(Continued from yesterday)

Passover – Jesus bears God’s wrath in our place

Now let’s revisit Passover – the central moment in the history of the Jewish people. After hundreds of years in slavery, the time had come for God’s chosen people to be delivered. The cries of his oppressed people had reached his ears. He determined to strike all of Egypt in wrath. The only way to be spared was to smear the blood of an innocent lamb on the doorposts of the home.

Many people today resist talk about the wrath of God. It makes God seem angry. But what would you think about someone who saw an evil event occur and just shrugged his shoulders? What would you think about a person who saw the Holocaust taking place and just said, “So what?” What would you think about a judge who saw your baby being kidnapped and abused and said to the criminal, “That’s okay, try to do better next time!”

God is understandably angry over evil. He has made a good creation and his creatures have rebelled against him. The world is not as it should be. God must judge sin, and to be just he must judge all sin. It is because of his great love, that God is wrathful. If God did not have wrath toward sin, he would not be a loving God. That is why He decided to uphold his justice and his mercy at the same time through Jesus Christ.

On the cross, God demonstrated his perfect justice and his great mercy. He executed justice by pouring out his wrath against sin upon his only Son. He showed mercy by absorbing that wrath himself, thus allowing us to escape his judgment.

Because Jesus was filled with horror and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, we are filled with wonder and cry, “My God, my God, why have you accepted me?”

Because Jesus cried, “Father, forgive!”, the taunts we hurled at him at the cross are transformed into praise for his generous mercy.

Because Jesus said, “I thirst,” we can drink from the fountain of living water and never thirst again.

Because Jesus said, “Woman, behold your son” and felt the pain of separation from his earthly family, we can experience the blessing of being united with a heavenly family.

Because Jesus cried, “It is finished!”, our new life can begin.

Because Jesus committed his spirit into the Father’s hands, God commits his Spirit into our hearts.

Jesus is the Passover Lamb – the substitute that protects us from the wrath of God. He experienced the curse of God, the punishment for sin, the hellish torments of eternal damnation – all for the glory of God and the salvation of his people.

Creation – Jesus fulfills God’s original intention for humanity

Let’s turn the pages back even further. Picture the first humans in the Garden in uninterrupted fellowship with God and each other. They are called to do the will of God, but they disobey. Not your will, Lord, but mine! decides Adam.

Thousands of years later, another garden is before us. Gethsemane. The Second Adam is agonizing over the will of God. Jesus shrinks back from the thought of being cut off from God, from drinking the cup of God’s wrath so that his sinful people might be spared. Not my will, Lord, but yours! he decides.

The essence of Adam’s sin was that he put himself in God’s place. The essence of Christ’s righteousness is that he put himself in our place.

But these events are all part of God’s redemptive plan. In the first garden, God had promised to defeat Satan, sin and death. Now, in the second garden, because of the submission of the Son, the promise is kept. The fulfillment of prophecy, the climax of history, the culmination of God’s eternal plan comes crashing down upon Jesus of Nazareth.

Like Adam, Jesus had a task – to reflect the image of God. As Jesus bore the punishment for the sins of the world, he reflected the image of a self-giving God. He completed his earthly work.

On the sixth day of creation, God had made man in his image. Behold the man! Adam, the man whose sinful choice delivered all of humanity into the powerful grip of sin and death.

Now, on the sixth day, Friday, Pilate stands next to Jesus and declares, “Behold the Man!” Jesus, the “second Adam,” the true human being whose sinless life will undo the curse of sin and death.

Behold the Man who will pay for our sins!

Behold the Man who is our Messiah and Lord!

Behold the Man who is our Savior and God!

Piercing through the dark storm clouds and echoing through the valleys surrounding the hill of Golgotha, Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!” announcing that his work was complete.

On the sixth day, God had completed his work of creation. Now Jesus finished his work, as the spotless Lamb who died as our sacrifice.

“It is finished!” The victory cry resounds from the cross. The sacrifice had been accomplished. And God saw that it was good.

The cross offers a glimpse into the heart of a God who is willing to be with us in death and suffering. But we need more than a God who knows our pain. We need mercy for our own contributions to the pain in the world. Christ’s death is not merely a picture of God with us. It is also a picture of a God willing to stand in our place.

Jesus Christ dies instead of us. He not only identifies with our suffering caused by our sin; he also enters into our sorrow and makes it his own. He takes our sin and its consequences upon himself so that we can be free. He experiences the full force of God’s wrath toward sin in order that we might be saved. Only the cross satisfies God’s demand for justice and our desire for mercy.

Guilt and Sin

People know deep down that there is something wrong with our world. Things aren’t right. The world has been damaged and defaced by sin. We see it in our relationships, in the toil of our work, the brokenness of our marriages, and the rebelliousness of our own hearts.

And yet, we are more than damaged by sin. We are complicit. We are not merely victims of evil but also perpetrators. We must not deceive ourselves into thinking that all the problems of sin are out there and that we are being affected only by the sin of others. We too are involved in evil and selfishness, idolatry and greed.

We will never grasp the heights of God’s forgiveness until we comprehend the depths of our own sinfulness. We not only need someone to suffer with us. We need one who will suffer for us – in our place.

