The Mystery of Jesus

Mt carries us from the night hearing at the High Priest’s house to the capital trial before Pilate. He shows us people who in various ways can’t grasp Jesus, his identity, action, or aim. The HP and council, sure, but also his disciples, Judas and Peter. Jesus is handed over and over, but none know him. Mt wants us to learn. Each interaction challenges knowledge and reflection.

Peter’s denials are bracketed by hostile chief priests, despairing Judas, and prophetic judgment. For all, Jesus posed a basic challenge: to imagine and trust a God whose kingdom, power, action are profoundly different from all the ways we humans know and expect power to work.

The High Priest and the Remorse of Judas

At the hearing, the HP asks about a truth falsely - Messiah, son of God - to charge Jesus with deceiving the people and treason to Rome. Jesus turns it to embodying God’s people - son of Man - bringing them to God. The Priests’ weapons are ridicule, disgrace, violence (Is 50). At dawn, they formally convene in the Temple to ‘hand over’ Jesus to the pagan governor.

Judas had given up on Jesus. He ‘handed over’ Jesus to the HP to stop Jesus’ crazy focus on death rather than victory. But he knows Jesus doesn’t deserve death. In deep remorse he confesses sin to ‘God’s priests.’ But they have no divine forgiveness, only uncaring power. He sees he’s chosen death, throws the silver deep into the godless temple, and hangs himself.

The priests, worried about ritual purity, buy a potter’s field. Mt uses that door to open us to meditate on scenes from Jeremiah in words from Zechariah about God’s radical judgment.

The Tears of Peter

Peter had not given up. Somehow Jesus would become king. Peter may fight and die for him; save him for the world. Courageously, he doesn’t run when they identify him. But he must deny his identity. He moves; he watches. Again he pretends; and again. Only the crowing brings reality. Jesus knew him exactly. Jesus knows what he’s doing. Peter can’t save Jesus!

Peter weeps. Not for cowardice. Yes, he lied about knowing Jesus. But he weeps because it was really true. He didn’t know him! He loved and followed him but in his own world. He couldn’t imagine what Jesus was doing, what was coming, Jesus’ reality, kingdom. Bitter tears for a collapsing world, a lost, heroic Peter. They wash him for a new forgiven life to be discovered.

He’s the One. Seize Him!

In this time of Passover, Jesus has been with his disciples and with God. Things are coming that the disciples can’t yet conceive. Mt wants to help us see reality through the fog of false understanding. Jesus gave his disciples a meal to help them look back on the astonishing events. Among the olive trees he grieved and prayed before the need to drink "the cup"- God’s wrath at sin’s enslavement when humans push God out and live in God’s absence.

Now there is misunderstanding and irony at every turn. Who is Jesus? What is happening? On one level it’s just an arrest leading to a Roman cross. We know there’s more. But what?

We see raw power: the big crowd, swords, clubs. The sign: the irony that Judas’ kiss is needed. The officers don’t know him. Intimacy becomes betrayal. Judas knows least who Jesus is.

How Should the Scriptures be Fulfilled?

The disciples are ready. If there’s hope for Jesus’ kingdom, this is the time to defend him. One strikes with a sword. It’s hopeless, but they’re not cowards. Jesus might escape. Kingdom! This is what we’d do. Fight for what’s right! A revolution means you have to break eggs.

But what kind of revolution is this? Jesus says, the swords are the least of it. Put it away. If you fight violence with violence, violence wins. You think you win, but you perish. How does scripture’s story come to its full? The promise of God. Deliverance from sin’s enslaving power. True Passover Exodus. Jesus challenges the crowd. They want to stop insurrection with clubs. But Jesus teaching people, enacting a new vision of God’s love for us, that was real insurrection. The disciples know only "fight or flight." Jesus won’t fight. They flee.

All but one. Peter’s no coward. He’s cautious, but Jesus is in danger. He follows him right into the high priest’s dangerous courtyard. He wants to see events. He might get a chance to get Jesus out of this so that his kingdom can be saved. He’s ready to fight and die for him.

Destroying and Building the Temple

The chief priests gather looking for a case to satisfy the Passover crowds and the Romans. They need two witnesses with alternative facts that can be presented as facts. Jesus had warned of the Temple’s destruction, but the "witnesses" change it to a threat. Jesus won’t respond. The high priest is frustrated. Jesus should feel panic, trapped, threatened, make mistakes.

But the temple was at the heart of this. Where and how does God meet humans? The Exodus had produced a movable tent not a fixed wealthy temple. A new Passover and Exodus leads to a new "tent of meeting." That was Gethsemane. God descending into human slavery.

