You stated in your last letter that you somehow can’t get your head around this matter of the Resurrection and you are, probably, in the majority of what people think and feel about this difficult topic. One of the problems is that many of us lack the context within which the Grand Story is evolving and remember a very important fact – the Bible is not principally a repository of laws and rules and morality. It is in fact a story, and to be more precise, two stories which are tightly linked together and necessary to be seen as telling a continuous story of creation.

I want us to take a look at the Gospel of John where what I am going to say is most clearly presented, but the other Gospels and Epistles also speak of this. John speaks of the miracles performed by Jesus as signs, starting with the transformation of water into wine in Cana. This is said to be the first of the signs offered by Jesus. There are seven signs altogether, corresponding to the seven days of Genesis, and it is interesting and informative to consider what they are saying to us. On Friday, the sixth day of the week, Jesus stands before Pilate who says ecce homo, behold the man. It was on the sixth day in the Genesis account that man was created. On the seventh day, the Sabbath, God rests, and Jesus is entombed – he also rests.

In the last letter we had focused considerable attention to Jesus’ quoting at the crucifixion from psalm 22. But what is also important is his triumphant declaration that it is completed – that creation has been completed. This is what we are told in the Book of Genesis – on the sixth day, creation was finished. Now, what does this mean?

There are several strands that come forward. Sin has been forgiven, death has been destroyed and, with the Resurrection – notice in John’s Gospel and in the other Gospels – this comes on the first day of the week, man has been given a new lease on life. We start to realize all that has been accomplished. The Resurrection augurs in a new creation, a new way of being.

Before you challenge me, let me pre-empt you. You will say, as have many. The world goes on as before. The violence in the world has increased. People continue to die. So, how can we claim that something has changed? Interestingly, this is the essence of the challenge that Jews were giving Christians vis-à-vis Christ’s Messiahship.

But just to put things into perspective. Paul wrote some of his most hopeful and encouraging letters from prison. Things were not going very smoothly with the Church in terms of persecution and internal problems. And yet, in spite of this he could talk about something having changed for the better in the whole world. So he was not simply taking a Pollyanna view. He was realistic.

Notice that an argument arises in the Church about Gentiles and Jews and whether they could concelebrate and whether circumcision was necessary. It was Paul who came out very strongly for the inclusion of Gentiles in the Church without a requirement to make them obey Jewish laws. Paul saw that a new era had dawned where God was setting out to complete the task assigned to humanity long ago but which Adam failed to carry out. God is interested in redeeming all of humanity, and not just humanity, but the whole of creation. This also comes out clearly in the parable about the Samaritan. Here, Jesus is redefining who are the people of God – not just the question of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews – but the question of who is part of God’s plan for the redemption of the whole cosmos. He points out that it is not only people of the Torah but all of humanity who are called to participate in the completion of God’s project. And what was even more shocking was that this membership was defined not by adherence to the Torah, not by participating in the activities of the Temple, but in their relationship with Jesus. He becomes the new Temple; he becomes the dispenser of forgiveness and he becomes the litmus test for determining who will enter the New Kingdom. And these views were very dangerous and were certain to direct Jesus to a collision course with the Jewish authorities. Jesus offered membership in the people of the new covenant on his own authority without recourse to the Temple. And this was contrary to the views of the scribes and those in power. Jesus was replacing faithfulness to the Temple and to the Torah with allegiance to himself. This was the real scandal for which the authorities started to plan his execution. Paul’s criticism of Judaism of his day is really a critique of the idea that it is only Israel that is of interest to God. Thus, the Temple, dietary laws, isolation from non-Jews, and even the Torah were all tools for not including others in God’s plan. They all tended to separate Israel from other peoples.

In a very important sense, Jesus’ message was connected to the political climate of the time and this is sometimes omitted. Jesus set about undermining the plans to revolt against Rome and this was something that could not be tolerated by the Jewish authorities. Jesus, in the Gospels says not to resist evil and it is interesting to realize what this specific word – resist – means. The Greek word for resist is antistenai, which is a technical term for military resistance.

Much has been written about the fact of Jesus’ secret about him being the Messiah and this is not surprising in light of the fact that the society of the day was a powder keg of national aspirations ready to be led by a charismatic leader and ready to explode against Roman rule. It is not surprising that Jesus admonished his disciples not to divulge who he was for fear that this might lead to a political uprising.

Rebellion was in the air and the Jews were becoming more and more restive against Roman oppression. Jesus warned them about the consequences of rising against Rome, much as Jeremiah had warned Israel before the Babylonian captivity would bring onto Israel a catastrophic disaster which could only be described through apocalyptic language. And just as Jeremiah suffered at the hands of the Jews, so Jesus was to suffer at the hands of the Romans. When we read the Gospels, much of which we take to be references to existence coming to an end, the world of space-time wrapping up, we are really touching on the political climate of the day. They are describing the political disaster that was to befall Israel in 70 AD. And it was largely for political reasons that Jesus was condemned, although the political reasons cannot be totally isolated from the theological ones.

Jesus faced a difficult and uncertain situation. His study of scripture told him that he was central in initiating the final victory of God in redeeming his creation. But there always remained a question mark for Jesus: Maybe I am mistaken? But Jesus was ready to wager a huge Pascalian wager, staking his whole being on his vocation and the call that he saw in his study of Scripture. There was a nagging doubt because the prevalent Jewish view was that a Messiah was supposed to defeat the gentiles and yet, it was looking more and more as if Jesus were to die at the hands of the pagans. Messiahs that were crucified knew that they were mistaken. What lay before Jesus was the dark tunnel of uncertainty which called for immeasurable trust in God. But through it all, Jesus knew within his very depths that he was bringing Israel’s history to a climax, and that through him, Yahweh would defeat the powers of evil decisively and enable the coming of the new kingdom, of the new creation. God would now be master not just of one Middle Eastern tribe – he would be the God of all of creation.

You have previously pointed this out, and I agree with you there are passages within the Gospels that it is hard to understand and they seem to be almost mythic. This is one of the goals that I have – to point out to you that if we were to more fully understand what was going on in first century Palestine, we would see that these writings really deal with the issues that faced Israel at that time. They were dealing with everyday issues of survival but they are often expressed in the extreme apocalyptic language that should not be taken literally.

A final word about the concept of the Messiah. Interestingly, the popular and widespread view of the Messiah was that he is to be a conqueror, a liberator, one who brings in a new world order and universal justice. It is rare to read about the Messiah loving humans. Isaiah 53 seems to be an exception because here we read about someone whom we can take as the Messiah figure suffering for humanity and expressing his love for humanity. The Messiah was often seen to act on a corporate, grand scale but there is no personal or individual component. Jesus, uniquely brings the personal to his vocation as the Messiah. This was something unforeseen and it has become the hallmark of Jesus’ Messiahship as a personal relationship through which a believer enters the new kingdom.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas.