The Puzzle of Christianity. Peter Vardy
Jewish religious freedom in the face of the might of the occupying power of Rome.
Shortly before His death, Jesus went to Jerusalem to the Temple with thousands of people around Him shouting His name. It was a triumphal procession with people cutting down palms from the trees along the route to lay in front of Him. He rode on a donkey which, for a pious Jew, had a symbolism drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures (Zechariah 9:9) and was an effective way of proclaiming that He was the promised Messiah, as it had been prophesied that this was what the Messiah would do. Jesus knew what He was doing and knew that He had gone too far and that the Temple authorities had to take action. He had become a major cult figure and this threatened the stability of the relationship that the leading Jews had established with the Romans. Whatever Jesus Himself may have taught, He was now perceived as a dangerous rabble-rouser by those in authority, a threat to the established social order and therefore, potentially, a threat to the very existence of the Jewish Temple and the freedom Jews had to worship. If support for Jesus got out of hand, the Romans might crack down and all the hard-won, albeit limited, freedoms that the Jews possessed might be taken away. Their fears were not groundless. Less than forty years later, in AD 70, the Romans utterly destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, and there was to be no Jewish state until 1948.
Jesus had a last meal with His twelve closest friends in Jerusalem and performed an extraordinary action in washing the feet of His disciples. This would have been a task that a servant of a wealthy man might perform for an important visitor, yet Jesus, the acclaimed prophet and hero of the hour, did this to His disciples. It was an inversion of every normal expectation and challenged, once again, their perceptions of what it meant to be a leader amongst a people dedicated to the service of God.
The Gospels record that, during the last meal with His disciples, one of these friends, Judas, decided to betray Him. It may have been because Judas was disappointed in Jesus and had expected another sort of leader, perhaps one who would lead the people of Israel to military victory over the Romans, or it may have been self-interest. Judas betrayed Jesus to the Temple authorities in return for thirty pieces of silver. The authorities arrested Jesus and placed Him on trial. He was too much of a threat to civil order to be allowed to live, but the Temple leadership did not have the authority to put him to death; this punishment was reserved for the Romans. The High Priest and his followers, therefore, are recorded as taking Him to the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, who, after a show trial in which he came to the conclusion that Jesus was innocent, sentenced Him to death. Pilate seems to have acted against his better instincts, but anyone who might purport to be a king would be unacceptable to the Roman Emperor and, therefore, sentencing an insignificant Jew to death probably seemed a politically expedient act. Even then, Pilate tried to let Jesus go free, as it was the custom to allow one prisoner to go free at the time of the main Jewish holiday. