What was Jesus Thinking

Preface

The gospels are probably the most well-known books of the Christian Bible, they are read as stories of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Of all the writings of the New Testament they are the kind that seem most easily understood and are certainly most memorable, at least in general outline. It is not quite the same with the Old Testament, whose writings and even the stories are generally remembered with little precision. The gospels were written to highlight the reality of Jesus chiefly as divine – He is the Son of God – and this is what comes across to most people; but the purpose of this was also to make better Christians of their readers.

Many Christians not so much read the gospels as hear extracts from them during church services; often the impact of these readings is emphasised by the preacher. The most widely, if only vaguely known stories are of the birth and end of Jesus’ life; events which are celebrated in one way or another even in many secular societies with feasts of Christmas and Easter. For believers, these two great feasts confirm and climax the overall truth that Jesus is divine, illustrated in the stories of His miraculous birth and His resurrection after death.

It is good to have the belief that Jesus is the Son of God, but the belief should really change the way that believers live; it is the move from just believing to actually practising that is the real and difficult task that Christians face. It seems relatively easy to accept and worship Jesus as Lord, but all too hard to live in some way as Jesus did. So my aim in this work is to try to present Jesus as a human being living the way the best of humans should. This doesn’t mean for us that we have to go back in time and abandon all our modern ways of life, but we have to try to see to some extent how He actually lived for all of His life and try to translate that into how we should live in our present, much more modern, situations – in that way we will be becoming followers of the way Jesus lived and doing what He wants of us. This does not mean abandoning our belief in His divinity but taking seriously also our belief that He really was human as we are – He is one of us, and an example of an ideal human life. So I want to use my imagination and my skills in so far as I can, to provide some indication of what Jesus’ life as a human was like; his developing attitudes to others, his reflection on his Jewish religion and his gradual realization of what role God wanted of him. Jesus was one of us and we could be at least a little like Him – indeed is that not our aim as humans and Christians?

We reflect on what might have been in his mind during his time on earth. I do not want to question or threaten anything that you might already believe about the birth or life of Jesus – it is important to remember this and I hope you will. But my aim is to suggest how Jesus may have come across to folk in His lifetime, to people with no Christian belief about this man – no idea of Him such as soon developed after His death and which Christians have held to this day – about His nature as Son of God and Saviour, as well as being human. I feel that sometimes his humanity is rather overshadowed by devotion to Him as Divine, and any challenge to us to be more human as He was is somewhat left in the background. Let us wonder what was on his mind throughout his various experiences and what we should be thinking and doing today, each in our own situation. What was Jesus thinking?

Chapter 1 Life in Nazareth

Jesus in his time

I am not trying to discover what is behind the Infancy Narratives that we have in the gospels; and there are apocryphal gospels rejected by the church which say much more about His childhood. I do not want to question or threaten anything that you might already believe about the birth of Jesus – it is important to remember this throughout the chapter! I want to take you back in imagination to a little village in the land of the Jews, occupied and controlled, as far as possible, by the great and powerful Roman Empire over 2000 years ago. The villagers are simple Jewish folk with their own traditional customs and religious rules and practices which were generously tolerated by the occupying forces. There would have been a good number of families which we would probably call extended families, in this one village, though some relatives would be in other nearby villages. There was a routine necessary for the villagers to follow in their lives, with certain rules and customs. There would be jobs to maintain the community, for both the ladies and the men (and even the children), and no one would be limited to just one skill each. There would be crops to be sown and tended before being harvested, some livestock to be cared for regularly, some general maintenance of buildings and always the children to keep an eye on by the whole community. Regularly for each extended family there would be meals to be prepared, fires tended and cooking as required, not forgetting clearing up afterwards. Most likely in the darkening evenings there would be story-telling and perhaps singing too; they would like to hear the stories of their past and be able to chant some of the psalms from their worship meetings. Most of their stories would be known from their Scriptures (which Christians call the Old Testament) – and there are some good stories there which are still well-known in one form or another in our Western secular society even to this day, such as the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, the fate of the Tower of Babel, of Joseph and his many coloured coat, about Samson and Delilah and the young David’s fight with the giant Goliath and then being chosen to be the nation’s king.

So in the village of Nazareth there was this older unmarried man who got paired off with a young girl when she reached marriageable age – I think most marriages were arranged. Once marriage was agreed there would have been little delay in this young girl becoming pregnant and so sealing the marriage relationship. And like any young pregnant lady, if she had a relative or friend in a neighbouring village who was also pregnant they would like to get together and share their experiences, even as expectant and young mums do to this day. Thereafter the birth would be an excitement for the whole village.

The naming of children was always important in those days and names were chosen after careful consideration and consultation with relatives, and perhaps village elders too. The name chosen would aim to reflect the hopes of the parents. So for example a child thought to be ‘graced by God’ might be named what this is in Hebrew – ‘Yohannan,’ – from which we have the name John deriving from the Latin and the Greek. So it would not be unlikely for a mother who had thought she was going to be childless to name her child John to express her joy at the occasion, as the story in Luke tells us Elizabeth did. Our interest is more in the Hebrew name Joshua, which migrated into the name Jesus, a name which refers in some way to ‘saving;’ so this could be a suitable name for a child who was seen as a blessing to the family of an old man and this young new wife! These names would be registered at least provisionally with the village elders and probably confirmed with a blessing on the occasion of their next visit to the Jerusalem Temple.

The birth would be an occasion for remembering their long line of ancestors. Genealogy could also have some influence in the consideration of the naming of children because the families were close-knit and proud of their ancestors, after all every Jew was descended from one of a number of tribes each of which in the stories of their past could be traced back to a common ‘patriarch’ as Abraham was for all Jews.. All this is very different from the naming practice in our culture today, but that’s what it would have been like for a new baby then. This child of Nazareth would learn by doing and as he grew up, by being involved in cooperating and coping with more and more challenging tasks, jobs detailed by parents or even by other adults; in this way the young person became well-known in the local community and a genuine member of it. Then as he increased in age, ability and responsibility, so this child would be accepted as a beneficial member of the village.

They treated their day as starting on what we would call the evening before, and one day a week all work and business was put aside – this day was the Sabbath day; the Sabbath was always a day of rest and reflection, with memories of their religious past, repetition of their sacred meal rituals and appropriate ways devised to involve the children at home and in their daily and weekly rituals. All the villagers would have been Jewish and would gather together in one specially dedicated building, the synagogue, where they would offer prayers, listen to readings from their treasured and valuable sacred scrolls, and hear what we might call a sermon based on the text of the Scripture reading. Most probably there would be a leader to conduct these religious affairs and to oversee any ceremonies, and perhaps also at times to organise group trips to the Temple in Jerusalem for special feasts and occasions.

The only experience for a young person anything like our schooling would be listening to the readings and sermons in the synagogue and learning to join in with the chants and prayers. Particular ceremonies associated with their religion included services for children ‘coming of age.’ At thirteen years of age, a boy would become an adult Jew and would show this by reading a little from the sacred scroll by himself; they had no access to what we call books – there were only scrolls and they were exceedingly valuable. Nevertheless every member of the family was as fluent as necessary in remembering and even recounting some stories from the Bible as well as family anecdotes related in the dark evenings when nothing else could be done; education then was learning the practical tasks in the family and in the village. But one may well imagine the children asking to hear time and time again their favourite stories and surely sometimes asking why, about the unusual events in the stories and even about the customary village practices, both religious and secular. All this allows us to imagine something of the early days of ‘our man in Nazareth.’

But what might growing ‘teenagers’ (as we would call them now) and young men talk about together and what views might they have about things? The issue of the Roman occupation would have been topical; perhaps giving rise to strong emotions of hatred against the occupying troops; perhaps raising the question about the possession of the land supposedly given to them by the one true God, and what was this God of theirs doing about this foreign occupation? They had not been self-governing for about four centuries or more. Some of the young men might counter this hatred of others and any doubts they might have about their God with a strong expectation of an imminent ‘invasion’ from God with a saviour or liberator of them – a coming of a messiah, a saviour ‘to end it all’ (eschatological was the word). Their Scriptures never quite told of the death of Moses or Elijah, so maybe one of these great leaders of the past would return in the form of a saviour of their situation. However, the Scripture could also tell them that all humans are God’s creation and everyone should be respected for this; God is god for all – this idea is called universalism and it was hard for Jews to accept, but it was in their Holy Scrolls. Some enthusiastic young believers in this ‘universalism’ as it is called, might feel what a failure it was to be against all foreigners and even to regard Samaritans as folk to be avoided and lepers to be segregated from their society as untouchables.

Whereas the Roman citizens may have been supportive of each other and of foreigners and slaves, among the Jews there were factions; Scribes and Pharisees had quite different beliefs about the law and the afterlife. It does seem that the priests and leaders co-operated with the Romans though perhaps only to preserve something of their own dominance in Jerusalem and around the Temple with its rituals. Out in the adjacent desert there was a community of Jews who had quite different views about the importance of the Temple and its worshipping

practices, stressing instead the importance of community life, we call them Essenes and now we have found the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ which they hid in the desert caves when they were ousted by invaders. So growing up in Nazareth, the young men (and probably women too) had plenty for adult discussion and difference of opinions. We see evidence of all this variety of attitudes even in the Gospels written about fifty years after the life of Jesus.

In a village you easily make friends, and if you are ‘good company’ this can make you quite popular. With them you talk and share during activities and meals, but you also debate – if you are ‘polite’ allowing others their say, thinking out your own views and how to express them respectfully. Being a person with interesting ideas makes for being good company and people wanting to hear you again; Jesus was like this. Discussion would be about village life, people, families and the work but also beyond these borders extending into religion and politics – the two were always interconnected for the Jews. And our man in Nazareth was no exception from this process of growing up and developing one’s own views on the nature and purpose of life!

For a young man growing up there and then, religion would be quite a significant feature. The weekly services in the synagogue would include readings that sometimes were unclear, challenging or gave rise to questions about certain issues. Some stories were (almost) beyond belief: for example, the young David beating the giant Goliath, Sampson pulling down the pillars of the pagan temple, God regretting that He had created humans in the story of Noah, and the like! A rabbi or other teacher at the meeting would have spoken about these stories, and perhaps indicated their significance for daily life and how to conduct oneself appropriately for their audience and their situation and environment. It seems clear that there were different attitudes, perhaps even different from what the preacher had to say.

There were men who wanted physically to rebel against the Romans who occupied their land; they were sometimes called Zealots or even sicarii (literally ‘sword carriers’) who were quite against any cooperation with the Romans. In Jerusalem, the capital, some of the leading Jews kept their positions and authority by their careful relationship with the leaders of the occupying nation; I think this was not because they accepted that God’s concern extended also to other nations, but rather for the selfish reasons that could be justified if you thought God was yours and yours alone. Those with different attitudes in life should not be looked down upon by us for I am sure our own attitudes are not absolutely blameless – we now believe that God loved all people even in Nazareth in those days.

There were more ordinary folk who co-operated with their secular masters not because of any beliefs that they had but simply in order to make a living; some would sell their produce to whoever would buy and others would work more directly for the Romans, for example, as tax collectors. An attitude against tax-collectors survived even among early Christians as is clear from this quote attributed to Jesus but reflecting the writer’s attitude perhaps: ‘If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, … if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector’ (Matthew 18:15-18). Yet we now think of a man developing high ideals in Nazareth, who, among all these opinions, not only believed God was the God caring for all peoples, but also cared for these ‘collaborators’ and even pagans as well as those who hated them – surely Jesus would have been like this!

We know, even if we have forgotten, what a child is like growing in knowledge and understanding. Questions are necessary precedents to learning – in young children but also in some maturing adults Although the persistence of a questioning child can test one’s patience, the act of differing is more likely nowadays to be a teenager’s or a young adult’s, and can seem quite challenging or even considered offensive – especially by a more mature adult who assumes that what he or she thinks is true, is undoubtedly true. Considering this, helps us to understand the increasing awareness of life and everything else in the lively mind (of a thoughtful young man) who inevitably questions the things learnt and accepted as a child, and indeed to be true to oneself one really ought to question the attitudes, practices and beliefs of those one encounters in ordinary, regular life.

Religion for the Jews was officially central to their way of life and their religion was based on or arose from their Sacred Scriptures; these were accepted without question as illustrative of their nation and its relationship with their God. We have to realise that at the period we are considering there were innumerable tales of gods, spirits and ‘ghouls;’ and there were no end of stories of magical/miraculous marvels occurring, as well as the practice of rituals and ceremonies which we might at best call superstitions or even nonsense. Certainly within the Roman Empire at that time as well as this variety in belief and practice there was an extraordinary tolerance and little criticism or intolerance between the different believers. Indeed the Roman authorities even extended this by allowing the Jews to ‘exclusively’ worship their own god and in their own way. But living under Roman control and presence, our man would be quite aware of this variety in beliefs and also this tolerance of his particular religion. But as I have already said among the Jews there were different attitudes, practices and even beliefs. So the thoughtful and questioning young man, seeking truth in understanding and in practice, has to find his own position within this variety, or even develop his own ‘take’ on the words of his scriptures and the consequent practices for life indicated therein.

A growing young man who is serious has to begin to decide the sort of person he is and wants to be, and also try to discern what his role in life should be. In the next chapter we shall see the beginning of this man, Jesus, responding to what he perceives his contribution in life should be. But first some notes about the gospel accounts of this early period of Jesus’ life before he begins what we call his public ministry.

The Gospels’ Infancy Narratives

It is useful to bear in mind two aims of the gospel writings; one purpose is to affirm that Jesus is, in our way of speaking, both human and divine, both one of us and yet with the nature of God; and another purpose of the gospel writers is to inspire us to live, at least somewhat, as this divine Human and as He taught, adapting to our different circumstances. The opening sections of the gospels of Matthew and Luke are related to the birth and childhood of Jesus and are called Infancy Narratives. These Infancy Narratives, were written at least a generation after Jesus’ time and chiefly for Christians or enquirers about what was seen as a peculiar upstart religion; they are written as a basic introduction before telling the reader about the public life Jesus led and the things He said and did. Jesus is introduced to people who are fully aware that there was this man not so long ago who sparked off this new religious movement, but what is not so easy to grasp is the Christian belief that this man was divine, the Son of God; so the particular emphasis of the Infancy Narratives is to highlight this aspect of the reality of Jesus; the writers want to introduce Jesus as the climax of God’s relationship with the people of this world, especially the Jews. Matthew and Luke introduce Jesus as one in a particular situation, specially prepared and favoured by God, and these are notions not unfamiliar to those of the Jewish tradition who also considered themselves specially chosen people, protected and favoured by God. But whereas the history of the chosen people in the Bible is one of many failings and short-falls, this child of the Infancy Narratives is not only the fulfilment of a long awaited hope, but the ultimate case of what it is to be human in a relationship pleasing to God. In Jesus humanity is united with God and this is the ultimate purpose of all humanity.

And so the Infancy narratives relate the birth of Jesus to make this point. Luke and Matthew present a number of incidents with this same general purpose but with quite different styles and even rather different ingredients. However, they do both locate this in Nazareth and also refer to Bethlehem as the town of David, and both of these Gospels speak of Joseph as the spouse of Mary and of her being the virgin mother of this male offspring, Jesus, Who is the Son of God; and they both have genealogies though these are not identical. With just these few agreements it almost demands us to consider some of the differences. I shall mention just some points from both Matthew and Luke’s Infancy narratives

Matthew

Both genealogies are somewhat contrived to make particular points. Matthew traces Jesus back through Joseph to Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish race. Often mistakes or deliberate changes could be made in listing a person’s genealogy so as to avoid, for example, unwanted ancestors. Matthew as much as indicates this artificial alteration by telling us his genealogy is divided into three precise sections which divide the history of the people; the first section is from Abram up to its first significant king, David, (showing Jesus as a ‘son’ of David) fulfilling the hopes of the people; the second section covers the time of the many mistakes the people made until many of the leaders and ‘aristocracy’ ended up in Exile – definitely in need of some sort of salvation. From then to the climax of it all is the final section ending with the birth of Jesus. In this cryptic way Matthew indicates that Jesus was not just a descendant but one who fulfilled the expectations associated with that highly honoured Jewish king, David.

After the genealogy Matthew’s gospel has five sections each ending with a quotation: The naming of the child (Isaiah 7:14), the wise men from the East (Micah 5:1-3), the escape to Egypt (Hosea 11:1), the slaughter of babies (Jeremiah 31:14) and the return to Nazareth (unknown reference). The five sections as a whole reflect the five books that comprise the Jewish Torah (the pattern for Jewish good living), which is the most important and first part of the Jewish Bible. Because of the quotations he makes, it is clear that he is trying to say that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Jewish religious hopes and the pattern of the true way of life. Matthew’s style is to communicate using patterns and such like. The Torah (the important first five books of the what we call the Old Testament) is reflected and brought to completion in the coming (teaching and life) of Jesus!

The first of the five quotations needs some comment; it reads “Behold, a young womanshall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (RSV(CE)). With these words the prophet Isaiah in the 7^th century BC, wants to convince the king that any threat from the enemy will have passed away within the length of a pregnancy because of the condition of the young girl present at the scene and because she will, he says, name her child ‘God is with us,’ meaning that we all feel safe and blessed by God. This young girl has just reached marriageable age – in Hebrew they have this special word, ‘almah,’ which refers to the time in a girl’s life when she began to menstruate and hence was available for marriage. However this Hebrew word had no equivalent in the Greek language of Matthew’s gospel and so in the Greek version of the Bible and in many early English versions it is translated as ‘Behold a virgin…’ All this neither proves nor denies the belief that Mary was a virgin; but Matthew’s point is chiefly that God is in Baby shortly to be born to Mary in the line of Joseph..

In the other sections of his infancy stories Matthew also refers to incidents reflecting the events of the Old Testament history of the chosen people. The ruler’s orders to slaughter young babies, time in Egypt, and the re-entry into the promised land. Jesus reflects but also fulfils the history of the past people of God.

Luke

In Luke’s infancy narrative there is a totally different set of events (apart from details mentioned above), and a quite different literary style and layout. He writes stories closer to the family and their religious lives. Unlike Matthew’s dreams for God’s communications, Luke used angels, and he also included a number of songs/prayers/blessings whatever you’d like to call them. It also seems that Like wants to parallel Jesus and the Baptist, to recognise the importance of John but the definite superiority of Jesus. So the layout of Luke’s Infancy Narrative, which comes after an introduction, reflects all this. First, annunciations – one of John’s birth to his father (1: 5 – 25) then one of Jesus’ birth to Mary (1: 26 – 35). Second, Mary visits Elizabeth – with a ‘hymn’ (1: 36 – 55). Third the account of the birth and naming: of John and Zachariah’s hymn (1: 57 – 79) and then of Jesus’ birth and Simeon’s prayer (2: 1 – 32). Additionally he tells of the family outing to Jerusalem and the Temple and what we usually call the finding) in the Temple (2: 41 – 52).

There is a careful and clear structure in Luke’s Infancy Narrative; for example the birth of Jesus section begins with an additional annunciation to the shepherds when the angels are singing “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace for those he favours” which many Christians still sing at their celebrations. Also, after Simeon’s prediction of the child being “… destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel…” the prophetess Anna is mentioned; Luke has more about the women in the story of Jesus than any of the other Gospels. Something of this will come up later where I write about the public presence and activity of Jesus. But this analysis of Luke’s structure shouldn’t distract us from his excellent storytelling style, and the clear link he makes with the past history of the chosen people that led to the early Christian communities he was addressing.

Chapter 2 Taking the plunge

The grown man.

Together with the company that our young man kept whenever they had some free time, the conversations would have helped Jesus to develop in his understanding of and his questioning about his religion, the ‘political’ situation and especially what his own attitudes should be to all the people and situations that he encountered in Galilee and even might meet in the future. All this was just as any young man might; but some people, like him, have an inexpressible inner urge for something else and all the time are trying to determine for themselves what this might be. Religious people today might refer to a ‘call’ or a vocation! But maybe we all at some time wonder what we should or want to make of our lives.

As Jesus grew old he had less to do in the village – we must remember that, just as adulthood began at 12 or 13 so, by the age of 30 a person was ‘getting on a bit.’ It was at this time that Jesus and his pals heard of another man about their age who had developed a very strong personality and a role which we might even think of as a ‘calling;’ it’s a person whom we know of especially through the New Testament writings where he is named John the Baptist. He had been attracting crowds, and rumours of him and his activity were going about that his preaching was transforming people’s lives.

There were slack times in the village of Nazareth when the crops were just growing, the livestock were not giving birth or needing slain or sold and so there was time for a few days with friends, to be away from their village. A group of them including our man, set off to the spot by the river Jordan where they had heard that John was preaching and apparently growing in popularity. It may have been still in the province of Galilee or further down the river – there were no noticeable border lines; it was probably only about twelve or so miles from Nazareth but distances weren’t measured by miles but rather by how long it might take to walk. It was going to be an exciting and different experience and Jesus felt it in a more personal way because of his own inner searching for his final role in life and because John was a relative of his mother Mary through her elderly cousin Elizabeth.

During the journey, among other things, they discussed what they had heard about John. People had reported unusual things about him; that he had spent some time in the desert on his own, and was very strict with himself and his diet, and fairly odd in his way of life and in his ‘clothing,’ which some said was camel skin. They had heard say that the crowd that listened to him got very excited and enthusiastic, though some may have been critical of his message or of his over-enthusiastic mode of delivery.

They would have heard the noise of the crowd even before they reached the back of those listening as best as they could to what was being said. They gradually made their way nearer to the front to see this character for themselves, as well as to hear more clearly what he was saying. He spoke with a very strong and at times almost fierce tone, attempting to move his audience and not just emotionally, but calling them to change their whole attitude to life and commit themselves to what God wanted of them and what His plan for them in life was. At the climax of the enthusiasm John got really emotional and demanding, he called people to ‘convert’ and to show this transformation in their lives, just as at that time non-Jews would in order to join the Jewish religion, calling them to undergo a baptism of total immersion in the river Jordan. This was the river that their distant ancestors had crossed at first to enter the land that they thought of as the land promised to them by God and where they mostly lived. John called people to express their renewed commitment to God’s call on them by copying this ritual as a sign of their transformation and as a recognition of what they should be doing with the rest of their lives as people of God.

Among the crowd were representatives of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. The Jews had for more than four centuries been dominated by foreign powers, after the Exile in Babylonia by the Persians, then by the Greeks and now by the Roman Empire. The Jewish Kingship had disappeared and the religious leaders based in Jerusalem co-operated with rulers to various degrees but now with the Romans, who did not force the Jews into polytheism but generously allowed then their belief in just one god. However the arrangement was always tenuous, both sides not wanting any serious problems. So the Jewish priestly leaders managed things very tactfully and preserved their own positions at least of religious authority. When they realised the influence that John might have on people, one that might seem rebellious to the Romans, they became anxious and sent representatives to investigate what was being preached and what was going on with the crowds gathering to hear this outlandish self-styled preacher, John.

Different from them, there were always some who were less academically educated but knew the tales of the history of their people and of the actions and promises of God in the past. Some of them thought that God wanted them to co-operate with His plans, as they saw them, for a free and independent nation for themselves – the chosen people – and that they ought to be contributing to the success of this plan. They might have been called zealots and some of them at least would have been prepared to physically fight against the Roman authorities if they thought this was God’s will for them. These people already had strong feelings; but listening to John preaching with such enthusiasm and calling people to do what God wanted of them and commit themselves with baptism, could easily inspire them to rebel and upset the relatively workable relationship between the Jerusalem priests and the Roman overlords.

A certain variety of messages could be taken from the readings that the ordinary Jew heard in the synagogue time and again. The leader of the services in the synagogue or people they asked to speak about the readings could emphasis certain points and suggest to the people what they ought to be thinking and doing with their lives. Some ideas arose because of the seemingly definite promises that God had made and the delay in their fulfilment. With the apparent delay in God’s plans an expectation had arisen among some, that one day God would act by sending a special leader, a Messiah, who would powerfully put things to right in their terms and make their people dominant over all others and God becoming the god worshipped by all. This would be the completion, at last, and the end that God had always in mind for His people and His creation – so they thought. Because of the Greek word eschaton meaning ‘end,’ this movement or process has come to be called eschatological. Among those listening to John’s preaching were people who felt that at last this end was about to occur in their lifetime and maybe needed their co-operation.

If Jesus and his group had only fleetingly heard of these different views of their religion, they would have heard them here expressed more clearly and in a way that exposed the implications of these views for how one acted and what one should do with one’s life. All this exposure to quite different views enabled discussion which always, when conducted in a respectful and friendly way, provides an opportunity for the clarification of one’s own beliefs and attitudes. Jesus, who was not married as many of his friends were, had a certain inner feeling. It was not just “what should I do with the rest of my life” but “what sort of person am I or should I be.” Observing others in his village, he had noticed the importance for a happy life, of thoughtfulness towards others. He just admired the way some people were always doing things for others; this was the case even when it was the younger ones mindful of their elders, the young mothers especially for their little ones, or the friends and neighbours when someone was ill and the like. He noticed in himself and in others the concern shown and given to people in need of one kind or another, like to his mother when Joseph died. But also he experienced the same attitude often when things seemed to go wrong, with the crops, the livestock or even the buildings in the village and sometimes, alas, even with the relationships between people – in all these cases he himself felt the upset of the situation and the pain of others, but also realised the curative effect of help, concern and sensitivity shown and given. These were attitudes and emotions that satisfied the inner feelings that he had about how he should live his life – the kind of life that he was called to lead.