Our culture minimizes the idea that human beings are guilty of wrongdoing. We ignore guilt, explain it away, and recast it in psychological terms. The world sees guilt as delusion and sin as a mere construct.

As a result of our denial of guilt, young people are taking desperate measures. Some have turned to cutting in a desperate attempt to soothe the guilt and pain. Teenagers are so disgusted with themselves that many believe the only relief from their guilt and pain is to self-mutilate, cutting themselves with razor blades on their arms or legs.

Christianity can deal with cutting because we too believe that it is only in the shedding of blood that true relief and forgiveness is found. But true forgiveness and relief comes – not through mutilating ourselves – but through the stripes on the back of Jesus. By his stripes, we are healed. He was pierced, cut for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.

God, in his mercy, has laid upon Jesus Christ the iniquity of us all. We receive his perfect righteousness and he receives our sinfulness. All the debts we owed, all the sins we have ever committed: Jesus, God’s Son, is the One who pays the price.

In this picture of God giving himself for our salvation, the earlier stories in the Grand Narrative begin to make sense. The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is the definitive moment in the story of the world. On this hill called Calvary, we see so many threads from the earlier chapters in the history of the world come together. Throughout the Old Testament, we see hints and clues pointing forward to the cross of Jesus. As the narrative proceeds, these different streams begin to converge into a mighty current. By the time we arrive at the last week of Jesus, the river is rushing towards us, with all of the original streams caught up together in one great river.

Mount Sinai – Jesus fulfills the Law in our Place

First, let’s go back to Mount Sinai. Dark clouds hover over the mountain. The silence is pierced by thunder, the darkness by lightning. Moses receives the Law of God – the revelation of God’s holy standard, given in love to his people. It is the way of righteousness. The path to peace. It reveals to us the holiness of God.

But just like us, God’s people were unable to live up to the high and holy standards of God. They bore the image of their forefather, Adam. God had created Adam to reflect his image and to rule wisely over creation. He rebelled. So God called out a people, the children of Israel, to be the light of the world, the people through whom his blessings would flow. Yet they rebelled also.

But though Adam rebelled against the command of God, and Israel did not live up to the righteousness, love and faithfulness God demanded, Jesus submitted perfectly to the Father’s plan.

A life of perfect obedience.

A death of perfect submission.

Where we as humans failed in our task to reflect God rightly and where Israel failed in her task to shine God’s love to the rest of the world, Jesus remained faithful. He accomplished God’s will completely.

Jesus not only fulfilled the Law of Moses; he revealed the heart of God. He showed us God’s intention of the Law. Jesus announced the arrival of God’s Kingdom; he demanded allegiance and obedience; he taught how living God’s way turned human wisdom on its head.

Now, the time had come for his life to be given as a ransom for many. And on that fateful day in Jerusalem, he lived out his own teaching for the whole world to see, perfectly fulfilling the Law of Moses – and even his own Sermon on the Mount.

If someone strikes you, turn to him the other cheek… The Roman fists had already bloodied and bruised Jesus’ face, but he did not strike back.

If someone asks you to go one mile, go with him two miles. From Pilate’s courtyard to Calvary’s hill, he had carried his cross, walking miles on that dusty road for you and me.

If someone takes your tunic, give him your cloak as well, Jesus had told his followers on the mountainside. Now, on the hill of Golgotha, just below the cross, his enemies were mockingly casting lots for his clothes.

And finally, on the cross, almost completely unrecognizable, Jesus lived out one last part of his teaching.
Love your enemies… Pray for those who persecute you… Forgive… In a moving display of divine love, Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of those who had tortured him.

“Father, forgive them,” he had said. Luke uses a verb that implies Jesus was repeating the phrase over and over again.

Enduring the painful insults and humiliating spit of Roman guards… Father, forgive them…

Being lied about and falsely accused in Caiphas’ court… Father, forgive them…

Surviving the vicious torture of Roman scourging… Father, forgive them…

Hearing the taunts being hurled at him from below the cross… Father forgive them…

Here is Jesus – living out the total summation of his message of forgiveness. He is not a hypocrite like the rest of us. He is truly and fully God. God being who God is. God doing what God does.

Jesus’ proclamation of forgiveness to those who despised him can break the heart of stone. Because of his life in our place, and his death in our stead, we are freed from our sins, and also from the Law. Horatio Spafford’s song, “It is Well with My Soul” includes the beautiful lines:

My sin – O the bliss of this glorious thought -
My sin, not in part but the whole
is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more,
praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

When the Romans crucified criminals in the first century, it was customary for them to nail an accusation list to the cross. The list informed people why this person was being crucified. When Jesus died, God took the accusations that Satan brings against us – all our failures and mistakes, our willful rebellion and our constant inability to keep God’s law – and God nails those accusations to the cross of his Son. So Jesus Christ died there on Calvary, bearing your sin and mine; the accusations that should be hurled against us were hurled against him instead.

Loneliness and alienation are part of human existence. Signs of loneliness appear everywhere:

• In the flickering light of the computer screen at night.
• In the big house with only one inhabitant.
• In our chronic distrust of one another.
• In the younger generation’s cynicism.

