Approximately 1980 years ago, give or take five years or so,
a man was crucified on a hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem. His name was Jesus. Although the execution was carried out by the
Roman authorities, for only they were authorized to do such things, the
proceedings leading to it had been carried out in a Jewish religious
court. The condemned man was, after all
a Jew. We are never explicitly told what
the charge was, but it was probably about blasphemy or heresy of some
sort. They accused Him of calling
himself the King of the Jews, which He never did according to the records.
We are told that He died on the cross quite quickly, hours
instead of a day or two. Of course it
didn’t help that a Roman guard had stuck a spear into Jesus’ side which probably
sped up the process. We are also told
that on the third day, the day of the crucifixion being the first day, His tomb
was found to be empty and that in subsequent days He appeared before His
friends, family and apostles. We do not
know if these appearances were physical or spiritual, and I’m not going to
speculate one way or another. From this
event, some His apostles and a certain Paul of Tarsus formed a new religion
called Christianity, now the most populace religion in the world. The current shape
of Christianity owes more to the teachings and writings of Paul than to any
other person. But is this what Jesus
wanted? It should be noted that some of
His disciples continued to preach to the Jewish population, no doubt understanding
that this was the message that Jesus had wanted to convey.
As I said before, Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew and He died a Jew. Nowhere in the Biblical story of His life did
He ever espouse starting a new religion.
His preaching and message was for Jewish ears. His endeavours were directed at reforming
Judaism. If you read histories of that
period, you come to realize that things were not going well for the Jewish
faith and nation for over a hundred years before Jesus came along. There were internal squabbles within the
Jewish religion itself with competing group vying for power and influence. The two main groups were the Sadducees and
the Pharisees. Think of this conflict as
the political differences of today in Canada or the US. Then there were the tensions caused by the
Roman occupation. There would be many
who were willing to fight for freedom from this occupation; after all there
were two recorded major revolts of Jews against this occupation in the hundred
years before and after Jesus. The latter
was so serious that the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in 70 AD; something
the Romans didn’t normally do in occupied countries. And there was also the clash between the
traditional Jewish culture and the dominant Greek culture that was prevalent in
that part of the world. Even Roman
culture was heavily influenced be the Greeks.
Judaism itself was fighting for its place in this scenario. For one thing, it was becoming more rules
based with serious strictures about everyday life. Because, in many of the societies of that
day, religion and government were one and the same, any law passed by the
government became a religious law, and vice versa. The dominance of the Jewish
temple in Jerusalem gave little comfort to Jews that did not live in Palestine but
who accounted for an estimated 75 – 80% of the Jewish population. So you had all of these tensions playing on
the Jewish people and many, no doubt, were looking for some guidance.
Into this came Jesus who preached a simple, common-sense
message on religion. He preached a
loving religion, including with strangers.
To a lot of people, it obviously struck a nerve. They liked it. His message about giving unto Caesar gave a
way of resolving their conflict with the Roman occupation. His message about the “good Samaritan” gave
them an example of living with the non-Jews in their midst. His “miracle” of feeding the multitude with
the five loaves and two fish gave them an example of the power of sharing, for
that is probably what the miracle amounted to.
They were very understandable messages, but they were messages meant for
Jews. One of the ways that you can tell is
that He frequently referred to the Jewish prophets, particularly Isaiah. Nobody in that time would understand these
references except for Jewish people.
So who is this Jesus that made Him so famous in His own time? We are told that He is the son of Joseph and
Mary. Joseph was a carpenter in the town
of Nazareth. In those days, a carpenter
would have been a pretty important person in such a town, equivalent to
building contractor and furniture maker of today. He would be one of the more important
tradesmen of the town. He could well
have had some education, including religious education from the town’s
priests. As Jesus was growing up, Joseph
would undoubtedly have passed on knowledge to his son. We are told that when Jesus was at about the
age of majority (13) He visited the temple in Jerusalem where He debated with
the priests about the nature of Judaism.
We are led to believe that He was a kind and gentle man. He must have been personable, probably with a
sense of humour, since He was able to attract people to His cause and to His
talks. To some degree, He was probably
charismatic.
His fame spread throughout Palestine (the Roman name for the
province) until it reached Jerusalem where, in the days before Passover, He was
greeted by a large crowd. But Jesus must
have known that, by stepping into the centre of Judaism, home of the temple, He
was courting trouble with the Jewish leaders.
Would they accept Him, or condemn Him?
We now know the answer because several days later, He was tried before a
Jewish court, which would be a religious court because that is the only thing
that the Jewish leaders were authorized to bring charges against. He was condemned to death and the finding was
brought before the Roman governor, one Pontius Pilate. At first, the governor was reluctant to
authorize the death sentence, but finally he had to give in. Jesus was crucified. Easter was born. The rest, as they say, is history.
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