People had different interpretations of John’s preaching and call for commitment. For some it seemed challenging of their present way of life; the Jewish leaders saw him as a trouble-maker and an uneducated upstart through whose influence they might lose their leadership. The zealots might be instigated to fight more for their nation’s freedom and threaten the compromise that the leaders had with the Romans. Those expecting the Messiah to come from God soon, imagined the final rise to dominance of their nation for itself and over others. Others might feel the call of John to make a transformation in their lives and to show their commitment to this by their public baptism in the Jordan. Seeing those who did this, expressed the drama and the serious impact of this ‘conversion’ moment. Many well-known people before this time had experienced the call for a serious change in their life, like Abraham willing to sacrifice his son, Jacob and his dream of a link with God in heaven, Joseph with many dreams in Egypt, Moses meeting God at the burning bush, Elijah encountering God up the mountain – their Bible was full of such and similar calls from God and commitments to a positive life-changing response. Our man in Nazareth was familiar with all these stories of the past.

So there came about, igniting within the being of our man, a feeling of a call for something special from him. He didn’t think the sort of selfish attitude of the priests from the capital was what God really wanted. Any future Messiah coming from God might well be expected at anytime, but to just wait for that without getting on with doing what God wanted here and now was not the way forward. God’s influence and even presence could be sensed in all the good-living individuals he knew; and he was confident that God wanted all to live with concern for their fellow human beings. Yes, there were things that were wrong and always had been , but that was no reason not to want – and to try – to put them right in some way. He knew that these thoughts and ideas had been growing gradually within him; he knew that he must in some way respond to these inner ideas in action, by what he himself would do. He was now getting older (equivalent to about 65 in Europe nowadays) and it was now or never that he would begin to live the way he felt that he should. But what a dramatic change this would be from his village life, how startling it might be for his family and friends, and all who knew him in the village; but now, watching others expressing dramatically with baptism their commitment to something or other, he felt he should perhaps do the same.

Before the end of the day Jesus spoke to others who were there, to hear what they thought of John and his preaching, and to try out his views upon them. He wondered what they thought being baptised might be interpreted as. They thought that you would have to be really certain and committed to go forward for baptism – no one could come forward for this light-heatedly, you would need to consider carefully before going forward for this. His friends said you would need to consider carefully about what it meant. Someone who had done it spoke to Jesus about how submerging oneself completely was really fearful and how she physically lost her breath for a moment, but she came up from it like a new person, resolved to put her past mistakes behind her and to start off anew as a reformed, new-born character, which she always really wanted to be. No one in the group questioned any of these emotions and this reaction, but felt it wasn’t for them because you had to be a special kind of person to dare to do it.

Jesus went off on his own to think about all this; he just had this deep inner feeling, but he had never done anything like it before, he felt unsure, nervous, even frightened. How did he know that it was the right thing for him to do – he had always tried to do what was right. What precisely was it he was called to do – to be – and what if it all went wrong? He was not just unsure but was actually worried. It might all end up with him being rejected by friends and family, being opposed by people from his own religion or even clashing with the Roman authorities; he was not only unsure and worried but downright scared!

Jesus and his mates from Nazareth spent the night like many of the others, just sleeping in the open under the sky; he had never had any trouble sleeping, even in the open, but this night he lay thinking, physically still but emotionally restless, worrying and fearful. His past life was running through his mind. He remembered when he was asked for the first time as a wee child, to collect the eggs the hens had laid, how he was not sure what to do and was quite scared of these hens, and the cocks. Much more vivid in his memory was when he was first called upon to help slay a lamb for the family feast; that was a scary task and very emotionally painful making him wonder was this the right sort of thing to be doing? Yet… And he recalled how scared he was in the synagogue the one and only time that he had to read before everyone from the Sacred Scroll of the Torah. What would people think of him in his new role – whatever that might turn out to be? Through the night these kind of thoughts pestered him. He recalled how he so often had asked questions that his elders and family thought should not be asked; people anyway thought him somewhat odd and not just because he turned down every proposal that was offered him to marry one of the young girls in the village; his pals often thought him too serious about things even if they accepted his many other oddities. He looked up at the sky, the orderly creation that God had made with a plan for everything – and for everyone. He now felt called to be part of this plan, to do something dramatic to express his commitment to be what God wanted of him. He did nod off during this long night, but woke with this powerful, daring response to God’s perceived wish – he would step forward for baptism and the beginning of a new kind of life just like the change that John was inviting people to make as he repeated his call to take on a new attitude to life. So the next day Jesus came forward and was baptised.

It was just like people had said it would be. He came up out of the depths of the water with a fire in his heart, a definite feeling of being gripped by a new spirit and a strength to step out into the unknown, to be led by God – led to do exactly what God wanted of him – with whoever he met – wherever he would go. Come what may he felt strong enough for it; he had taken the plunge! So let us pause to see how this was retold many years later in the writing of the Gospels.

The Baptist in the NT

We read about John’s activity and the Baptism of Jesus in the Gospels, but they are trying neither to be the story of the man Jesus nor the history of what actually happened. Mark is generally accepted as the earliest of the gospels, and he opens his writing with “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ …” and what is translated here as ‘good news’ represents one word in the original Greek from which developed the English word ‘evangelist’ (one who writes a gospel – good news). What a gospel tells us is true, it is the truth about God and what He has done for us through His Son, Jesus; a gospel aims to tell us how to be good Christians and followers of Christ, how we should think of Him, what He should mean to us and how we should put our beliefs into practice. So a gospel aims to tell of the impact Jesus has on us all rather than to be an accurate historical account of Jesus’ life and death; this becomes clear when the four gospels are compared with each other. For instance with regards to John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus the four gospels are not altogether the same as each other. If we look first at what the gospel of Mark has to say after the opening title which we have just examined, without any further precedent he starts the good news by making a quotation from what we call the OT, but for him and for the majority of his original readers are their Sacred Scriptures: ‘as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”’ (Mark 1:1-8).

It is interesting that though he says this is from Isaiah, the first few words quoted are from the OT Book of Malachi (3:1) and the rest from Isaiah (40:3). To mask this mistake some copyists of Mark’s gospel changed his introduction of the text to “as it is written in the prophets.” Matthew and Luke omit the beginning of Mark’s quote which is from Malachi, and Luke also quotes the two following verses from the Isaiah passage. The three gospels see this voice as referring to John the Baptist whose job they saw as to announce what was about to happen. Mark says that John called people to repent, be baptised and gain forgiveness of their sins. Matthew leaves out the forgiveness because he wants his readers to know that it is through Jesus that forgiveness comes. In both Matthew and Luke, John is portrayed as quite an emotional and enthusiastic preacher, in Matthew as a person particularly against the Pharisees and Sadducees, but Luke has John critical of everyone: John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Luke 3:7).

But the Baptist announces that someone after him will come who is better than he and who will baptise people with the Holy Spirit. – and Matthew and Luke add to this phrase “and with fire;” it is fire that symbolically will get rid of the rubbish in people’s lives – “the chaff” as they call it will be burnt – it’ll be like harvest time, with which most at that time would be familiar! But none of the gospels tell of Jesus’ human emotions. All that Mark writes about the baptism of Jesus is in these three verses: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” (Mark 1:9-11).

When this is compared with what Matthew and Luke have to say we notice that in Mark it is Jesus who sees the divine phenomena and it is He who is addressed by the voice from heaven. In Matthew, Jesus comes to be baptised and John recognises him and suggests rather that he should be baptised by Jesus, but he accedes to Jesus’ wish in the matter. Also the heavenly events seem to be for everyone to see because the voice addresses them, not just Jesus with “This is my Beloved Son …” In Luke Jesus is praying as this happens and Luke seems to make the dove more actual than symbolic. The dove might well be there to recall parts of the Jewish Scriptures: in Genesis 1:2 the Spirit hovered [as doves do] over the waters, and in Genesis 8:6-12 it is the dove that indicates to Noah the end of the flood.

John’s gospel is different. It was completed later than the others and begins with a carefully crafted ‘poem’ into which seems to be inserted something about John the Baptist. It portrays Jesus as the Word of God (an almost technical term in Greek thought for the nature or essence of something), but, in more metaphorical language, Jesus is the “light that comes into the world” to dispel all its darkness and the text continues: “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. (John 1:6-8).

When the prose in this fourth gospel begins, it tells of John who was able to point out Jesus whom he recognised because he saw the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. In this gospel it is later that he points Jesus out to some of his own enthusiasts and he says to them: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptises with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:32-34)

Mark together with Matthew and Luke report the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist, saying he was executed after being imprisoned as a supporter of rebellion against the Roman occupation. But at the beginning of Christianity there were many believers who held John in high esteem because of the power of his words and the excitement they felt at his preaching. As Christianity spread into other parts of the Roman empire, this would not only threaten the central position that Jesus should have but also was unhelpful to the peaceful acceptance of Christians within the empire. Matthew and Luke seem to address this issue with sections saying that John from prison sent his followers to ask about Jesus – was he the expected Messiah etc. And they tell us Jesus replied that though John was a great character, but he was just the forerunner of Jesus Himself (Matthew chapter 11 and Luke 7:18-35). So that concludes the New Testament sections that are related to this part of the life of our man in Nazareth who has taken the step into a more public form of life.

Chapter 3 Stepping out

The start of meeting people.

Jesus’ friends from the village and the new ones he had been talking with earlier all wanted to know what was it like being baptised. “It’s not that I’m a new person,” he said, “but I have spent all my life so far in Nazareth – apart from trips to Jerusalem for the feasts – and those of you who knew me then, could see that there was something in me trying to mature. Well now I’m getting older, that something has blossomed and I feel I have fallen on my feet, like a newborn calf that can just about stand up on its four awkward legs. All the things I only tentatively thought back home, I am now no longer afraid to think and express.”

His old friends knew what he meant, because he was always a bit odd; he asked awkward questions, he did some unexpected things. They remembered when he would ask the synagogue leader about his interpretation of the passages read, and when he would question some of the rules that they followed, like on the Sabbath you shouldn’t sort the ripe from the unripe fruit. He asked many such awkward even irritating little questions, at least until he realised that they were annoying other people, then he was more circumspect, more careful only to challenge those whom he thought it might help. His friends from Nazareth also remembered how he would love to spend time with those folk that no one ever spent much time with unless they had to. He certainly stood out in the village, but what was he going to do now, they asked.

“Well, I’m just going to wander around here for a time to see how other people live and what they are like, and to see if I can be useful at all to anyone. And I want to tell people I meet, what I think about life and its purpose and see how they react. I know you think I am attracted to what you call odd folk, but I also want to talk more with younger people and even the educated folk, like the Sadducees and the Pharisees – and I want to put to them the points of view that I have bottled up now for a long time.” A few of his friends tagged along with him out of curiosity and to get to know him better now that he was baptised and to see what he would say and do. So they headed off towards the lake of Galilee.

On the way they met another group going off to see what the Baptist had to say and to find out more about him, after the rumours they had heard. During the conversation between the two groups, they were anxious to hear what Jesus and his group made of what John had to say. Jesus was the obvious person to speak about this. He was keen to tell them of John’s main message which was a call to repent because God’s reign could soon come to fruition. He explained that this repentance meant to begin to think differently, to act in a new and better way and to try to become what you really are called by God to be. Jesus had understood this to be John’s main thrust and was even now entering into this fuller kind of life for himself. He had this idea that the kingdom of God was really like a vast, even universal, society of people living just as God wanted them to and hence loving and caring for each other to form a godly society, a situation that God had always planned for humanity – the kingdom of God. They were all taken aback by the big and bold thoughts Jesus was expressing to them, and by his description of being baptised which had certainly released something powerful within him.

For some of the group this was proving to be some journey, some were young but others like Jesus quite getting on in years. But they had a rest again when they met a number of fishermen who had left the market on the shore and were going to try to sell some fish elsewhere. Jesus was asking them about their job because he had lived in his village and had never had much experience of fishing. He learnt from them the difficulties: the weather could sometimes whip up an unexpected storm as though it was trying to protect the fish in their vulnerable situation, the fish seemed to know how to hide at times and the fishermen had to be tactful, knowledgeable and patient. Jesus told them that these were valuable qualities that they had and he tried to have similar ones in his dealing with people and with village life.

Jesus, who wasn’t quite sure where he was heading on this journey or in his newly baptised life, asked them, “so where are you all going now?” “Oh, we are off to see that John the preacher we’ve heard about”, one replied and went on, “my young helper is called John and we have heard all sorts of things about this other John further down stream. Do you know anything about him?” Jesus’ group were able to tell them what they knew and proudly to say that Jesus had actually been baptised. “Oh what was that like? Tell us something about it! You must be a brave person to dare to go through with that.” Jesus replied, “It was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced – unless it was like being born, but I wasn’t conscious then. I feel that even at my age, I am now starting a new life, I am becoming what I feel God wants of me – what I was always meant to be. But don’t get me wrong, I always enjoyed my life in the village and felt very at home with the whole community. I listened to my elders and learnt from them, and with my friends I had many interesting conversations. But now I want to grow into a new freedom, into a wider community, and feel I have a lot more to learn but also something to say, – but you go and listen to John and maybe get baptised if you feel you should!”

Jesus spent some time around the sea of Galilee, interested in all the activity. He had not had anything much to do with fishing before, but he was soon taken with the activity and saw much of it as like the pattern of life. You have to go looking for what you want; you have to be patient; sometimes you will be disappointed, at others you will think yourself blest. He watched the fishermen and reflected. After a catch you had to haul the nets aboard or to the shore and sort out the good from the rest; then you had to despatch them off with some of your co-workers to be taken and sold. But Jesus also noticed that your catch had to go before the ever-present taxman whom you had to pay – nobody liked this at all, besides he was in fact working for the Romans who occupied their whole land at this time – the land supposedly given them by God.

It was a few days later he met again the group who had been down to see the Baptist preacher. He remembered Cephas, and now met some of his crew as well. So they had time to talk again. Apparently the Baptist had said to them, “you should watch that man Jesus, he has real spirit and fire in him – who knows where that could lead!” So Jesus now had some ‘fans’ in Cephas and his mates, John and James.

Jesus was now meeting with and enjoying the company of a wider variety of people. Over the years back home he had learnt to treat all people at least with care and concern and often with interest too. He was glad to hear their views and develop his own religious attitudes in dialogue with them. Once in a discussion with others he noticed a man who never spoke, not because he couldn’t get a word in edgeways, but as though he had nothing to say. Eventually Jesus took the man’s arm and drew him away from the group; he said “speak to me, please, I’d love to hear what you have to say!” The man looked at him briefly with some amazement at this action, but then looking at the ground began; “well, I think that ….” and went on to say a great deal of what he thought and how he felt about what he had heard others say. The group noticed that this had happened and drew around to listen politely – and with some wonder at the man’s fluency and the valuable comments that he made – he could speak after all!

That evening Cephas invited Jesus to come to his house and Jesus was only too pleased to accept the offer. But when they got there Cephas’ mother-in-law had gone to bed to rest for she was not feeling at all well. So when Cephas brought Jesus for the evening meal there was a bit of a panic; Jesus asked if he could see her and went in to talk with her. Whatever happened, perhaps because of her excitement at meeting one of whom she had heard such interesting tales or perhaps because of how Jesus was with her, she rallied and got from her bed to welcome their guests in a suitable manner. And this is just another example of the tales that went around of Jesus helping people in different kinds of difficulties, helping them as people physically, emotionally and raising the spirits of many who were low and almost despairing of their situation, mental or psychological.

When the meal broke up he was alone with some of his close friends – Cephas, John and James; they were chatting before they went to sleep and they asked him “How do you pray when you are not in the synagogue or just about to have a meal?”. He began to tell them “When I was still a young child my dad died. I had always chatted to him about things, about what I wanted to do when I grew up, asking him why … lots of things I wanted to know, and always thanking him and my mum for all they did for me, and so on. But after he died I seemed to have no one to talk to in that way – mothers aren’t quite the same – maybe girls talk to them more! So I began speaking to God about the same things, though it always made me be more respectful and religious, talking about more serious things than I might have done with my human dad.” They were all most enchanted listening to these private thoughts from the person they held in such regard; “go on” they said, “and what do you do now when you are not chatting to us?” More slowly and even solemnly he continued, “Nowadays – well really it was being baptised that changed the way I prayed – somehow I see God as my father – the one who would guide me, who has hopes for me and who will support me when I need it. So that’s the way I pray now, so no more talk just now, it’s time for sleep!”

He was standing on the shore early one morning before it was properly light, watching his friends in their boat, how they seemed to be searching for the fish who were able to keep out of their sight as much as possible. He collected a few dried bits of things lying about on the shore and got a lighted stick from one of the stall holders, to start a fire; he thought he would just cook a couple of fish for breakfast for his friends. He went to call them but saw the disturbance in the water just to the side of their boat; obviously they couldn’t see it themselves from the boat. He called out to them, there are fish just on your left there, cast your nets down quickly, then I’ve got a surprise for you. The surprise they had was not just going to be the breakfast, but the huge catch of fish that they had not been able to spot. After they had caught all they could and all had a celebratory meal together, it was then he asked them if they would come with him as he wanted to go to other villages and towns to talk with people there, and some of them tagged along with him.

Jesus was talking to a crowd that had gathered at one place, saying that the Kingdom of God, as he saw it, was already present amongst them in all the good actions and goings on between people of all kinds. Those who knew him well saw that evidenced in his life; they recognised it whenever Jesus elicited a smile of joy on someone’s face by his attitude to them and maybe by his conversation with them; they noticed how this way of Jesus with others was like God sending a blessing on them – God was in some way working through him. His more regular followers were keenly aware of the loving way he lived and treated all sorts of people, even the unexpected, like taxmen, Romans, lepers, beggars and indeed women of all sorts.

But a good number of people were more excited about the kingdom that they envisaged coming in the future – they hoped quite soon – a time when their God would send a Messiah who would free them from domination and elevate them to be the greatest of all nations. Such a belief seemed more hopeful than what Jesus was telling them about the Kingdom being already here; but he didn’t mean it was completely here yet, for there were many still who didn’t love all others and who even didn’t love their own situation in life. However Jesus knew that this godly attitude was not there in all people and not there all the time in nearly everyone; in this sense the kingdom was present but still had a long way to go before it was completely fulfilled.

When the crowd dispersed, Jesus’ close followers asked him about the reaction that he had met with; about why, if he was right, and if God was with him, could these people not accept what he had said about the kingdom being here and now. They felt his message was not getting through and they were disappointed. But he told them what he had learnt back home from the time he was a young lad. He said, “It’s like when a man goes into the field to sow the seed for the next crop. Think about it! You should know that not every seed survives, some just fall where people regularly walk and get trodden down, quite a lot get eaten by the birds, no matter how you try to keep them away, and yet some do survive and produce a good crop – though better on some soil that on others! That’s what this situation is like!”

There was also another occasion when something of Jesus’ attitude to other people surprised even those closest to him. While on the shore when all the fishing was going on and the trading afterwards, he got speaking with one of the tax collectors, and later invited him to join them for a meal. Now in those days sharing a meal was quite a significant occasion implying a friendly relationship between the people there and also an opportunity for discussion as among friends. Taxmen were generally disliked, not just because they collected taxes but also because they were seen as co-operating with the occupying forces. Consequently it was quite an eye-opener and challenge for the close followers of Jesus to find that Matthew the tax-collector had been invited by Jesus to join them for a meal – and even to tag along with them as they wandered around.

Jesus had now met a lot of people – more than he normally would. But he just loved meeting them and they clearly loved listening to him, and some thought of him as a miracle worker, from his dealing with Cephas’ mother-in-law, the speechless lad and the shoal of invisible fish. But he was feeling that he needed to move around, to meet even more people, to tell them his ideas and maybe even help some of them. Some from his home town and some of his new friends might even accompany him: new friends like Andrew and Cephas, John and Simon as well as Matthew and some women. However he thought that first he ought to go to see his mum and old friends in Nazareth who would have heard that he had been baptised, and perhaps that he had changed. So the group set off to the village of Nazareth.

Jesus, the Gospels and the OT.

In the gospels the Baptism is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and it is also presented in some of them as the time that he is announced as the son of God – God is his Father.

In the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, the section after the baptism is about temptations – temptations like the love of self, of possessions and of self-glory. Mark does not elaborate on the nature of the them (Mark 1:12), but both Matthew and Luke tell of three specific temptations in the desert. Though they are specific to Jesus as the one sent with the power of God to save the world, they are a lesson for the reader that to be genuinely human, as was Jesus, it is inevitable to be tempted. Our man from Nazareth was truly human and so throughout his life had to struggle to do what was right and proper. In the Fourth Gospel there are several instances of Jesus’ struggle and Luke adds at the end of his account of the temptations that the devil left him, but only for the time being (Luke 4:13).

In putting into writing the good news the evangelists had their own style for selecting, ordering and expressing the material available. There was probably a written selection of the sayings of Jesus, but there were also a lot of traditional tales passed down from the time of Jesus by those who experienced him; these would have been recounted again and again in the meetings of the Christians together, and always with the intention of stressing the divine in him because the human was not in any doubt as he lived not that long ago from their point of view – quite the opposite of our situation today! But also and always the anecdotes were told in order to impress and to bring people to want to become followers of Jesus and to strive to live his way of life – loving others, caring for all, whatever.

In those days, among the Jews but also throughout the pagan world of the Roman Empire, meals were quite significant events as occasions for human interaction, learning and fellowship, often also showing respect for one or more of the many gods celebrated in the Roman world at that time. Within that empire the Jewish religion with its monotheism was reluctantly tolerated; they too had this understanding of the sacredness of meals, for human interaction and celebration of God being with them. In Luke’s gospel especially a number of meals in which Jesus was involved are related; these were always occasions for religious discussion and sharing.

Jesus was brought up with stories from his past and especially from the Bible (what we call the Old Testament); they were mostly about his religion and the origin of the many practices and beliefs of it. We often don’t realise the conflicting messages present in different parts of the Scriptures; they are there because of the various situations that are being dealt with in the stories and the poems, by the prophets and even by the writers of the history parts of the Bible. For example it says God actually regretted at one time of creating us just before the story of the flood: “And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” (Genesis 6:6). Later in the stories of the Bible God actually asked Abram to slaughter his son as a sacrifice, although He stopped him just before he did: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” (Genesis 22:2). Again we could read that Moses was a murderer: “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Exodus 2:11f). all the same God chose him to be the leader of the people out of Egyptian slavery to freedom. Also David was chosen by God to be king and he became the image of the expected future Messiah although he took the wife of another man (whom he had transferred to the front of the battle to meet his death). Again Amos from the countryside was sent to the city to prophesy because of his general hatred of the city and its ways; and Hosea the prophet was in a similar way chosen to speak about marriage because of his problem with his own wife. God’s ways are, to say the least, strange at times; for example it reads as though the prophet Isaiah was called by God, to “Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed” (Isaiah 6:10). So, at the time of Jesus it is no wonder that he could question some of the aspects of his religion and even bypass some of the ritual rules propounded by the Pharisees and Scribes.

Now Jesus told parables to fellow Jews to try to make them better people and sometimes to encourage them to reconsider their interpretation of the attitudes, rituals and regulations they had about life, religion and God. A passage in Matthew is a good example of this: “You have heard that it was said,” where the Scripture quoted is from the book of Exodus (21:24f) “you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot…” and Matthew tells us Jesus after saying this went on to say “But I tell you …” differently (Matthew 5:38). The many parables that the Gospels recount would have originally arisen from Jesus’ experience of life there and then – about sowing seeds, building houses, searching for some small thing lost in your home, about wine-making and weddings and so on. However whatever such parables Jesus told, they were applicable to some particular situation that He encountered. Because of their nature they were easily remembered by people, who told them to others. But when such a story is retold, away from the original situation that gave rise to it, it would be adapted to the new situation so as to make sense to the listeners. The Gospel writers were writing for a readership quite different from the original people Jesus told them to; different because once Jesus’ life was complete (by His death and resurrection) the world was in a different situation, especially the believers in Jesus and followers of His way of life.