We are alone. Isolated. Friendships fade. Relationships are severed. Trust is broken.

All these symptoms of loneliness point to a greater relationship that has been severed – our relationship with God. We have rebelled against God. We have spit in his face and demanded our own way.

God offers living water. We poison the well.

God desires fellowship with us. We spurn his friendship.

God offers his eternal life. We turn away and march toward death.

God offers healing. We try to heal ourselves and only exacerbate our disease.

Alienation follows. The fallout from our rebellion is that everyone suffers. Suffering and pain are now ingrained in our lives.

But God knows our plight. He is not absent from our pain. Even as he rightly condemns our rebellion, he willingly suffers alongside of us, bearing the devastating effects of our sinfulness. Isaiah 53: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. The Servant of God is there. He dies with us. He carries the weight – not only of sin, but also its horrible consequences.

C.S. Lewis wrote:

“The world is a dance in which good, descending from God, is disturbed by evil arising from the creatures, and the resulting conflict is resolved by God’s own assumption of the suffering nature which evil produces.”

A Broken World

In November 2008, Mumbai, the largest city in India, became the target of a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that killed 173 people. Two of the victims were from New York – a Jewish Rabbi and his wife, both in their late 20′s. Kashmiri militants entered the rabbi’s home and slaughtered the parents. The nanny found their 2-year-old son, Moshe, sitting in a pool of his parents’ blood.

When the memorial service took place in Brooklyn, New York, the two-year-old boy cried out for his slain parents. “Ima! Abba!” he said, using the Hebrew words for mother and father. “Ima! Abba!” he moaned. Little Moshe’s mournful wail echoed through the synagogue, drowning out the voices of the hundreds of people grieving his parents’ death.

An inconsolable two-year-old, crying out for his dead parents. My heart wells up with the question: Why? Why does God allow this kind of pain? Why is the world such a messed-up, broken place? And how do we make sense of the beauty that we still see in this world that features so much ugliness?

What is it like to witness the changing of the seasons from behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp? How does a Holocaust victim admire a glorious sunset when it serves as the backdrop for smoke rising to the sky, smoke coming from piles of burning bodies of men, women and children?

How do we make sense of the evil that exists in a world of such beauty?

I have an agnostic friend who cannot come to grips with the suffering he has witnessed in this world:

• Children are abused.
• Criminals with money go scot free.
• Innocent lives are snuffed out in war.
• Systemic injustice confines people to perpetual poverty.

“What can you say about a God who would allow such pain?” he asks. His question is deeply personal. Thankfully, the answer is too.

Jesus is God’s Answer

Christianity does not answer the question Why. Instead, God provides – not the answer to the intellectual dilemma – but the resolution to the problem. Christians look to the cross. There, in the midst of God’s own grief and sorrow, we see God with us and believe that he is able somehow to take up our burdens upon himself and deliver us from our despair. He is not distant from our pain. He is not above grief. He understands our suffering because Jesus Christ – God in human flesh – suffered.

The cry of little Moshe was once the cry of Jesus. “Abba! Abba!” he cried in the Garden of Gethsemane. “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

It is because of the cross that we know God is not absent from our suffering and pain. It is because of the cross that we can experience forgiveness and reconciliation and peace with God.

As we witness the evil and pain in this world, we too cry out Abba! Abba! God does not give us an explanation. He gives us himself. Jesus is God’s answer to our cry.

Where is God? He is here…

In the book, Night, Elie Wiesel describes his journey through the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wiesel describes in horrific detail the “chimney,” – the place where the bodies of Jewish men, women, and children were thrown into a blazing fire. Wiesel rebels against God. He refuses to fast on Jewish holy days. He questions the existence of God. The human evil of Auschwitz is too overwhelming to comprehend. Wiesel claims that human words cannot express the suffering he experienced.

The most disturbing scene in the book takes place when an innocent 12-year-old boy is forced to die, even though he did not commit the crime for which he is punished. He and three others are placed on the gallows and hanged. The rest of the prisoners are forced to walk by and look squarely into the faces of the executed.

“But the third rope was still moving. The child, too light, was still breathing… And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes…”

“Behind me, I heard the same man asking, ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’” And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where – hanging here from this gallows…’”

This event marks a turning point for Wiesel. In his thoughts at that time, God is dead. Yet, as a Christian, I sense something deeper in this story. In the midst of human suffering and evil, we too look to an Innocent One dying an excruciating death. We look to Jesus – suspended between earth and sky, hovering between life and death, struggling for the breath of life as the noose slowly tightens. When considering the depth of human depravity and the love of a good God, we too ask, “Where is God?” and then see the form of a cross. “He is here, hanging on this tree…”

Every year, I devote several posts during Holy Week to the cross and resurrection of Christ. I realize that blogging and thoughtful devotional material often do not mix, since many readers simply scan feeds. But I hope that during this week, you will take a few moments to read through these five reflective posts and that you will glory in the sacrifice of our Savior.

The Beauty of the Cross

No theology is genuinely Christian
which does not arise from and focus on the cross.
- Martin Luther

We stepped outside into the soft glow of early morning light. A chill was in the air. Seeing our breath reminded us that summer had faded. Fall was upon us. No more chirping of crickets. No more singing of birds.