The True Human before God, with God

The high priest asks the key question. We know the answer. But the high priest’s meaning for the words was no closer than Peter’s had been (Mt 16:16). Loaded words, deep meanings.

Jesus responds with Daniel’s picture of the son of the Human, representing God’s people, ascending on the clouds to God’s throne, receiving a new, everlasting kingdom. The high priest knows it’s intolerable. It’s an affirmation of life and hope. "He deserves death."

The Disciples’ Walk in the Dark

It had been a strange Passover. Jesus told them that one of them would hand him over. He described the bread and wine as his body and blood. After they sang a Passover psalms they left Jerusalem to walk in full-moon night across the Kidron valley. Judas disappeared.

The night was more inside them. Jesus matter-of-factly told them they would all stumble (skandalizein) because of him and cited Zechariah’s words about God striking the shepherd. But he also assured them that he would get up from the blow and lead them to Galilee!

Peter heard the hard prediction of failure. He knew his intentions and reassured Jesus. Jesus just as simply said he would deny him that night. It made no sense. They all knew trouble could come. Peter knew he was ready to die defending Jesus, so did all the disciples.

Why is Jesus so Upset?

They come to a grove with an Oil Press (Gethsemane) on the Mount of Olives. Jesus tells the disciples to sit while he prays. He takes Peter along with James and John, who wanted to sit at his right and left in his kingdom (Mt 20:20-28). Jesus seems to walk into a place of horror. He is in distress in a way strange for him and asks them to keep watch while he prays.

What’s happening? Jesus knew what was coming. Was he afraid of dying, of crucifixion’s pain? Many have wondered. We’d expect the Gospels to show their hero with fearless courage. Jesus collapses on his face in prayer, pleading with Abba to "let this cup pass from me!"

The Cup of Horror and the Time of Testing

Matthew let’s us watch and believes we will notice the word "cup" that Jesus must "drink." From scripture the "cup" includes suffering but focuses on God’s wrath: Isa 51:17-22, etc. But what is that wrath? Is God angry with people, but Jesus must suffer that anger? No!

God’s wrath is toward all that corrupts and destroys human life: Especially the brokenness that comes when people turn from their true Creator to follow idols: Rom 1:18-31. Paul says God’s wrath flows in letting people experience God’s absence and distortion of their lives. We push God out for Mammon, etc. and feel the enslaving yoke of Satan, "Sin," "Flesh."

Jesus grieves the uttermost identity with humans: the absence of God, of himself - the dark.

God in silence says, "No. We must take this on - to be the meeting place of God and humans." Jesus lives out the prayer he taught his disciples: "Your will be done." Your kingdom come!

Sleep! The Betrayer is here!

Meanwhile, the disciples (and we) sleep. All this happens without our realizing its meaning. We play our human roles of bravado and weakness, while God’s love works to serve us.

We’re with Judas, with Peter, with the city and its power brokers. Can we wake up to this love?

A Passover of Deliverance and Betrayal

It’s the time of the great festival of Israel’s birth as a people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation (Exo 19:6), of God defeating the oppressive gods of Egypt, of deliverance. But a story with a dark side of betrayal and sin. Israel made a golden calf at Sinai; brought on a new exile of 40 yrs in the wilderness. The betrayal of God’s deliverance continued till sins piled up in the great exiles of Assyria and Babylon. Now the Romans! People longed for a new Exodus.

Jesus came to confront Jerusalem, Priests, Romans at this feast looking back and forward. People understood confrontation, but Jesus was doing something beyond all expectations. He wants to prepare his disciples for something they have no ready resources to grasp.

He knows they see him in a frame of traditional hopes and can’t envision what will happen. He gives them memories in advance, experiences they reflect on, that grow in meaning.

Handing Over Jesus and Jesus Giving Himself

Matthew surprisingly describes this Passover in the briefest possible way. Why not elaborate and explain? Every word of description carries a depth of layers of meaning, a frame for living reenactment. It’s not in repeating doctrines but in being there again that power flows.

We saw Jesus turn the woman’s anointing toward burial, rejecting the disciples’ confident judgment. Judas planned to hand over Jesus to the priests. Jesus knows but includes Judas.