Chapter 4 Public Exposure

The background situation

I must write something about miracles before writing of the real public exposure of our man from Nazareth. You will have noticed that in the previous chapter, I referred to a small number of incidents that would have been taken as miracles by the people of the time or after Jesus became famous. The problem is the different attitudes we have to miraculous happenings. Even in our own times people have different views about this; among Christians there are strongly structured bodies like the Roman Catholic church that accept both those miracles of the Scriptures and even approve of some in our own days; at some distance from this are strongly charismatic and ‘evangelical’ groups who even publicly perform miracles of particular kinds; in between these poles and among ordinary Christian believers there are various views both about Scriptural accounts and present day claims. Among other religions and even atheists there are also divergent views about miraculous cures, ghostly appearances and certain actions of other worldly powers and influences of the stars.

So far I have described the world as I see it today, but if we take a look back across time – centuries – then the world was somewhat different. In the Roman empire around the time of Christ, people were mostly polytheists and would sacrifice or pray to chosen deities to ask for favours of various kinds and to thank them for blessings from which they benefitted; there are reports of many miracles of various kinds especially performed by ‘religious’ enthusiasts or famous people; there were however also a minority of non-believers in any deity. But it is within this empire and its culture that the Jews existed and were generously tolerated to be monotheists; this was the context of Jesus and also of the writings of the New Testament though penned outside of the Jewish enclave: for example by Paul in Corinth, Ephesus and that area, and by the Gospel writers too. It was their monotheism that was distinctive, not their accounts of miraculous happenings.

The Jews and Christians who were spread throughout the Roman empire all accepted, as did Jesus, what we call the Old Testament and we must not overlook the miracles recounted there. I just refer to a few dramatic ones: Elisha raised a child to life (2 Kings 4: 32), Zareptah’s son raised to life (1 Kings 17:2), and Naaman the leper cured (2 Kings 5:1). In this situation Jesus also performed some miracles – sometimes reluctantly.

As for practices that seem to challenge accepted beliefs supposedly based on Scripture, our man would know from the synagogue readings, that prostitutes play a beneficial role in the story of the invasion of the tribes into the Promised land (Joshua 6), and that the words of the prophets are often very challenging in how they usually interpret their religion (e.g. God is also the god of the non-Jews – in the story of Jonah and elsewhere). Jesus was brought up with the Bible as His only book; it was about his religion and the origin of the many practices and beliefs of it. But his questioning mind noticed the conflicting messages present in different parts of the Scriptures and in the practices current in his time; they are there because of the various situations that are being dealt with in the stories and the poems, by the prophets and even the writers of the history parts of the Bible. So, at the time of Jesus it is no wonder that he could question some of the aspects of his religion and even bypass some of the ritual rules propounded by the Pharisees and Scribes.

With this background, Jesus went public – spoke out boldly; he would tell parables to fellow Jews to try to make them better people and sometimes to encourage them to reconsider the interpretation of the Bibles’ attitudes, rituals and regulations about life, religion and God. A passage in Matthew is a good example of this: “You have heard that it was said,” where the Scripture quoted is from the Torah, the book of Exodus (21:24f) “you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot…” and Matthew tells us Jesus after saying this went on to say “But I tell you …” differently (Matthew 5:38). However I am not going to concentrate on Jesus’ actions but rather on his self-awareness; my purpose is not to suggest to you what Jesus did or even said, so much as what he thought both of the world around him and of attitude he had towards all others.

Jesus’ development

Even without our modern technology, news could spread surprisingly rapidly around Galilee and even down to Jerusalem. A lot of people had seen and heard Jesus but now he himself was deciding the way his life was going to be, as every human consciously or unconsciously must do; his role in life was to show the best of humanity, to be honest and truthful and loving and helpful to all he could; in this way he would come gradually to know himself and to be himself – who he really was. But having decided on this he wanted first to go back to Nazareth to see his mum and older friends before he walked out into his destiny. On his way home he was followed by a lot of enthusiasts and when he arrived he couldn’t get into his house for the crowds. Seeing this, some of his old friends thought that he had taken things too far and too outrageously, and some of them were even saying it seems ‘he is out of his mind.’ However, eventually things settled down and he was invited to ‘preach’ in the synagogue, though his developing ideas could easily be offensive to some people.

He left early the next morning to have some time to himself. He had nearly always questioned the meaning of things in the Bible, but as he was strolling alone, the climax of the poem at the very beginning of the Bible came to mind – he knew it by heart – “God looked at all that He had made and it was very good!” (Genesis 1:31). Oh yes, he thought as he strolled on into the countryside under the dawning sky. He stopped and looked back at the village with its disorderly clustering of buildings of various kinds; and he thought of the people he knew so well who lived there, all with their good points but all with aspects that you might wish were otherwise – and perhaps they secretly wished the same – some of these aspects could even be called bad – sinful. There was a lot for him to think about in view of the creation poem. But suddenly, as so easily can happen, his morning reflections were interrupted; friends and other followers quickly caught up with him; they wanted to travel with him, to listen to his many thoughts, to watch his relationships with the people he encountered; some wanted to be part of his mission whatever that was, others may just have hoped to see a miracle – a human curiosity (that could be either good or bad).

He sat himself down on a boulder and people gathered around, just to be close to him and to be able to speak with him. As he’s talking with people he looks at each of them; there is something remarkable about each person, she is the product of her past, made what she is partly by friends and contacts – by all she encountered; she has made choices, some quite consciously, many without much consideration; her life as yet is incomplete, with more to learn and more to encounter; she has past events to forget and put behind her; like everyone she is part of God’s creation, but as all humans she is allowed her own decisions within limits of her ability, she is as yet incomplete … These thoughts are not explicit in the mind of Jesus who is talking to different people, telling them things and answering their questions, but they are milling around in the back of his mind after his strong attraction to the beauty of the creation poem’s climax.

There was a sound of yelling and screaming at the edge of the group as a mother and her sister were dragging their boy through the crowd towards Jesus. The crowd made way and let them approach Jesus. “He is possessed” they said; “he has these fits of utter outrage, stubbornness and incomprehensible screaming.” The crowd all went silent and watched to see how Jesus would respond. Remarkably the boy rushed into the outstretched arms of Jesus who hugged and held him tight and close to him. “My word” Jesus was thinking, “ there’s a lot to happen in the world before it could be said unconditionally that it is good!” Gradually, as the boy felt able, Jesus released him and said “go to your mother. She loves you such a lot!” The boy went with her and after expressing many thanks she took the boy with her, and the crowd were thinking to themselves, Jesus has expelled the evil spirit from the boy – it was a miracle, an exorcism.

The crowd became even more excited about Jesus as some sort of healer, but he continued talking to them about some of his ideas that he thought weren’t too radical. There are, he thinks, all sorts of things in the world around us and in human society, that are in one way or another bad. It might be the drying up of a well, the withering of a tree, people loosing their way in the countryside, a child releasing an animal from its pen. Some troubles are attributed to nature, some to carelessness, others to irresponsibility – sometimes they are actually called sins. People ask questions and he can tell them parables, stories from real life and even tales from their scriptures. Among those crowding around Jesus were some whom people would regard as sinners and wanted to avoid. He looked at them all with a view to the goodness of creation that God wants of them.

Jesus had now moved into someone’s doorway to get some space to breathe. From the flat roof a man was lowered down who suffered from paralysis . Nothing was said. But because of what his mind was full of, Jesus said to the man “don’t worry my friend, your sins are forgiven you!” The crowds would not have been surprised that suffering was related to sinfulness – thoughts which we at once might well think abhorrent or plain ridiculous. It was also part of Jesus’ education, but now after much reflection, he viewed all the deficiencies of creation as interrelated and part of the ongoing process of God’s creating. Many were secretly critical of Jesus declaring forgiveness of sin; he sensed this and tried to illustrate the reality of what he declared by curing the man of his palsy so that he could get up and walk. Jesus was beginning to realise that what he wanted to do in life was to aid the progress of all creation towards its fulfilment … it would be eventually true that God would view all that He had made and see that it was good – but not just yet!

He was invited into this house together with his close followers. After the crowds had dispersed for their evening meals, he and his friends were welcomed to stay and join the family for their meal. They sat outside in the quiet and calm and chatted to each other after a rather crowded day. One of Jesus’ followers helped with the preliminaries and she even came and washed the feet of those who had walked far and of Jesus himself – though he was a single but older man no embarrassment was present. Jesus thanked her and reflected on the whole situation throughout the meal with its many conversations. Individuals seemed to be at their best in this context – each person paying attention to others, what they might need passed to them, what they were saying or even what questions they were seeking the opinion of others on. Jesus thought this was humanity at its best, it was well on the way towards the ideal that God was hoping each would attain despite the freedom of choice and the limited situation in which each lived. He mused to himself that perhaps when creation was in the future complete and all were with God it would be in some way quite like a grand heavenly banquet when all were in the presence of God Himself.

During the drawn-out meal however he noticed some individuals whose behaviour seemed to him ‘inappropriate’ and he was tempted not just to dislike them but to say something about it; he realised how easily one could give in to temptation and thus hinder the whole process of creation of which he dreamed. Just then a wandering lonesome passer-by edged towards them, and especially towards Jesus whom he seemed to recognise. In the light of the fire it became clear that he was a leper – regarded as untouchable according to the teachers of their religion, and perhaps also with a health and hygiene aspect to it; people were fearful of catching the illness rather than of breaking the rules. Jesus was not attracted to the sight – quite the reverse – but beckoned him to approach and he hesitantly came closer to Jesus. Everyone by now was watching to see what Jesus would do. Extending his own hands Jesus held both of the man’s hands and looked into his face directly. “It is the law” he says, “that if you are cured you should go and report to the appropriate religious authority before mixing in the community again.” And Jesus then, with confidence in God’s will at that moment said to the man, “So go and show yourself to such a person.” With this the man left at once and Jesus had really declared him cured (and he was) but Jesus also respected the law as appropriate. There was silence for some time and everyone respected the unspoken wish of Jesus not to show too much amazement or to start talking about it as a miracle (though it was). Shortly afterwards Jesus washed his hands before continuing the meal – which became a little more ‘solemn’ in one way or another. The meal ended and cleared away, everyone found somewhere to sleep through the night – and ponder the happenings of the day.

In the morning Jesus thanked the family for their hospitality and set off with his followers – a small group of men and women including Andrew and Cephas whom he had met by the sea of Galilee and also the taxman, Matthew – for sometime his mother Mary also was with them. They wandered north towards Capernaum itself, but on the way paused to chat with a gathering of shepherds. Their life was a rather lonesome job but with real responsibility for the well-being of their flocks. Jesus learnt from them the difficulties that they could have if a sheep wandered off without them noticing till later, and the worry at night of some wild beast coming to capture a sheep for its family’s food. The world in the process of being created was certainly a complex place for any human being within which to feel relatively satisfied. But Jesus learnt lessons from nature and from the caring role of the shepherds that he could use as illustrations when later talking to groups about the ways of God with the world.

They went to the Sabbath service at the synagogue in Capernaum. Jesus liked this quiet time and listening to the readings from the Scriptures and the commentary given, as well as joining in the chanting of the Psalms and praying. One of the readings really struck a chord with him; it was from the Book of Isaiah – relatively near the end which now is referred to as chapter 61. It begins “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek” (in the King James Version). It was the “good tidings for the meek” that tuned in with the thoughts he had been having about difficulties in life on earth and yet the progress towards a final fulfilment with God. In the Hebrew it is two expressions one following the other: what is translated here ‘the meek’ (in Hebrew a-na-wim) expresses the difficult side of being human, sometimes translated as ‘the poor’ or ‘poor in spirit;’ it applies to those who realise this situation of incompleteness in one way or another – humbly, disappointedly or even angrily. The other, the first of the two expressions is sometimes translated as ‘good news’ which it may be, but more directly means ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ or ‘rescued,’ (in Hebrew le-bas-er); it foretells the solution to the difficulties and in the way Jesus was thinking the final completion of creation when all that God has made is good. This was something he could keep in mind for when he is asked to say something to a group rather than just discuss and listen to individuals in the crowd – ‘ordinary folk should be happy’ as it says in Isaiah our Scriptures.

Jesus was developing all the time how to view life and everything, as well as what or how to say this to others, with phrases like don’t envy others, don’t hate anyone, don’t judge them; but also to have a positive message like treat foreigners kindly, forgive those who upset you and actually love your enemies. It was during his expression of these guides to life that he was approached quite unexpectedly by a foreigner and invader. It was a Roman citizen and not just any such, but a centurion in the army and commander of at least 100 troops. He must have heard of some of the miracles that people spoke about Jesus doing; one of his servants was dying and no doctor seemed to be able to do anything for her. He was not ignorant of the possibility of miracles for he had heard of them elsewhere in the empire and on his many exploits into other territories. It may have been that Jesus was just the most easily accessible or that he felt Jesus had seriously miraculous powers; whatever it was, this centurion came to Jesus despite all the Jews around him and Jesus himself being a Jew, and despite the fact that Romans were generally hated by the Jews as the conquerors of the land given them by their God. He asked Jesus if he would be good enough to come with him to his house and do something for his servant who was dying. Jesus was massively impressed with the man’s concern for one of his servants, it illustrated just what he had been thinking and talking about. He told the Centurion to go back to his house and home for the servant was well again – and so she was. What a climax to a busy day!