My son grabbed his backpack for kindergarten and we headed toward the car. Yesterday had been windy. The trees had surrendered their leaves overnight. The leaves now covered the ground in various shades of colors, like a patchwork quilt that brightens a dreary room. Deep red. Luscious green. Bright yellow. Dark brown. And all sorts of shades in between. The leaves on the driveway were damp from the cool rain, while the ones taking refuge under the trees were old and crispy. No leaf seemed exactly alike.

“What happened to all these leaves?” my son asks me. “Why aren’t they on the trees anymore?”

“The leaves are dead,” I tell him. A puzzled look crosses his face. Dead? But they’re so beautiful. How could they be dead?

When beholding beauty and color, one rarely thinks of death. Yet, these leaves are not signs of life. Their beauty is their death. This canvas on which the Creator splashes his autumn colors is actually a glorious display of death.

It is a paradox woven deep into the fabric of creation. Yes, death is an enemy of God’s good creation. An intrusion. One of the results of our destructive choice to rebel against God. We humans cut ourselves off from the source of life, and death has been inextricably tied to our existence ever since. And yet, there is one death so beautiful, so glorious, that despite its horror and brutality, we are transfixed by its splendor.

To the outsider, it must seem odd that Christians commemorate and celebrate the death of their Founder. Our songs tell of blood, death, and sacrifice (often to upbeat and happy tunes).

Gruesome lyrics. Beautiful truth.

While outsiders find the blood-stained cross repulsive, Christians are compelled by what it represents. We contemplate Christ’s crucifixion. We reflect upon his death. We celebrate his glory. The paradox of death and beauty is at the heart of Christianity.

The Brutal Beauty of Christ’s Crucifixion

Crucifixion – the brutal method of execution devised by the Romans – has become the symbol of Christian faith. Surely there is nothing appealing about dying on a cross:

• Severe flogging. Victims covered in blood.
• Long, iron spikes driven into the wrists. Pounded into the feet.
• Nakedness. Exposed to the elements. Ashamed before the bystanders.
• Convulsions. Every little movement tearing at the hands and feet.
• Desperate gasps for air, as suffocation and exhaustion slowly snuff out of the life of the victim.

The Romans introduced crucifixion as a public spectacle, an ugly form of brutality that sent a powerful message to anyone who dared challenge the Roman government. This is what can happen to you, the cross said.

Most people could not stomach the brutality of crucifixion. Roman citizens could be beheaded, but never crucified. The Roman philosopher Cicero believed crucifixion ought never be mentioned in polite company. Jewish people interpreted crucifixion as a sign of God’s curse.

Signs of death. Ugly. Stark. Brutal.

But one crucifixion is beautiful. In the midst of this vicious death, we peer into the very heart of God. On this windblown, stony hill outside Jerusalem – dotted by three crosses – we see God in his brilliant, unexpected glory. Like the autumn leaves that drape the earth in color, one cross shines in beauty.

Martin Lloyd Jones once said:

“You will never know God as Father except by Jesus Christ, and in particular, by his death upon the cross… Look there, gaze, meditate, survey the wondrous cross. And then you will see something of him.”

Pondering the meaning of the cross draws us into the self-giving love of God. The cross by itself is not beautiful. The atonement is beautiful because it illuminates the heart of God.

What Christ accomplished on the cross is so massive, and the window into the heart of God is so big that no one explanation or description of the atonement can tell the whole story. Because the atonement is at the heart of who God is and what he has done for us, we can never fully exhaust the riches that flow from this event.

But recognizing our inability to mine all the theological treasures represented in the cross of Christ should not keep us from pondering the beautiful truth of this event. In particular, there are three major aspects of the atonement that reveal the beauty of our Creator and Redeemer God. In the following days, we will open the windows and peer into the very heart of God.

In the Gospel of Mark, each time Jesus predicts his suffering, the disciples demonstrate their pride and weakness.  The scenes are sadly comical. Jesus talks about going to the cross, and the disciples begin trying to one-up each other for glory in the kingdom.

But there is one scene that stands out. At the table during the Last Supper, Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him. Based upon everything we know of the disciples, we might expect them to begin looking around at each other, trying to figure out who is the villain.

Maybe it’s Peter. He thinks he’s so devoted…

I bet it’s John. He loses his temper and can’t control himself. Maybe he’s mad at Jesus…

It’s probably Simon. Jesus isn’t a Zealot, and Simon might be wanting to go back to his old life…

Maybe it’s Levi. The money from the tax booth is calling him again…

We expect to see the disciples looking suspiciously at one another, trying to figure out who might be the betrayer. We expect them to point the finger and say, “Is it him?” Instead, they point the finger back at themselves and say, “Is it me?”

If there’s any encouragement in this passage, it’s that the disciples immediately start looking at themselves and their own hearts. They don’t immediately judge the others.

Whenever we see someone fall into sin, our temptation is to puff up and think, “I’m glad I’m stronger than that.” Often, when we hear a sermon that should step on our toes, we think, “I hope so and so is taking notes. They really need to hear that!”

We excel at finding faults with others when we should be finding faults in ourselves.

Next time you hear of someone failing the Lord, look inside your own heart and say, “Lord, don’t let that be me! I don’t want to be the one who lets you down! Shower me with your grace again and remind me of my weakness.”

Lent is a time to reflect. And it’s a time to ask: “Is it me, Lord? Is it me?”

Mark’s account of the woman who anoints Jesus is shrouded in darkness. Just before the story, we see the religious leaders plotting Jesus’ demise. Right after the story, Judas makes plans to betray Jesus and wait for the right time to hand him over.

But Mark not only heightens the drama by sandwiching the woman’s action in between two acts of treachery. He also sets up the scene so that we take a step outside of Jerusalem with Jesus. There’s a subtle insider/outsider motif in this passage.

Mark tells us that the anointing takes place in Bethany (which is outside Jerusalem), in the home of Simon the leper (an outsider if ever there was one). And into this male dinner party enters a woman, in a day and age where women did not intrude unless they were serving food.

• Outside Jerusalem…
• Outside the community…
• Outside the exclusively male circle…

And what does this woman do? She worships.

True worship is the result of one’s overflowing gratitude for no longer being on the outside. The woman’s action is a microcosm of Christian worship. The Christian life is a grateful response to the God who has brought us “outsiders” into his arms and made us part of his family.

• We’re orphans, and he adopts us.
• We’re lepers, and he heals us.
• We’re sinners, and he cleanses us.
• We’re rebels, and he makes us his servants.
• We’re prodigals, and he welcomes us.
• We’re outsiders, and he brings us into his heart.

Many evangelicals today are reluctant to speak of boundaries and walls that divide people into categories of “inside” or “outside” the kingdom. We hesitate to make distinctions. We don’t want to put people in uncomfortable situations that lead them to realize they are on the “outside” when it comes to the kingdom of God.

But we not only cut out the heart of evangelism when we blur the “insider/outsider” distinction. We cut out the heart of Christian worship too! You will never worship God properly until you come to grips with the awesome grace of God that sought you out while you were still outside.

Extravagant grace leads to extravagant worship. Downplay the grace and you will never truly worship.

“Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.”

- Jesus to Zacchaeus (Luke 19:9)

Zacchaeus was indeed a “wee little man,” and not only physically. He was a small man spiritually, a crook that ripped off his neighbors and pocketed his profit at their expense.

One day, Jesus informed Zacchaeus that he would be staying at his house. It was a visit that forever changed the undersized tax collector. After Zacchaeus hosted Jesus in his home, he proclaimed exuberantly that he would repair all he had broken in the world, restoring everything he had ever stolen. Then, Jesus exclaimed that salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house!

Salvation came to Zacchaeus’ house because Jesus came to the house. Where Jesus is, there is salvation. Where salvation is, there is a renewal and restructuring of a person’s entire life. Zacchaeus’ encounter with Jesus led him to make restitution by paying back four times as much as he had stolen in his life. For Zacchaeus, repentance was not merely a feeling sorry for sin and a short, simple prayer. Repentance constituted a visible act that made amends and transformed evil into good.

When Jesus enters our lives, we cannot stay the same. Salvation cannot be reduced to our response to an altar call, or our filling out a decision card at church.

True repentance reaches into our checkbooks and makes changes, shuffling our priorities.

True repentance pushes us to our neighbor’s doorstep to ask for forgiveness for past faults.

True repentance cancels debts, transforms our priorities, reforms our desires, modifies our dreams, and heals our hurt and the hurt of others.

It was only after Zacchaeus expressed his change of heart and yearning for restoration that Jesus exclaimed: “Salvation has come!” What sin is lurking in your life that needs to be dealt with? In what area have you not allowed God to fully have His way? What are you holding back? Make the necessary adjustments, and the fresh winds of restoration will sweep over your life. Then, Jesus can say: “Salvation has come to this house! Salvation has come!”

first posted in February 2007

Yesterday, I posted a review of Dr. Michael Bird’s new book, Are You the One Who Is to Come?: The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (Baker Academic, 2009). Today, I am interviewing Michael about his book and the implications of properly understanding Jesus’ messianic vocation.

Trevin Wax: Why do so many historical Jesus scholars shy away from affirming that Jesus understood his vocation in messianic terms?

Michael Bird: For a number of reasons.

First, belief in Jesus as Messiah was part of the early church’s faith and flowed from their conviction that Jesus was “made” Messiah by God upon his resurrection/exaltation (e.g. Acts 2.36; Rom. 1.3-4), and scholars see the early church as subsequently reading back messianic identity into the life-history of Jesus in the Gospels.

The reasoning is understandable, but flawed. Nowhere in any Jewish literature is there the inference: “resurrected” – therefore “Messiah”.

On top of that, Jesus’ messiahship does not figure prominently in the resurrection narratives of the Gospels. Short creedal summaries like Romans 1.3-4 imply the transformation of Jesus’ sonship to a new eschatological function that he did not possess before Easter, rather than signifying that resurrection suddenly marks the beginning of Jesus’ sonship, messiahship, etc.

