rebel, 'the king of the Jews'. He
was executed by crucifixion, the barbaric method reserved by Rome for
slaves and rebels. Some highly-placed followers obtained his body and
buried it in a nearby tomb. The
cross has rightly become the symbol of Christianity. In that death,
with all its cruelty and injustice, is the focus of salvation, and
Jesus had already taught his disciples to see it that way, little as
they had yet understood him. But the cross alone could have no such
significance. It was the sequel that gave it meaning. Two
days later his disciples found the tomb was empty. Their failure to
understand this is not surprising— there was much about Jesus they
had not understood. But the meaning of it was brought home to them by
a series of encounters with Jesus himself alive and real, though no
longer bound by the limitations of time and space (he could appear and
disappear suddenly, even inside a closed room). For
a few weeks they met him in a variety of situations, sometimes one or
two alone, more often in a larger group. He explained to them again
the meaning of his life and death, and the mission he had entrusted to
them. Then he left them, and they began to preach to the world that
Jesus, triumphant even over death, was Lord and Saviour. It was the
resurrection of Jesus which formed the focus of the earliest Christian
preaching, it was the risen Lord whom they worshipped. What
Jesus taught The
Gospels sum up Jesus' preaching in Galilee in the challenge: 'The time
has come; the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good
news!' This summary is a convenient framework for setting out some of
the main points of his message. 'The
time has come' The Old Testament pointed forward to God's great
work of judgement and salvation, when all Israel's hopes and the
promises of God would be fulfilled. Jesus saw his mission as this time
of fulfilment. In other words, however little he shared popular ideas
of a political deliverer, he saw himself as the Messiah, come to save
God's people. He called himself the Son of man, echoing a figure in
the Old Testament book of Daniel who represented the ultimate
deliverance and triumph of the true people of God. 'The
kingdom of God is near' The kingdom of God (more accurately the
'reign of God'; it is an activity, not a place or a community) is
central in Jesus' teaching. It means that God is in control, that his
will is done. So he called people to enter God's kingdom, to accept
his sovereignty and to live as his subjects. He taught them to look
forward to the day when this kingship of God, already inaugurated by
Jesus ('Yours is the kingdom'), would find its fulfilment when
everyone acknowledged God as king ('Your kingdom come'), when Jesus
himself would return in glory, and share the universal and everlasting
dominion of his Father. 'Repent'
Jesus' call was issued primarily to his own people, Israel. He called
them to return to their true loyalty to God. He warned them of God's
judgement if they refused. There was an urgency in his appeal, and as
it was increasingly rejected he spoke of God calling others to be his
people instead. Finally, after his resurrection, he sent his disciples
to call all nations into the kingdom of God. God's demands are
absolute, and disobedience or disloyalty would not be overlooked. 'Believe
the good news' Now
was the time for deliverance. Jesus preached this not in a political
sense, but in terms of the restoration of a true
relationship with God. Those who repented would find
forgiveness and a new life. And as Jesus predicted his own suffering
and death, he saw this as the means of restoration; he was the servant
of God whom Isaiah had foretold, 'by whose wounds we are healed'. So
he came 'to give his life as a ransom for many', to institute 'the new
covenant in my blood', a new people of God redeemed from sin, as
Israel had been redeemed from slavery in Egypt, to be God's special
people. This was the focus of Jesus' teaching, the call to repentance,
to membership of a new people of God, forgiven and restored through
his atoning death. His famous ethical teaching takes second place, for
it is primarily an ethic for disciples, for those who have thus
entered the kingdom of God. For
them life is new. It is focused on God, their king, but also their
Father, for Jesus taught his disciples to depend on God with a
childlike trust. Their relations with one another were to be those of
members of the same family, inspired by an unselfish, uncalculating
love. In this new community many of the world's standards would be
reversed, and a concern for material security and advancement would be
swallowed up in an overriding longing to see God's kingdom
established. It is an otherworldly ethic which has profound
this-woridly implications. Jesus expected his disciples to be clearly
different, the 'light of the world', showing the world what life was
meant to be like. They were to be like God their Father. Who
was Jesus? He
was hailed as a prophet, a man sent by God. In his preaching, teaching
and healing he matched up to that role, and as such he is one of a
long and noble sequence of God's people before and since. But
Christians believe, and his own life and teaching suggest, that he was
much more than that. In
his appeal to Israel there was a clear note of finality. This was not
just another prophetic warning, but God's last call. Its rejection
would spell the end of Israel as God's special people; its
acceptance would create a new people of God in whom all God's purposes
would reach their climax. The
criterion was not only the response to Jesus' message, but the
response to Jesus himself. He called for faith in and loyalty to
himself, and presented himself as the final arbiter of people's
destiny. He not only proclaimed forgiveness and salvation: by
his own life and suffering and death he achieved it. He is the
messenger but he is also the heart of the message. He calls people to
God, but he is also himself the way to God. Ýstanbul,
April 22nd 2000
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hristianity
is founded on the worship of Jesus Christ ('Jesus the Messiah') as Son
of God, the unique self-revelation of God to the human race. At the
same time it remembers this same Jesus as a real historical figure, a
man of insignificant social standing who during his life was unknown
outside the obscure corner of the Roman Empire where he lived and
died.