There was no shortage of things to talk about during the usual evening meal to which he and his close followers were kindly invited. He re-expressed his way of dealing with the Genesis poem where it was written that God was pleased with all that He had created – it was very good (Genesis 1:31); for him it was a process that was not yet completed. He said that he was now thinking about the passage read in the synagogue recently – what we might call a beatitude (Isaiah 61:1). Some people among themselves were also talking about the miracles that Jesus had now performed and beginning to think of him not just as an interesting thinker and speaker, but as someone with supernatural powers from God, as were some of the key figures among the early prophets in their scriptures; was Jesus actually a new prophet after such a time gap without any?

Jesus now began to think what was happening with his life. Here he was just trying to be the best human being he could, and finding two unexpected things happening in his life. Firstly he found himself conversing with a great number of people who wanted to ask him about things or just listen to what he was saying – he had become a popular, even public, figure. But secondly he found that he had, almost unintentionally, worked miracles; he had just responded in what he felt was the way God wanted him to in certain situations and found this sometimes resulted in a miracle cure of some kind happening. He was unsure how to regard these transformations in his life. It could be that this was just the way the blessing of God was coming to him as in the phrase blessed are the poor; or was this unexpected change in his life a trial and a tribulation that is part of being ‘poor’ (troubled) in the same passage from Isaiah that he had been thinking about. He felt uneasy with his uncertainty about this two-word phrase; was his life going to develop as a growth in difficulties and unpleasant situations he could well do without? Or was this to be a godsend in the sense of a consolation and joy throughout the rest of his life? Was he poor, troubled, afflicted or was he favoured, supported and blessed by God? The answer was going to be that the two were inevitably connected in life on earth and however one might feel it was both a blessing and a hardship – “blessed are the poor” (Isaiah 61:1).

Chapter 5 Jesus’ vocation

A vocation

The word vocation is used by us to refer to any job that has some aspect of responsibility, of concern and benefit to society. As believers in God we might in addition add the fact that God has a plan for everyone in life for which they have been created – or rather are being sustained and developed by God. Creation is planned by God to progress through time and eventually become the fulfilment of His overall plan. This is true of every item of the universe but in a special way of humans who have free will and hence the ability to accept this planned role or to hinder or fall short of it. A vocation is quite a responsibility.

In religion we use the word at times to refer to what we call a religious vocation – being a member of a religious order or in Christianity being a secular priest; but I think we might acknowledge that we all have a role to play and some a quite significant one in the progress of the world. This comes out in the Scriptures that we read. For a very particular role, we imagine a person specially called by God, like Abraham the patriarch, Moses the leader and law-giver, some of the kings of the chosen people like David, and of course the prophets of whom Jesus was quite aware. Sometimes in the accounts of the call to the vocation the Hebrew word ma-sah is used which is translated ‘anointed.’ The word appears in different forms in the original Hebrew and the word Messiah with which we are more familiar comes from it. In the accurate translation of this into Greek we have the word Christos as used in the New Testament and the word Christ comes to us through that route and is even used, quite inappropriately, as a surname for Jesus; but it does indicate that he had a special vocation. All the Old Testament special people have tales told about them and their lives.

If we restrict ourselves to the time of Christ and the New Testament, we would say that those ‘called’ by Jesus had vocations – people like the apostles; however Jesus taught in his preaching that God called everyone to be the best they could be. We would definitely see Paul as called by God and probably the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There is little mention of the role that women played yet the truly humble would not want to be recognised and popular because they are chosen by God, though their omission does indicate the attitude to women generally in the New Testament writings. Yet clearly some individuals rightly stand out and Jesus (called the Christ) must be such an one and his realisation of this is what this chapter is about.

The passage from Isaiah that had suggested to Jesus what we might call one of the beatitudes – that showed the reward due despite the difficulties faced – had a first half that was overlooked, namely “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me…” (Isaiah 61:1). Jesus knew that there were a number of accounts in the Scriptures of individuals being called by God for special tasks. He thought first of all of the popular prophet Isaiah who wrote about his calling by God from within the very Temple: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said ‘I, here I am, send me.’” This didn’t make Jesus too enthusiastic about being called, for God went on to tell Isaiah “Go, and tell this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:8-10). This makes quite a contradiction to the phrase Jesus had at first focused on, that happy are the poor – or rather those who suffer will be rewarded!

But a balance seemed to be referred to in a latter passage in the book of Isaiah, namely when God says to another prophet He is calling: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people… the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” (Isaiah 40:1- 5 passim). This was more like the message that Jesus would find quite pleasing to announce to the people who would gather to listen to him. Jesus had already realised that God loved every human, those who were Jews, those who had sinned, those who were suffering and even those who were not Jews at all. So he was pleased to recall this and a further passage in the book of Isaiah that included non-Jews, “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and keep you and give you as a covenant of the people and a light for the Gentiles.” (Isaiah 42:6).

However, Jesus felt that he was too ordinary a person to be called by God for a special task like any of these in the book of Isaiah; but then he remembered that even a pagan emperor named Cyrus had been called and chosen by God for a very special task i.e. letting the exiled Jews back to their homeland (see Isaiah 45:1ff). This involvement of God with the non-Jews was one of the things that Jesus was pleased to promote, and Cyrus called by God was such an example (Isaiah 49:6). So Jesus now felt that he had a vocation – a call from God to express his thoughts and his ideas. He felt the passage he had been thinking a lot about was preceded by this call to him – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me…”

With this new-born confidence Jesus would become more popular and I want to refer to exaggerations or even fictional accounts about his activity that obviously were known to some of the gospel writers. It will become clear I hope why I say this about them when I indicate some of the details of the Gospel stories. But the gospel writers, remember, were not so much writing accurate history (if there is such a thing) as trying to impress people with the message that this man was God and we should heed his message and try to follow his way of life. In one of these miracle stories there is the account of the raising of the widow’s son at Nain, where it is often overlooked that though such a miracle would be massively impressive, it is only recounted in one of the four gospels and there, Luke the writer, adds, “This rumour of Him went throughout all Judea and the surrounding region” (Luke 7:12-17).

Jesus goes more public

After Jesus accepted that he had some calling from God, the next time he was followed by a crowd, he didn’t just sit and chat with those near him as he had tended to do in the past, he took himself onto a mound where more could see him and from where his voice could carry and there he began (as we would say) to teach or preach to the people. They settled down to listen to this new style of his.

There were several areas that he covered as he spoke to the assembled crowd. He took the two-word phrase from the second half of the passage from Isaiah that he had been contemplating lately – “blessed are the poor.” He could elaborate on this with its various meanings which we know he himself had thought about. The ‘poor’ could be those without sufficient material goods, or those without the understanding of life that makes it bearable, or people whose spirits were low and depressed at times, or even those who were rejected by others for one reason or another. Their ‘blessedness’ could be happiness, relief, receiving forgiveness, respite or any escape from their burdens. He expanded these different ways of seeing both being blest and being poor and produced memorable statements that became known as beatitudes.

On one occasion a Canaanite woman approached Jesus and asked if he would help her daughter who had an evil spirit. His disciples where not that concerned for the well-being of these foreigners in what they thought of as their land given them by God – it was bad enough having the Romans not only there but in charge. They wanted to send her away and urged Jesus to send her away. But he was not so minded and did what he could for her – he had always thought that God was not just the god of the Jews, but the creator of the whole world; God wanted all his world and the people in it to be the best they could. Kind words from Jesus helped the woman a lot.

But Jesus saw any relief of difficulties as only partial in this life, only easy to bear because of the anticipated future, complete relief and fulfilment, but only by those who had the expectation or vision of a grand future from God. This was motivated by his earlier thoughts about creation, namely, that it is a process – something at present incomplete but in the future to be finalised with the utmost success. Creation from the standpoint of God’s timeless existence in eternity is already completed and so, as the poem at the beginning of the bible says “God looked [in the past tense] at all that He had made and it was very good.” So Jesus would weave this aspect of his thought into his various explanations of the message in the Isaiah passage with its various forms that he was extolling to his audience. There are definite traces of these thoughts in the much later writings we call gospels.

But it was clear when you thought about it that people seemed to be treated differently by God with regard to the troubles they had, or the happiness they enjoyed. He tried to explain that this was the result of having a narrow view of life and of the lives of others. The eventual outcome would be grand despite the perceived errors and disadvantages along the way. He reminded them of the sower who scattered his seed and the hazards it encountered from dry earth, the wind, birds etc. but how in the end there was a fruitful harvest.

Jesus knew that he was sometimes regarded as too friendly with the lowly in society, the commoners and even those considered sinners. So when he was telling stories and parables to illustrate his message, he defended this attitude with the story of a money lender who had a number of ‘clients’ who owed him money, but whom for some reason or other he decided to release from their debts to him – some had owed 200 others more, up to about 1000; he ended the story with the question which of the debtors were likely to be the most grateful and feel the most loved? With this in mind he invited his listeners to consider the degrees of gratitude of the various people that he showed friendship with and forgiveness if they had any disadvantages in life or even faults. The crowds were most interested in what he was saying to them, and it challenged many almost to begin to see things in a new way.

Jesus was aware of the different situations of the people he was addressing. Some were doing ‘quite ok’ as we might say, yet some less well organised (or blest) in their lives. This even showed itself, in that some had brought something to eat with them on their long walk to accompany Jesus and his crowd of listeners, others however had not been so thoughtful. Quite tactfully he told them a story that could relate to their situation if they stopped to think about it. He told them of the maidens with their oil lamps waiting for the arrival of the groom in the dark of night; but, he said, some of them ran low on oil for their lamps while others had more than sufficient – what should they do about this situation, he asked the audience to consider; should they be generous and share or should they ignore or even scorn those who had not enough oil to keep their lamps going. (see Mtt 25)

It was about time to have a break for a snack and rest, so Jesus asked his close followers to come with him away from the crowd for a time. They got to the boat and took off in it so that the people could not follow even is they wanted to. Jesus settled down by himself for a rest after all his talking – he had left the crowd and now even his friends to chat among themselves and some were hopefully discussing the things he had said. It was some time later when he had completely gone to sleep that a sudden and unexpected wind got up which seemed even troublesome to the crew who were largely used to the weather on the sea of Galilee. The unexpected and non-rhythmic movement was far from usual and disturbed Jesus and he eventually woke from his rest; but by the time he had fully come to and the others had come down to see he was all right, the sudden gusts of wind abated and all was calm; maybe some of them had hoped he might be able to control the storm; anyway it was related afterwards as if it was a miracle.

With all the challenging thoughts and ideas the crowds had heard from Jesus they become more and more interested in him. But what really excited most of them were the reports of miracles that he had performed. As I have said there was even a rumour that he raised someone from the dead; it said that when he was with just a few close followers of his, they met with a funeral party coming out from Nain with a mother weeping for the loss of her only son, when Jesus stopped the procession and told the woman not to be sad because her son was not really dead; and he touched the bier and the boy ‘woke up’ and was restored to his mother. This has been recounted only in the late gospel of Luke which I have referred to earlier.

Meantime, after the short and sudden storm on Galilee, the crew took the boat to the nearest shore which was on the eastern side of Galilee. Jesus went ashore into what was the Decapolis, a part of the Roman empire not considered Jewish. Indeed this was immediately obvious with the presence of pigs on the hillside – the Jews regarded pigs as unclean and had nothing to do with them. Jesus was not worried at being in this ‘pagan’ territory and strolled up the hill. There he heard and saw a man, quite wild in his dress and demeanour; he was raving about and making a lot of incomprehensible but loud shouts and actually scaring the pigs. Jesus, in his customary calm and selfless way, walked slowly towards the man and began talking gently to him as he approached. The wild man was used to being shunned or shouted at by others and tried to evoke this reaction from Jesus – but in vain. Jesus spoke gently to him and kindly about the poor pigs, asking if he could help in any way. The man was struck dumb at first but after a brief exchange of viewpoints with Jesus he almost became himself and set off calmly back in the direction of the village from which he had most likely come. This was Jesus’ first encounter outside Jewish territory and some of the crew saw something of what had happened; they too were most moved by Jesus’ miracles and later they told of what they had seen to others.