Secondly, there aren’t many places in the Gospels which talk about Jesus as Messiah (except perhaps John 4.26, but John is rarely seen as historically valuable in reconstructing Jesus’ life by most historical Jesus scholars).

The problem here is that roles are more important than titles. It is principally what Jesus does, his “performative messianism” as I call it, that shows that he is placing himself in a messianic vocation. Claiming to be regathering Israel, ushering in the kingdom, rebuilding the temple, fighting Israel’s enemies – these are all messianic tasks.

At any rate, I do think that Jesus gives an oblique nod to messianic questions when posed to him like in Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi (Mark. 8.27-30) and John the Baptist’s question to Jesus posed through his followers (Matthew 11.2-6). It has to be oblique because, rather like a nominee to the Supreme Court before the Senate, you have to be careful what you say. Otherwise people will move on you faster than you can say “filibuster” if you utter something politically controversial or explosive!

Trevin Wax: How does the messianic expectation of the Second Temple period influence how we understand Jesus and his ministry?

Michael Bird: There are several things we need to balance together.

First, not all Jews were waiting for a Messiah, and not everyone believed in one or wanted one. You could have hopes for the future (eschatology) that gave no place to a Messiah at all in some Jewish writings (e.g. Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon).

Secondly, there was no single conception of “Messiah” waiting in the wings for Jesus to apply to himself so that everyone would have understood him as hoping people would say, “Oh look! Here comes the Messiah!” There was a great degree of diversity on this, as a mere comparison of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Psalms of Solomon, Philo, 4 Ezra, and the Parables of 1 Enoch suggest. A messiah could be royal, militaristic, priestly, transcendent, prophetic, etc.

Third, even given all of this diversity, it should not lead us to believe that these portraits of the Messiah(s) had no consistent or transferable traits. I find it interesting that similar texts like Gen. 49.10 and Num. 24.7, 17 come up again and again in the messianic exegesis of Jewish authors. Obviously the Messiah saves Israel, regathers the twelve tribes, ushers in a period of peace, renews the covenant, purifies Israel’s worship, crushes Israel’s enemies, casts out sinners, either subjugates or converts the Gentiles, etc.

So when we see Jesus as acting out this messianic role, saying things that are deliberately ambiguous as to what role he sees for himself in the kingdom, claiming to be greater than the temple and Solomon, referring to himself with the oblique self-reference “Son of Man”, and so forth, we need to put that into the context of intra-Jewish debates of what kind of eschatological deliverer there will be (if it will be!) and how Jesus taps into that background, affirms some elements, changes some, disregards others, and how that would be perceived by his contemporaries.

Trevin Wax: In what ways did Jesus redefine the role of Messiah?

Michael Bird: Probably the most interesting way is that Jesus seems to have combined the messianic role with the reference to the “one like a Son of Man” taken up from Daniel 7.

Now, this is a huge area of debate; it’s very controversial, and many will contest or protest my view on this. I swore that I would never go near the “Son of Man” debate in a million years because it is hairier than a Gorilla named Harry, but for this book, I just had to to do it.

So (deep breath) here I go: In Aramaic, “son of man” (Bar [e]nasha) basically means “human being” or “someone in my position”. It is like ben adam in Hebrew as per Psalm 8: What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you should care for him? You can see how certain passages in the Gospels can make sense. For example, in Luke 9.58, you can easily change “Son of Man” for “I/me/those like me … have nowhere to lay their head”.

Similarly, in the Gospel of Matthew (that tends to re-Judaize Mark), in the story of Jesus’ healing of the paralytic by forgiving his sins (Matt 9.2-8), Jesus says that the “Son of Man has authority to forgive sins.” At the end, the crowd rejoices that such authority has been given to men! Matthew obviously sees the link between “Son of Man” and human beings because of his more Semitic pedigree than Mark.

Now, that said, Son of Man also has an implicit self-reference to the speaker as one particular example of the generic class. So, yes, human beings have the authority to forgive sins, but one particular human being is actually doing it and taking center stage.

The other thing to note here is that, in many cases, there seems to be a tacit hint of Daniel 7.13-14 behind Jesus’ usage of Son of Man. Daniel 7 is a tricky passage, and who the “one like a son of man” is, is debated (Israel, King, Messiah, Angel, etc.). But I think the “one like a son of man” is a royal and heavenly figure who represents Israel before God and achieves the tasks that God gave to Israel.

We see Jesus merging the Aramaic idiom with the Daniel 7 figure most clearly in several of his parables (e.g., Lk 19.10), the Olivet Discourse (Mark 13), and in his confession before the High Priest in Mk. 14.62.

Another way that Jesus redefines things (and I’ll be briefer here) is that from Jesus’ triumphal entry and Last Supper he seemed to link the Zecharian Shepherd-King of 9.9 with the smitten shepherd of 14.7. Zechariah seems to have influenced the final act in the public manfiestation of his messianic role, while Isaiah clearly provided the “script” for other aspects like preaching good news, healing the sick, sight for the blind, etc.

In other words, Jesus saw select themes and imagery from Isaiah and Zechariah has laying out the path that the Messiah had to walk, which showed that only through suffering and sacrifice would the new exodus that Israel needed and their salvation from the tribulation about to fall upon them, be achieved.

