Easter 2023: Welcome to the flip side….

Poor Matthew (Parris) doesn’t get it. I get why he doesn’t get it. And he isn’t alone. His problem is both relatively straightforward and relatively common. As Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy in 1789 “...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” – and dead people stay dead. So I can forgive Matthew for being confused as to the significance of Jesus’ death. Writing in his Times column yesterday under the title “I’ll choose heroes before martyrs any day”, Matthew described Jesus as “the supreme example of a great man felled by midgets”. He was objecting to the notion that Jesus death proves or validates His teaching: “That Jesus was falsely accused and cruelly crucified does not make him a better man, or his teachings more true than if he had lived comfortably to ripe old age.. The depth of his suffering has no bearing on the validity of the Christian message..”. His basic thesis was that Jesus died a victim and His victimhood generated such sympathy that it prevented (and prevents) a proper analysis of what He taught. This rather implies that Jesus’ death was either a miscalculation or bad luck, but not in any way key to who He was or what He was seeking to do. But this indicates that Matthew has entirely missed the meaning and significance of Jesus’ death (for it has both). It is something that is easily done.

The reason he misses the point is that he is focussing on only half of the story. There’s lot about Jesus’ death that might make one rage (much as I was doing on Friday). At a minimum it certainly came as a huge disappointment to His earliest followers. But if Jesus simply died, coming to a horrible end, that could not possibly validate His message (to this extent I agree with Matthew). In fact it would convincingly invalidate His message. If He was merely a victim, He could be no example. For on its own, His death would proves nothing beyond Him being either a fool or a liar. Who would want to follow either? This is because He Himself was very clear about the place and circumstances of His death, and spoke about them repeatedly. But He also insisted that His death would not be the end. His original audience either did not hear Him, did not understand Him or did not believe Him. That inner group of disciples, so traumatised by the events of “good” Friday, were every bit as incapable as Matthew at putting it all together. They were so sure that dead people stay dead, and Jesus was certainly dead. So that was that. But then they should also have known that this is not entirely true. Among their wider number was a man called Lazarus. Lazarus had died, but Jesus had raised Him from the dead. You would have thought that this might have caused them to pause and ponder when a number of women reported to them that Jesus tomb was empty on the Sunday morning following Jesus’ Friday death, and that they had been told that the reason the tomb was empty was that Jesus was alive.

We are able to gain bit of an insight into the thought process (or rather the lack of thereof) going on inside the heads of the first Christians that particular Sunday. Luke records a conversation that two of them had with a seemingly ignorant stranger, as they trudged, depressed, from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). They had placed their hopes in Jesus, but these had been dashed by His death. So certain were they that His death had marked the end of those hopes, that they had totally discounted clear evidence that something remarkable had happened. They had heard the report of the women that Jesus’ tomb was empty. And they knew that this was not wishful thinking on the womens’ part, because it had been confirmed by others (i.e. men). They knew that the same demonstrably reliable witnesses (the women) who had reported the empty tomb also claimed to have been told that Jesus was alive. But of course that was ridiculous. Perhaps what might have swayed them was the evidence of their own eyes. If they themselves could have seen Jesus then they would believe. Indeed that would transform the whole situation. This is a common misconception. Because, as it turned out, they could see Jesus. Indeed they were talking to Him; He was the seemingly ignorant stranger they were talking to.

To cut the story short (you can read it for yourself in Luke 24) eventually they recognise the risen Jesus. The rest, as they say, is quite literally history. Jesus alive transforms everything. Now His death is not a tragic miscalculation, nor is it the triumph of midgets and lesser men over a great man. In fact His death is demonstrated not to be the death of just a man at all. But it is His resurrection that validates His own claims, that He did not lose His life but gave it. He died not as a victim, having had death imposed upon Him (by either men or God), but as a willing substitute and sacrifice. His death is not unimportant (merely the prelude to resurrection), but He stresses twice that it was a necessary means through which he accomplishes what had been set for Him, prior to returning to the glory that had always been His. His resurrection demonstrates that He was not at all just another good man and religious teacher from whom we might learn useful things. His resurrection demonstrated that He was uniquely the God-man who had pioneered the way by which death could be overcome for all those who would trust and follow Him. His resurrection is the flip side of the story of his death that Matthew either misses or, perhaps more likely, dismisses.