Jesus now has some time to think for himself and to consider his situation. He has decided already that he is in some special way called by God; he has a vocation chiefly to deliver a message about the true challenge and destiny of being human. He still has in mind his way of appreciating that it takes time from our human point of view for creation to come to fulfilment. There is also for us creatures, especially with some freedom of choice, the experience of the pattern of difficulties followed by benefit, of problems to be solved and of bad choices to be repented of and corrected in some way – the pattern he saw behind the saying ‘blessed are the poor.’ All this applies to himself as a human; he will encounter difficulties, even at his best he will make accidental mistakes and he will meet with disappointments; but he will experience some success and some blessing from God whom he has for a long time regarded as a father. He has tried his best and generally felt blest.

All too soon the boat returned safely to the other side – their own territory – where they were sort out by some close followers of John the Baptist. John had heard about Jesus – a little about his preaching and following but especially about miracles he had performed – and he sent his disciples to learn more about Jesus. John was a very extravert person and extravagant in his enthusiasm, especially for the particularity of the chosen Jewish nation. It was his dramatic enthusiasm that had brought Jesus to face up to his own special role which had now quite distinctively become for him a vocation. Jesus told the Baptist’s disciples to report back their impression of Jesus, his preaching and activity; he told others around him that John had played an important role in instigating him to take up his present activity and vocation.

It was one evening after a meal some time ago that he had told his close friends that he addressed God as father in his prayers – speaking to him as you would to a father. But now that he had ‘found his vocation’ and spoken so often and to so many different people, it was time to think again. He always tried to treat every individual with the utmost respect, believing we are all human with many of the same problems and challenges, as well as blessings; he thought being amongst all these people was like being part of a huge extended family and for each as they prayed, it was the one God they addressed – we should call him ‘our Father’ thought Jesus. He may not have been aware that God is occasionally called our father in the Scriptures (for example Isaiah 43:16 and 64:8) but was pleased with the new idea that came to him.

The end of the opening poem in the Bible was still important to Jesus, constantly reminding him that creation is a process in which we are all a part; but the thing that we really want is the completion of this process – when all creation will be complete and God will be proudly ruling His own kingdom. We all want this and should pray to God that this climax will soon be reached. And if we address God as our Father then we could pray that His reign will soon come. This coming will be progressed of course by each of us doing our bit and being the best we can be; we know this because it is a process but we know also that there will be difficulties for us and that we might even at times contribute to the slowing down of the process – but let us also pray that we are not led into this way of life. Jesus decided to speak next time he was addressing a large crowd about these ideas on addressing God in prayer – preaching like this was part of his vocation.

Jesus had to ask himself, why he was the way he was, why he did and said the things he did. It was, he felt sure, the recognised call from God of which he was now certain – though not sure where it would lead. Jesus was the way he was because of how he had been brought up, how village life had been for him, how he had taken the plunge and become a public figure and how the word of God in the Bible had spoken to him. He was a bit bewildered by the miracles he performed and perhaps disappointed by others attributed falsely to him. But basically he had as much certainty as one could have about his vocation and the work he was now doing. It was with these thoughts settled in his mind that on one occasion when he was addressing a crowd, he challenged them to think of these things with the illustration of a person building a house. He had probably seen this in his village and perhaps even helped; but the important thing in building a house is to have good foundations, just as in life we should have confidence in the basis of all our attitudes, actions and decisions – that we have considered the basis of our lives, our self-understanding and our actions.

If the people Jesus was addressing in his ‘new’ vocation as a preacher were to take what he had to say seriously, it could be quite a challenge to them. Among many other things he was saying you must love others as though they were family – a happy, loving family. Yes, he told the people he was addressing, there would be many people they got on with quite well, but everyone seemed to experience that there were folk they just would think ill of or dislike – though it seemed that this generalisation did not apply to Jesus himself. Jesus seemed to see good in everyone, and where there was not good, he saw potential and the ongoing creative work of God. Jesus wanted everyone to see the good there is in the whole world and to treat others accordingly; you should relate correctly to others: children to parents, parents to children, ladies to men and vice versa, Jews to non-Jews, the ‘respectable’ with the social outcasts, the friendly with friendless and so on … just as Jesus was with lepers, the shy, pagans and ‘madmen.’ But, and Jesus would soon begin to discover this for himself, such openness to others would sometimes bring contempt or even opposition. But you have to take risks.

Chapter 6 Jesus mistaken

Human mistakes

I think nearly all the people who had heard or heard of, Jesus were somewhat mistaken in their understanding of what he was precisely trying to say and do. Whatever they heard, they took from it that in some way Jesus was going to help them, the Jewish people, to become free from the dominance of their enemies, at present the Romans. They picked up from what he said the idea that he was in some way wanting to bring about reform – a change for the better in how individuals lived their lives. This was in general true, but they applied it to their own hopes for the future – for the elevation of their nation above any other. This mistaken interpretation of what Jesus was trying to accomplish was considerably strengthened by the miracles that they had either witnessed him perform, or more likely heard about from others after re-telling and probably exaggeration. This is how Jesus was mistaken by nearly everyone at that time who knew of him.

But there were different groups or classes of Jews around at the time of Jesus and they had their own takes on what their religion should be like and how they should live their lives; it was these preconceived views and interpretations of the Scriptures that influenced the views that they had of Jesus – and each group was in one way or another mistaken – they imagined Jesus was saying and advocating something or other in accord with their own views.

The group that we might have the most empathy with were called the Essenes. There is nothing directly about them in the New Testament accounts of Jesus, but it is known that they were centred on a group of recluse people (perhaps only males) who lived in community in a remote part of the countryside, praying together and studying the Scriptures. It was in the middle of the 20^th century that some of their scrolls began to be discovered – at first accidentally. Since then we have learnt more about them. We know they were not in favour of the Temple worship which to us today also seems to have been quite barbaric with its many bloody sacrifices and its attitude of buying-off God’s wrath and winning His pleasure; these Essenes would have been pleased and their ideas would have been supported by the attitude of the prophet Amos who is recorded as saying “This is what the Lord says to Israel… I hate, I despise your religious festivals; and your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.” (Amos 5:4,21).

It is thought that John the Baptist may have originally been a member of this group of Jews but he seems to have operated much on his own with his own followers and in a much more dramatic and high profile way. There were probably some Essene members who lived among the general Jewish population and they were very devout with high ideals not unlike Jesus’ ideal for how a human ought to be. The mistake that Essenes may have made about the aims and intentions of Jesus was probably like that of others, namely that the Jewish religion and nation would soon have a messiah or god-sent leader who would release them from Roman domination and restore or even expand the glory that their nation used to have.

The Scribes and Pharisees were another group who at first were interested in this religious reformer who might bring about a better future for the Jews, but they became quite disappointed and even opposed to him when they realised that his attitude to the many laws and practices they treasured was quite lax. They were quite knowledgeable of the Scriptures and of the many religious practices that had gradually evolved in their religion; they treated them as God-given and requiring precise conformity. Because of this they did not really hope that Jesus would become popular let alone a liberator of the people – they thought he was far too casual with regard to religion, its rules and rituals. They quite missed the point that Jesus was trying to make about the lives of everyone he encountered – whatever nationality, class or religion – about all being human and being in a process of becoming what God wanted of them; this is what Jesus was trying to do himself and to persuade others to attempt as well. The scribes and Pharisees were mistaken about Jesus.

The Sadducees were a class of priests closely associated with the services and sacrifices of the Temple. If their religion had an hierarchy they were the people at the top of it. They kept in with the occupying Roman leaders so that they were permitted to continue with their religious practices and authority around the Temple. They were proud of their position and highly protective of the privileges that they had – that they were allowed by the Roman authorities. Now Jesus also had a relationship with non-Jews, but that was one of respect for them as human beings, in a way no different from any other nationality or religion. This meant that Jesus had no precious attachment to the Temple and its sacrificial practices, and no similarity with those whose interactions with the Romans appeared basically selfish. The Sadducees were not mistaken about Jesus except in so far as they thought Jesus was against them rather than against their attitudes to their religion and to the Roman authorities.

Those were the distinctive groups related to Jesus’ activities and his message. But there were all the rest of the people who do not come under the heading of Essene, Pharisee or Sadducee. This majority of ordinary Jews were from the towns and villages that Jesus had visited or groups who had gone out deliberately to see and hear this unusual character they had heard of from others. Many of these people probably grasped something of the central message that Jesus was working out and expressing in his teaching and parables; they were quite impressed with his confident tone, his gentle message and his optimistic views; but above all this were the accounts of miraculous powers which could make of him a powerful leader for the establishment of a new liberated Jewish state. In this they were mistaken because Jesus had no such idea or intention.

Being mistaken and hence wrong was just a characteristic of the creative process which was not anywhere near complete as yet. As part of this process were ‘unfortunate’ aspects of nature experienced as different and unwanted kinds of weather and the like; but also there were people who had both physical and what we would call today psychological or character weaknesses. Part of this general characteristic of creation (being in process) resulted in what were seen as mistakes or faults, but this did not necessarily or always equate to irresponsibility, misbehaviour or what we would call sin. So much of the mistaken attitudes that I have indicated were not necessarily blameworthy – or not wholly so. It is for this reason that I can say that Jesus was mistaken – folk misunderstood him.

At least since his preparation for baptism by John he had been thinking and praying about his vocation; about what God wanted of him. It was the realisation that creation was an on-going process that inspired him to reflect on Scripture passages and particularly on the deeper meaning of certain texts that seemed to ‘speak’ to him. We have seen how eventually he actually realised that he was indeed called by God to teach and preach. The subject of his teaching was largely the love of others, which he found embedded in the ‘beatitude’ he studied in Isaiah. He learnt that everyone has weaknesses and difficulties, but also that they will have release and even reward. This linked in very well with his initial ideas of God’s act of creation, which he now saw as an on-going process in all the world, particularly in humans becoming better humans but finally in his own life as well. He encountered difficulties all the time – and these included being misunderstood by those he addressed or met.

But, since Jesus was truly human, he also had weaknesses and made mistakes, which are continuously part of the ongoing process of creation. He could address crowds but he also needed time alone for reflection as we all do. But chiefly because his thoughts grew out of reflection on the poem that says “God looked at all that He had made and it was very good” he imagined as he progressed in life, doing everything that God wanted of him like an ideal human being, that things would gradually improve at least for him if not for those various groups he addressed. But he was mistaken. So utterly mistaken that nearing death he cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus never thought his human life would get this bad, but he was mistaken.

The danger of mistakes

Jesus was quite often invited for a meal with the Scribes and Pharisees, and he liked the relatively smallness of the group and also the ability to try to explain his view of life and to hear theirs. And they likewise were interested in what he had to say, especially because of his growing popularity; but they wondered about his attitude to life where it differed from theirs. He and his disciples, for example, mingled easily with the publicans and sinners which the Pharisees would not. In most societies there are those with whom ‘decent people’ would not like to associate; but Jesus said that those were the very people that he thought he could help, unlike people already well-behaved and acceptable. Indeed it was because of his attitude that Jesus and his disciples were also invited at times to share with ‘such people.’

At one gathering when they were nearing Jerusalem, there where at least two priests from the Temple there. They had a long discussion with Jesus, being able to quote lots of Scripture passages and also precedents for what they were doing in the Temple. Jesus listened attentively but said that he thought that some parts and ideas of the Bible had been superseded – or at least ought to be. But the tone changed when Jesus just felt that he had to say what he thought about the monetary dealings that went on in the Temple precincts; he could in no way condone them and indeed felt he had to condemn them quite vociferously. His disciples were taken aback to hear such expressions from the mouth of Jesus, but what is wrong had to be condemned.

However just like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the crowds also bothered Jesus; he felt they just didn’t pick up on what he was trying to say about God and human living. Most of them saw God as very particular to their own people whom they thought of as his chosen people. Because of the occupation by the Romans the people’s view of God turned to an expectation of a saviour who would restore their dominance; they really hoped that Jesus would be such a person with his miraculous powers and great following. But Jesus thought of God as loving everyone, of creating and supporting them, and wanting them all to love each other as good-living human beings.

It may be that Jesus was irked by the multitude surrounding him almost wherever he went. At one point he felt a definite ‘touch’ from behind; he turned and there was a poor woman suffering with continuous bleeding and hoping just a touch might cure it. This was the inner struggle of Jesus between loving and doing good, and portraying his own idea of God. The Pharisees avoided this struggle by their strict attitude to women and to all the ‘niceties’ of religion and life. Now with all these encounters and dialogues with people, Jesus was beginning to realise that other people had different views of God. Some just thought God was their own god who would eventually release them from captivity with all His power and miracles and elevate their nation above all others. For some however, God was also very concerned about the minutiae of rules and rituals, and could be appeased by sacrifices. Jesus had to rethink his own view of God.