At the meal, Jesus says one of them will hand him over (para-didomi). The disciples are grieved but not confident: No "I know it’s not me," but rather "It’s not me, is it, Lord?" They sense that they are in a realm they don’t understand. Jesus is not acting as they would. He speaks not of his being trapped or suffering, but of the plight of the betrayer, like Job, better not to have been born. The "Son of Man," (God’s king over all nations, embodying Israel, Dan 7:13-14) has a journey and work, to give himself, to redeem (Exodus).

Bread and Cup - Body, Blood

Without explanation, Jesus takes the most commonplace parts of the meal and speaks simple words that lock those simple things in the disciples’ hearts to be experienced and shared. He gives (didomi) them a piece of bread and a cup and in them he gives himself.

"My Body"- a broken loaf. Like the broken body of the Servant (Is 53). Broken by violence, the brokenness of our lives. Broken for sharing. Broken to reunite us in one new humanity.

He takes a cup with thanks. They all share it. Then he says: "This is my blood of the covenant" (Exodus), my life poured out (like the Servant embodying and serving all). Here is the new covenant (Jer 31) that both set us free from enslaving power and breaks the grip of idolatrous sin that corrupts life. The inbreaking of God’s kingdom is beginning now!

Seeing Jesus’ Crucifixion and My Place There

Matthew’s final sections focus on the supreme moments of the Gospel: Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Mt doesn’t approach them as doctrines but a events that were complex, astonishing, life-transforming. The whole NT is a quest to grasp their impact and meaning.

These stories were told thousands of times in many forms by eye-witnesses and new believers. Mt (using Mk) leads us through, selecting details to focus on, to help us see, be grasped by what happened. We’re his concern, with a priviledged view, watching many characters.

Jesus is clearly at the center, challenging, mysterious, inviting. We’re behind the scenes too with chief priests and others. We see one-time individuals like the woman whose actions or words reveal something significant. Especially we watch the disciples as they learn, falter, grow. But Mt often challenges our feeling superior to the disciples as the events unfold.

Jesus taught in the Temple in the week leading to Passover, the great feast of deliverance. He’s ended his final teaching (Judgment of the nations). He knows the "Son of Man" (Dan 7:13-14) (universal authority) is being handed over (no control) to be crucified (Romans). The high priest Caiaphas and leaders have other plans. Who’s in control? The one being crucified?

A Silent Woman’s Eloquent Deed

Jesus isn’t fleeing but eating with a man to whom he gave life. A woman wordlessly enters and pours precious oil on Jesus’ head. Jesus simply receives her act. What does it mean?

We know scripture: It’s like the anointing of kings - Jesus is Messiah, anointed by a woman!

We watch the disciples. They miss entirely the idea that Jesus is being anointed Messiah! They’ve just heard Jesus teach about helping the poor. They’re sure he will condemn the woman’s waste of resources. They jump in first to express their concern for the poor.

But Jesus surprises. He rebukes the disciple. The woman’s action will never stop them from helping the poor. But readiness to judge blinds them to the beautiful, meaningful act of grace in front of them. Imagine the disciples’ confusion. We nod our approval.

But Jesus surprises us too! He changes the oil on the head (as king) to "oil on my body" for burial. If Jesus is to be king, it will be like no anointed king before. We’re not nodding anymore. A Messiah dead and buried? What can it mean? This, Jesus says, is the heart of it, always retold. But if he’s dead there’s no Good News, no "whole world!" Jesus?!

Judas Gives Up on Jesus

Judas has had enough. All this talk of crucifixion and burial is not the hope, Exodus, kingdom victory that Judas had signed on for. Jesus wants to feed the hungry but then accepts a woman’s extravagance anticipating burial! No sense! If it’s a kingdom, Judas is ready!

If Jesus is planning defeat and death, it’s time to get out. He feels like he’s been had.

He goes to the chief priests not to bargain but to say he’ll personally hand Jesus over. What will you give me? Not much for either; the traditional price of a slave. He’s waiting for his time.

Watching the Disciples - "It’s not me, is it, Lord?"

The disciples set up Passover. Jesus sends the word: "My time is near!" My time? Not Judas’ time? It’s Passover! Deliverance Day. God’s faithfulness. Everyone’s here. Banquet!

As the meal unfolds (lamb, herbs, unleavened bread, wine), Jesus spoils everything: "One of you will hand me over." Judas knew! Surely the rest too. Instead of yesterday’s confidence, they feel the world shifting under them. Do they know what’s coming? Do they know themselves? Jesus chooses to receive anointing for burial? Where am I? It’s not me, is it?

Reggie Jackson brings a message pointing to the church as the original "Community of Hope" found in the New Testament.