Trevin Wax: How does an affirmation of Jesus’ messianic understanding influence our overall view of Christ’s person and work?

Michael Bird: In two ways.

First, to call Jesus the “Messiah” means that we have to see Jesus as part of story of Israel. That means the history of Israel according to the Scriptures and also the state of Israel and Jews in the first-century context. It is no good to believe that Jesus simply is “the one” and his saving work can be ripped out of the Scriptural story-line or removed from the socio-religious context of first century Palestine.

To make Jesus “Messiah” means that he can never be a heavenly redeemer who floated down from earth and teaching bad people how to be good and how to get to heaven. Jesus can only be the Savior of Gentiles if he is first and foremost the Savior of Israel (see Rom. 15.8-9!). This is why some groups, Gnostic (like the Gospel of Philip) and proto-orothodox (like the Epistle of Barnabas) seem to undermine Jesus as Messiah, because they reject either the salvation of Israel or the authority of Israel’s Scriptures.

Second, Messiah simply means “anointed one” (though I like the title “appointed one” as a looser translater). The offices in the Old Testament that were anointed were Prophet, Priest, and King. In Christian theology we call this the munus triplex. To call Jesus the “Messiah” is to confess that he is the one who reveals God (Prophet), he reconciles us to God (Priest), and he rules at God’s right hand (King).

Trevin Wax: Are there any good books out there that would take this argument a step further, and make a convincing case that Jesus also saw his vocation as, in some sense, embodying the very presence of God himself? Can a case be made that Jesus saw his vocation as divine?

Michael Bird: That’s a good question.

Well, to begin with, Jesus did not cruise around Palestine saying, “Hi, I’m God, the second person of the Trinity, soon I’m going to die on the cross for your sins so you can go to heaven, but until then I’m gonna teach you all how to be good Christians”. That is wildly ahistorical, and yet it might be how many pious Christians read their Gospels.

One thing we do see is that Jesus speaks with a sense of unmediated authority. He doesn’t simply interpret Scripture; he authoritatively pronounces what Scripture means as if he were the author. In all the Gospels, we find the emphasis on Jesus being sent by God to perform certain roles and actions. But at the same time, you often get the sense that the line between author and agent has become blurred.

I would also point out that many messianic figures were thought to be pre-existent and transcendent, and we have to wonder if Jesus saw himself in this line, especially when some of the “I have come” sayings nudge in this direction. (See Simon Gathercole on The Pre-existent Son and the recent book by J.J. Collins and A.Y. Collins on the relationship between divinity and messianism as well).

For me the real “clincher” is a passage like Luke 19.41-45 where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem because it did not recognize the time of its “visititation” (most translations add the gloss “from God”). We have here the visitation of God through his prophetic agent for which the city is held to be liable.

When I read this, I think immediately of Ezek 34 where God promises to come and Shepherd his people, and then he says, I will send David to shepherd you. In other words, we have the coming of God in and through the arrival of his Davidic Shepherd King.

Related Posts:
A Bird’s Eye View of Paul
Having a Fresh Encounter with Paul: An Interview with Michael Bird

“What did Jesus know and when did he know it?”

Historical Jesus studies have long focused on Jesus’ assessment of himself. Did Jesus believe he was the Messiah? If so, when did he come to this knowledge? If not, why did the early church view him this way? The popular term for this concept is “messianic consciousness.”

Many historical Jesus scholars dismiss the idea that Jesus believed he was the Messiah. But Michael Bird’s newest book, Are You the One Who Is To Come?: The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (Baker Academic, 2009) makes a persuasive case for seeing Jesus’ words and deeds as intentionally messianic.

How does Bird make his case?

First, Bird bypasses the usual investigations of Jesus’ self-consciousness. He writes:

“I do not like the term ‘messianic self-consciousness,’ since the mental states and psychological profiles of individuals from antiquity are beyond the bounds of historical inquiry. I prefer the phrase ‘messianic self-understanding,’ by which I mean Jesus’ identifying himself in a messianic role and couching his activities as messianic in character and purpose.” (29)

Bird leaves aside questions about what was going through Jesus’ mind, and instead focuses on the words and actions of Jesus. He combs through literature from the Second Temple period of Judaism in order to demonstrate the general features of messianic expectation during Jesus’ day.

“…What I propose then is that we identify an Old Testament text as ‘messianic’ when the plain sense of the text, designates a figure with royal qualities who is sent by God, and also that either the text itself was treated as messianic in post-biblical interpretation, or else the pattern of activity that the figure embodies corresponds to a pattern of activity often expected of messianic figures in antiquity.” (46)

Bird’s valuable criteria help us understand the messianic expectations of first-century Jews, a matter of vital importance for this discussion.

Next, Bird convincingly refutes the explanations that deny that Jesus could have seen his vocation in messianic terms. Bird resembles someone poking holes in a wall that is already crumbling. He exposes the paucity of historical argumentation among scholars who cling to the idea that Jesus did not see his actions in any messianic sense at all.