As Jesus’ understanding of his calling grew his struggle increased and intensified – but he must stay true to what he understood as reality. He had always tried to treat everyone as important – significant parts of God’s ongoing creative process. He had thought of himself in the same way, yet you should know yourself in some way better than you know anyone else. He had reflected deeply and constantly on some particular passages from the Scriptures and drawn three basic notions from them. The first was the realisation that creation was a process sustained and progressed by God, heading to a glorious conclusion. The second was that for humans and likely also for the other parts of creation, there were ups and downs: times and aspects that were positive, helpful and obviously promoting creation toward its completion, but also there were difficulties, hindrances, mistakes and at least with humans, inappropriate choices: a notion captured in some of the beatitudes. The third idea that had come to Jesus – or should I say was coming – was self realisation. He had expressed the beginning of this openly when he took the plunge of baptism as preached by John; he had particularly developed it when he grew to consider that, just as many of the prophets of the past, he also was called by God to some special task, changing himself and hopefully impacting on the whole process of creation, Jesus now began to think of himself as a representative of God to others.

He had been rather keen on the phrase ‘our Father’ when addressing God, but now he wondered if that was entirely appropriate because of the way others saw God; his God was different and in some way unique to him as far as he could tell. Maybe in his thinking and prayers he should consider God more as his Father. He had so wished that everyone would pick up on his notion of all people being in some way a family, but now he rather thinks that their ideas of God were quite different from his. He must stay faithful to his own understanding – his own idea of God. To clarify this distinction he thought he should think of God as his – God is his Father in a different way from the all-inclusive “our Father …” in the prayers that all might say.

It was approaching the feast of Passover and Jesus wanted to go up to Jerusalem for this celebration. It was about the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt and the beginning a new journey of life. For many it chimed in with how they were thinking now under Roman rule with a hope of liberation, and at the moment many focused this hope on Jesus, but for him it was a celebration of humanity – humans being free to be the best humans they can be, without the oppression or dominance of others. Because of the growth of the attitude among the crowds that Jesus would be a liberator, he sensed that this would spell the end of his mission; they were so set on him as a powerful liberator from the Romans, but, alas, it was quite contrary to what he believed and what he was trying to expound. He saw the excited enthusiasm for him as a sure threat to all he stood for, to the mission of his life, even to how he interpreted what God wanted of him. As the crowds drew nearer to the city they became more compact and expressed more clearly their enthusiasm for Jesus as a messiah; this was not good!

The priests and the Sadducees normally would have been elated by the attitude of the crowd to the celebration of Passover. But with the expressed enthusiasm for Jesus they saw the danger of this for their relatively peaceful relationship with the Romans, who were always alert when there were large gatherings. Jesus realised that all this was not just going to upset him and the Temple workers and the chief priests, but the Romans too; indeed the Sadducees were probably calling on the Romans to free them from this popular hero and miracle worker, Jesus of Nazareth.

But what Jesus wanted to commemorate was the meaning of the Passover as he viewed it, and to disentangle and dissociate himself from the crowds. He asked the few men and women who were his close followers and friends to break away from the crowd and find a suitably remote and unobtrusive place for his celebration with them of the Passover meal; this they gladly and successfully did. Because of the great commotion with the huge numbers, Jesus was able later to slip away unnoticed and to join his friends, knowing where it would be that they would choose.

He was so relieved to be in a peaceful location away from the mob, for a meal with those closest to him, to celebrate the Passover. Using slightly different terms than previously, he said that being with other people should mean being consciously present to them, rather as a view for a traveler to behold, as a parent is mindful of her offspring and how any human should be with any other (and with the rest of creation). A meal is a good opportunity and expression of this, and Jesus told them this is how he felt in good company with them and that God was present too. The crowds had not grasped what he was trying to say to them – quite the opposite. But Jesus had the presence of God in his consciousness – the God he called my Father. The small group talked a lot together, but Jesus was lost in thought and reflection on the situation. He knew that creation being a process meant that one encountered inevitable difficulties at various times. But it now seemed to him that things were turning really nasty and terrifying. Somehow he felt that this was due at least in part because of the way he treated everybody as instances of God’s creative work in process. This would explain not only the way he felt but the general circumstances that were closing in on him; the extreme awareness of creation included the experience of its present threatening darkness. He suggested a last drink of wine and as it was being poured told them this is how my life is about to be poured out for everyone. He took himself away to be on his own for they never quite grasped what was happening but he wanted to reflect on the situation and to pray to God his Father.

My Father, you brought me into this world, involved me with the life of the people, invited me to commit myself to you with baptism; thereafter I went about teaching and illustrating the message that I received from your Scriptures to tell people of you; you worked miracles through me and drew crowds to follow me; but see where it now has led! The people totally misunderstand the message and cry out for Jewish liberation and even domination. I spoke with the theologians but they were too enraptured with their interpretation of what You might want and too focused on minutiae and irrelevant rituals. I criticised the Temple priests who thought they were doing well for the nation when they were really doing well for themselves. My God, I have faithfully tried to carry out your mission for the continuing of creation, but it has led to disaster. Even now I can hear the crowds, and perhaps even the Romans and Temple police coming to arrest me – it is the only way they can avoid a national uprising and the consequent severe suppression that would follow. Father, how can I get away from all this, out of all this tangle – or is this just how creation is and is going to be until it works itself out and eventually (well after my time) you can look at what you have done and say ‘it is very good!’ If this is the case I must accept what comes to me as part of this struggle of ‘being created.’ So be it – Amen.

He turns and sees that his disciples have sought him out and intend to be with him through these difficult times. But neither Jesus nor they had any idea just how difficult the next few days were going to be! Soon there appeared on the scene the Romans and police; someone who knew Jesus liked this quiet spot had led them here; they stopped in their tracks when they came face to face with Jesus and his disciples. Jesus looked at them: looked with the love with which he tried to see everyone; they were doing what they thought was best in the present circumstances; if they took Jesus out of the picture, the crowds would not still expect the chance of a successful rebellion and there would be some hope of relative peace. They were there to arrest Jesus and his mind filled with all sorts of thoughts and pictures – back in his young childhood facing the cocks and hens with their threatening claws and vicious looking beaks, and how he felt for the lamb that he had to watch being slaughtered in the village around this time of the year. He relived the terror of being baptised – submersed completely – unable for a time to breathe – but it led to new life!

He himself was gently submissive, but his disciples and perhaps others tussled for a time with the officials, but then he was led away. He was taken for interrogation by officials, by rough groups and before the Sadducee court. He treated everyone as he had treated everyone he met before, with respect even verging on reverence. Some of his interrogators were pleased with this attitude but for some it just caused annoyance and even anger – people are strange. During all these encounters his spirit was quiet and almost calm. He was experiencing the nothingness out of which was arising creation in its formative process. He sensed the onset of completion; for him this was to be the fulfilment of his role as a human individual on earth. But as an earthling he also felt the severance from his role in life as a painful separation from the life he had largely enjoyed and in which he hoped he had had some success. These were his thoughts and feelings, some of which he expressed aloud in the end as he gave up his life crucified on the cross; he had had a complete human life and the fourth gospel expresses this well suggesting that his last utterance was ‘it is completed!’ He died, and so ends our story of Jesus becoming human, but there were and are consequences.

Postscript

After the death of Jesus the gospels begin to tell of various appearances of Him to promote people’s faith in Him or to encourage those already His followers; the purpose is to promote the acceptance of Jesus’ way of life as a human being with its fulfilment in glory.

In the gospel of Luke the appearances are all in Jerusalem within one day and culminate with the account of His ascension into heaven; in Matthew’s gospel they are extended both chronologically and locally into Galilee; as for the gospel of Mark, the most trustworthy manuscripts of the gospel end with two women being told by an ‘angel’ that Jesus is risen, but who “said nothing to anyone for they were afraid” (Mk 16:8) – references to appearances after that in Mark are regarded as later additions; the fourth gospel, as so often with it, has its own different versions of appearances (John 20 and 21). There are references to Jesus still alive in the earlier letters of Paul, so it is clear that from very early, the realisation of Jesus still being alive and active in our world – in our humanity – was expressed as Him being ‘risen’ (Rom 10:9, 1 Cor 6:14, 15,15).

To be Christian is to believe in Jesus as the ideal human and Son of God now in heaven; but not just to accept this as fact, but also to live as best as one can to this standard and example of what it is to be human; and this we should aim for whatever our interpretation of the appearances related in the gospels – people do interpret them differently and I am reminded of the saying of Epicurus in the 4^th century BC “the mind sees, the eyes are blind”.

So that is Jesus, complete and perfectly human. But what does this mean for us, what can we take from all this? Perhaps it says something about humanity, about how we should try to live; He aimed to love everyone He encountered and to realise and to accept that things are not always what they should be – they are in the process of coming to be what God wants of them. Indeed the world – all creation – is never the same from one moment to the next. It is evolving, and we believe this is by the creative power of God, and heading towards its completion, when all will be very good. Jesus tried, and successfully, to cooperate with this process of being created, developing himself and helping others to be all they could and should be. Humanity in general, together with the rest of creation, is still striving to improve towards its ideal state; but until then there will be struggles, disappointments, apparent disasters and even deliberate failings throughout the development of creation. Since the death of the human being Jesus whose life we have been considering, the world has never been the same; what it is to be human is more than we ever imagined it could be. We should now be able to realise that we have the potential to live the life of Jesus – the way He lived – with His attitude. The possibility of attaining this ideal was emphasised by the early Christians with the exposition and preaching of the resurrection of Jesus – death is not the end, but a participation in the completeness of God’s creating in which we too are called to fulfil our role. The lesson of Jesus’ life as a real human being and the completion of His life with God in and after death should give us hope. We are not expected to do miracles or other exceptional things, but we should, as Jesus did, try to see the good and beauty in everything and especially in our fellow human beings; but in addition we ought to appreciate the process of creation, and so when we encounter the incompleteness of the world and the weaknesses of people including ourselves, we must acknowledge this as part of the process of God’s act of creating – a process in which we must cooperate and with which we must deal.

For me there are two stories in the gospels that move towards making this same point. The first and most attractive is the account of Mary Magdalene visiting the place where Jesus was buried (John 20:11-16); she sees another person, a person of no particular connection with Jesus, of no real relationship to herself, but the lesson I draw from the story arises from the fact that she sees this other human as Jesus the perfect human being – we should see everyone we encounter with the same vision and treat them accordingly, this is being Christian, being a good human. The second story I like (Luke 24:13-33) is of a small group of people feeling something of the deficiencies there are in the world, the disappointment when things seem to have fallen short of the hopes they had. They are joined by a stranger – an unimportant and even fairly ignorant person; they talk with him as they walk along about the events they thought would turn out differently; they are faced with the incompleteness of God’s act of creating. But at their journey’s end, at table together with this stranger, they realise the presence of Christ with them, even in this aloof stranger and it reminds them how they should see other people and their own disappointments – they rush off to tell the Good News (the Gospel) to others.

So the end of my story leaves me with a challenge for a new beginning – I must renew my attempts to see others as Christ did, to reflect on the Scriptures for inspiration of how I should live, to be questioning and understanding of the incompleteness of everything, but always to be as fully human as I can be in this life – be human as Jesus was and is.

This booklet is a story of the inner life of a child from Nazareth who became a challenge to human society – to us all. It’s more about his attitude and thoughts than about what he did; it’s what the gospels rarely focus on. It is an imaginative account of Jesus from childhood to death, about his attitude to the people he was with, about the beliefs they had of him and about himself. He is an example for us of how to relate to others and how to be the best human we can be.

Search

What was Jesus Thinking

Preface

1. Life in Nazareth

2. Taking the plunge

3. Stepping out

4. Public exposure

5. Jesus’ vocation

6. Jesus mistaken

Postscript

Preface

Chapter 1 Life in Nazareth

Chapter 2 Taking the plunge

Chapter 3 Stepping out

Chapter 4 Public Exposure

Chapter 5 Jesus’ vocation

Chapter 6 Jesus mistaken

Postscript

Archives

Categories

Meta

Search

What was Jesus Thinking

Preface

1. Life in Nazareth

2. Taking the plunge

3. Stepping out

4. Public exposure

5. Jesus’ vocation

6. Jesus mistaken

Postscript

Preface

Chapter 1 Life in Nazareth

Chapter 2 Taking the plunge

Chapter 3 Stepping out

Chapter 4 Public Exposure

Chapter 5 Jesus’ vocation

Chapter 6 Jesus mistaken

Postscript

Share this:

Archives

Categories

Meta