A Surprising Voice in Scripture - Ecclesiastes / Qoheleth

Last week we focused on Jesus urging us not to be anxious about our lives. This week we hear from one who is deeply anxious about life’s circumstances and meaning. A Teacher (Qoheleth), he speaks sometimes in the character of Solomon, an ideal of wisdom, wealth, and power - and says "Vapor!" His image is not so much that everything is meaningless or absurd but that it is passing. There’s nothing substantial, lasting: Life goes round without clear pattern or reason and then you die.

At times Qoh. felt despair, but he knows God is over all and gives us this life. But not so that we can make sense of it. A season for everything. Eternity in our hearts. But also frustrating confusion.

Qoh. is part of the Bible as a great debate with diverse voices, esp. in the OT: An unfolding drama of alienation, broken understanding, cries, grace, renewal, new visions. Deut., Job, Isaiah, Daniel.

Qoh. tries to speak truth about life. He refuses easy answers and theological clichés. He is refreshing, and disconcerting. He breaks apart ideas of reward in a way that opens minds for new ideas.

What is Qoheleth’s Problem?

Qoh. casts a vision of a great life (not unlike the subtext of modern aspiration and advertising): A powerful, wealthy man with big accomplishments and pleasures, very smart/wise, and no suffering. It’s an almost exact reversal of the picture of Jesus, or of the early apostles, like Paul.

Think of Qoh. beside Paul’s letters to Corinth: Core ideas are the foolish/scandalous crucifixion, the life of the Spirit, the meaning of resurrection, the weakness of the Apostle. Very different from Qoh.!

But Qoh. looks as his idea of a great life and says, "Vapor." Paul knows joy, peace, love, union of God and us. Qoh.’s vision ends in death (Sheol), period. He senses that death makes vapor of everything.

What’s at Stake in the Surprise of Jesus?

Qoh. clarifies how strange Jesus appears. He is a different definition of "great" - though Jesus’ own disciples struggled to learn it. Crucifixion broke all old hopes. Resurrection transformed the vision of an end. The end of all things breaks in now: Life through death empowered by the Spirit, God’s life.

The puzzles of life are true, as Qoh. said. But God has love, grace, and life bigger than human dreams.

The Challenge of Mammon and Human-size gods

The Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6; Lk 2:14) speaks on a mountain to crowds of poor laborers, farmers, sick people, about the in-breaking of God’s rule. Seek God’s kingdom now! (Mk 1:15; Mt 6:10)

Israel’s ancient prophets attacked idolatry. It was about the people’s desire for human-size gods they can bargain with, get stuff from. It was also about reality. Serve Baal to get fertility and you serve nothing. Self-deception. The one living God is already there freely creating that fertility. But no bargain. God’s purposes are larger than fertility.

Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and Mammon." Mammon is Aramaic for ‘stuff,’ ‘money,’ ‘what you trust.’ Jesus personifies it as the god who offers to supply all that. Matthew and Luke leave it as a god’s name. Mammon is the practical, powerful, human-size god who promises to provide all and secure all who serve him. He is money, power, sex, intellect, control, family, race, violence, war, progress, greed, etc. He’s the default god of humanity. We anxiously serve without realizing. (David Foster Wallace, "This is Water" 2005).

The problem: Like Baal, Mammon isn’t God or a god. Mammon is us worshipping ourselves. The reductionist god. The deep cause of human brokenness and sin (Rom 1:21-23).

Refusing Anxiety and the Something More that is You

Jesus urges us to break our default desire to serve Mammon by refusing to be anxious. Don’t worry about life’s stuff. That anxiety for more in all its forms is our vulnerable spot that gives him power. Refuse anxiety, not because you know all will go well. It probably won’t. But because You are ‘something more’ than anything "Mammon" conceives.

God is everywhere you look, pervading/caring for everything. He has put something more in you, in your life and body, that allows you to see God, have faith, to know that deep reality and know yourself with God as "heavenly Father." You’re God’s image in his world.

Mammon lies: You’re ‘nothing but’ your stuff, power, physique, money, résumé, talents, etc. They secure your life. You need more. Worry, strive, grasp. You’re not good enough yet!

The God of all Stuff who wants You as Something More

This isn’t asceticism. The stuff of life is created freely by God who knows your needs. But not a bit of it can make you a successful human, image and child of God, something more.

God is not an add-on (if you have time for ‘spiritual’ things after work). Make God God in your life. Seek his life/justice. It changes you and everything around you. When God is your living creator/father and you are that ‘something more,’ God’s image and child, then the stuff of life can ‘be added to you’ without anxiety, because You are there. Little gods dissolve to stuff they are. God and You, beloved child, dance at the center.

Advent: He came with Good News of Peace

Isaiah looked with hope for God’s intervention - a child, Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6). The angel at Jesus’ birth echoed his words: to you is born a baby in a trough, Savior, Messiah, Lord.

What is a Prince of Peace? One who imposes peace - Augustus? Paul’s Advent meditation points to Jesus coming to proclaim peace (Isa 52:7) to those far and near (Isa 57:19).

But Jesus is not just the messenger or a conquering power commanding peace. Paul says Jesus himself is our peace. He’s writing to people in societies of intense conflict, with deep societal divisions and fears: Jew-Gentile, Roman-Greek-other ethnic groups, slave- free, male-female. Acts 19 show explosive fears, superstitions, and conflicts in Ephesus.

Paul had seen the how Jesus (as message and active presence) had brought together Jews, Romans, Greeks, the enslaved, the fearful into a new unity. It was who Jesus is - his life, message, cross, resurrection, Spirit - that embodied a new Adam, human being, the Suffering Servant of Isa 53, and that showed God’s purpose to unite everything in him.

Breaking down the Hostility Itself

All this works in a way that Augustus would not grasp. Human brokenness is deep, and every line of fracture can be infected. Jesus took the old hostility on himself -"in his flesh"- all that separated Jew/Gentile, slave/free, etc., in his crucifixion. The "hostility" thought it was destroying him, but Jesus killed hostility and death itself with God’s new life.

As the creator, he carried out a new creation within the old world, a new human being, reconciled to God, empowered by the Spirit. This is not an order to "stay in line." It is a new reality into which every broken human is invited. We don’t have to make peace; we enter the peace he made by giving every person access to God and the life of his Spirit.

This is what he has done, what he is doing now, and what he will bring to consummation.

How do I follow the Prince of Peace?

What happened in ancient Ephesus and modern NYC: People see Jesus, this amazing human, servant, God. We learn what he has done and we see our own selves, our hopes, delights, broken dreams, false gods, destructive practices, and alienation in light of him.

We don’t want to be always "aliens and strangers." We learn we are part of the family of the God who made this astonishing universe and ourselves. We open the door of his Peace.

We learn to practice the reality he gives us, not fight it. We watch his humility, gentleness, love. We want truth and right. We learn joy and release anxiety. He is/becomes our Peace!

What Would a Prince of Peace Look Like?

In the context of Advent, the vision of a Prince of Peace may seem obvious. But in Jesus’ time, Augustus Caesar was the great prince of Peace, conquering all: peace under Rome.

Jews chafed under his appointed rulers over the land. God, not Herod or Pilate should rule. Where was Isaiah’s promise: "Your God is King"? When would "the coming one" come?

Jesus’ whole story is that coming (Advent): Birth, ministry, passion, resurrection, all of it. People thought they knew what they were looking for - their own holy, good Augustus. After all, who is a more absolute king than God? They were ready to join the revolution. Jesus comes calling followers to "the Kingdom of God." What else could it mean?

The Deeds of the Messiah

When Zechariah sings over his baby John, he echoes the prophets. God visits. Redeems. Illuminates. Saves. Brings Peace. John would prepare the way of the Lord who comes! But what would this mighty arm of the Lord look like? Isaiah had anticipated the shock. God’s arm reaching into this broken world looks like nothing we’ve ever anticipated.

When Jesus went to Nazareth and quoted Isaiah’s prophecies, the people loved it, but when he began to interpret their meaning for the world, the crowd quickly turned against him.

John himself, suffering imprisonment from Herod, later wonders if Jesus is really the true "coming one." He send disciples to inquire. Jesus points to the things that they can see and hear, the words of Isaiah breaking into reality. Jesus knew that not even John or his closest disciples could yet understanding God’s kingdom as Jesus knew it.

Every word had to be reimagined: Glory-cross, humility. Power-self-giving love. Conquest- forgiveness, mercy. Victory-death, resurrection. Greatness-serving others. Peace- living boldly in the face of suffering knowing the indomitable, unbreakable love of God in Jesus.

The One who Comes in the Name of the Lord

Jesus comes to us as he came to Jerusalem. He calls us to a choice that changes everything. He comes as Lord/servant, King/lover, dying life-giver, bringing peace, reconciliation, hope.

He will not go away. The rocks cry out. He reveals our life, our reality, our choice. He is the prince of a new peace! Trust him. Let him be King, Lord, Servant, Future, Present, Now!