Finally, Bird seeks to put forth a plausible alternative to the scholarly skeptics. He argues that Jesus Christ actually did believe himself to be the Messiah. But Bird is careful in how he makes this argument. For example, in reference to Jesus’ self-identification as the “Son of Man”, Bird writes:

“I am not arguing that ‘son of man’ was a fixed messianic title in pre-Christian Judaism or even that Jesus’ self-reference a ‘son of man’ was clearly messianic in every utterance. What I am arguing for instead is that the son of man figure of Daniel 7 contributed to the construction of a messianic narrative; it was capable of sustaining a messianic interpretation and was occasionally interpreted as messianic in pockets of pre-Christian Judaism, and Jesus’ employment of the phrase taps into this background.” (84)

Bird’s careful distinctions are helpful. He is able to show that Jesus’ use of the “son of man” title can point to a certain messianic identity without carrying the full weight of outright messianic claims.

Bird makes the case that Jesus Christ spoke in messianic terms and performed actions that aligned with certain messianic expectations. In the end, he believes this evidence points to the fact that Jesus did indeed see himself as the Messiah.

Furthermore, for Bird, it makes little sense for the early church to have forced messianic categories back onto Jesus and his ministry unless they arose from Jesus’ own actions.

“The messianism of the early church was not an impromptu add-on to disappointed hopes; instead, it issued forth in a comprehensive reconfiguration of the Jewish belief mosaic on topics such as kingship, vindication, eschatology, restoration, and the fate of the nations. The messianism of the first Jesus followers was not merely the Christianization of a homogenous and extant Jewish messianic myth; rather, it involved the redefinition and transformation of a selection of pluriform exegetical traditions and apocalyptic narratives around Jesus.” (150)

My only quibble with Bird’s work is that, in seeking to demonstrate his objectivity, he writes as if denying Jesus’ messianic understanding does no harm to Christian faith.

“…My faith would not be particularly impaired or revised if Jesus had not claimed to be the Messiah and the early church had attached this title to him as merely one way of explicating his significance. The early church did, after all, attach certain roles and functions to Jesus – such as ‘Righteous One,’ ‘Prince of Peace,’ and ‘Firstborn’ – that Jesus did not claim for himself. I for one feel no compulsion to project those roles and titles into the ministry of the historical Jesus so as to somehow validate them…” (161)

I think I agree with Bird here. But the fact is… if the Gospels had portrayed Jesus speaking of himself as the Righteous One or the Firstborn and historical Jesus scholars were to reject the Gospel witness and claim that the early church was merely foisting these titles back on Jesus, then we would have a problem.

So, I agree with Bird that the idea of Jesus seeing himself as messianic might not be crucial to our faith in the abstract sense,  but precisely because of the very case that Bird makes (which shows Jesus accepting and redefining the messianic vocation), I want to say that this subject is indeed vital. If Jesus did not understand himself this way, then we are facing a problem in our view of biblical inspiration.

On a related note, I would love to see someone go further than the messianic question to the idea of Jesus’ divinity. “Did Jesus see himself as the divine representation of God? Did he see himself as the embodiment of Yahweh?’

Overall, Are You the One Who Is To Come? is a worthy contribution to historical Jesus studies. Bird’s case is rock solid. I am happy to recommend such a persuasive case for Jesus’ messianic self-understanding.

Last month, I preached the greatest sermon ever recorded in the history of the world. Greatest, of course, because it is from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. On April 19, at the request of our senior adults, I delivered the Sermon on the Mount from memory for our congregation. (See the video below.)

I encourage other pastors and preachers to consider preaching large sections of Scripture from memory. Your congregation will be edified in a special way.

Here are some tips for getting started:

1. Choose a literal Bible translation.

I chose to preach the Sermon on the Mount from the English Standard Version, since it is my translation of choice. You might assume that dynamic translations are easier to memorize, but such is not the case. Word-for-word translations are easier to commit to memory, probably because they are closer to the original text, which was intended to be passed down orally.

2. Listen to the Scriptures on Mp3.

For several weeks leading up to delivery, I listened to a recitiation of the Sermon on my Mp3 player. When taking  a shower, when in the car, before going to bed… Find time to listen to the text you want to preach.

3. Read the passage out loud once or twice daily.

Listening helps solidify the words of the text in your mind. But nothing will substitute for the hard work of reading the text out loud and then trying to say it word for word. Try reading the text every night before going to bed. Sleep will help you retain the main ideas of the text.

4. Practice the sermon with someone who is not afraid to correct every mistake.

Corina was a big help to me as I prepared for the Sermon. Whenever I missed a word or phrase, she would let me know. Discovering where the difficulties are will help you be more comfortable as you continue the work of memorization.

An example: Many of Jesus’ words in the Sermon are in chiastic structure, not Western-styled outline form. (1) No one can serve two masters. For either he will (2) hate the one and (3) love the other, or he will be (3) be devoted to the one and (2) despise the other. (1) You cannot serve God and money. The chiastic structure is unfamiliar to us and can lead to easy mistakes. Understanding the structure helps you catch the rhythm of the ancient text.

Below is the video from my Sermon on the Mount delivery:

Part 1 (Matthew 5)

Part 2 (Matthew 6-7)