Because it just can’t be true. Except, of course, it is. All the evidence is there. But then, as the two on their way to Emmaus demonstrate, it is not now, nor has it ever really been, a matter of evidence, of knowing stuff. It’s about recognising Him.

Keswick III An apology to Micah

It turns out that Keswick has been a brilliant place to sit out the heatwave currently afflicting the UK. Today is the only day it's been really hot here, and it's probably nearer 25° as opposed to the 35° being experienced "down south". We've been enjoying our riverside walks to the tent in Skiddaw St where the Bible readings on Micah have been taking place. We're not quite done yet; there's one more to go. But I feel I owe Micah an apology.

I've never viewed the Old Testament as an irrelevance, as just the prelude to the interesting bit. There are lots of reasons for this, but here's one. At the end of his Gospel Luke records an encounter between Jesus and two of his former followers. That's how they would have though of themselves I suppose, because they though Jesus was dead. And they were probably fairly fearful they might be next. Jesus, who initially is unrecognised by them, walks alongside them as they head away from Jerusalem. They're pretty depressed, and probably grieving. After all, their leader and mentor has just been executed. As they new well, the Romans knew a thing or two about executions and dead men stay dead. Hence their general state of depression. The problem was that Jesus was no failed insurrectionist, or teacher of novel ideas swept away by accident or miscalculation. And the evidence? The resurrection of course. 

One of the intriguing things about this whole incident in Luke 24 is that the two disciples actually knew the key facts about the resurrection. They'd been told that the tomb where Jesus' body had been left was empty. They'd even heard that some of their number had been told that Jesus was alive. But of course, all of their experience told them this could not be true. He was dead. So they had headed off down the road, disconsolate. But Jesus of course wasn't dead. And as He walks with them he does something very interesting. It's also interesting what He doesn't do. He doesn't show them his wounds (as He did with Thomas) to identify Himself. Nor does he do a miracle to impress them. Instead, He conducts a Bible study, concentrating on all those bits of the Bible I find obscure and difficult to understand: the Old Testament, including the law and the prophets. For all I know he even did a quick tour of Micah. The point He was making was that it all spoke about Him. His approach, exposing people to the Old testament Scriptures as a way of encountering Him, proved to be a lesson that really stuck with the early disciples. When Peter gets the chance to talk to a vast crowd a short time later, what does he do? He preaches from an obscure corner of the Old Testament, the prophecy of Joel. I have to confess, given the opportunity to address a vast crowd about who Jesus is and what He's done, I probably wouldn't have done the same. But I might now be tempted to turn to Micah.

It's been amazing (except it's not really) how bang up to date and relevant Micah is.We've had the abusive elites in Micah 3, exploiting those weaker than themselves just because they can. This leads to what Chris Wright rightly called a kind of "social cannibalism" that consumes the consumer. Are we not concerned about elites in our day? Mind you, that doesn't get the rest of us off the hook. Perhaps we get the leaders we deserve by not thinking critically about so many of the little choices we make every day. Of course, Micah was largely ignored in his own day. Everything was basically fine wasn't it? Religious leaders were able to claim with apparent impunity that God was fine with what was going on. Except He wasn't, and judgement was coming. The creeping injustice, the toleration for what was wrong being called right, the religious syncretism that sought to keep the Living God in His place, in His box, and out of the public sphere. It wasn't doing in any damage was it? Things just kept going. And for those with a continuing pang of conscience, there was always temple, always religion, always more ritual.   

Except as Micah points out, God had shown what He was looking for. It wasn't more and more sacrifices. It wasn't even ultimate sacrifices. In a startling pointer to Jesus' future mission (and Micah prophesied the site of His birth), Micah says God doesn't want the sacrifice of their fistborn(s). Why? Because it was going to take the sacrifice of God's firstborn to clear the debt we have all incurred. But in general God had been consistent and clear in what He requires. As Micah 6:8 makes pithily clear (and as Jimmy Carter quoted in his presidential inaugural address) God requires us: "..to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."  This was no radical departure, this is the whole teaching of the Old Testament. The rituals and sacrifices had their place, but it was limited. And they provided no answer for habitual, continuing, rebellion against God. Of course few were listening in Micah's day. Few may be listening today. Shortly after Micah, it all came crashing about the heads of leaders and people. They had persisted in going their own way. 

There it is in Micah. A warning to me, to us. It was there all the time. The bad, the good, the ugly and the best. 

Sorry I wasn't listening Micah.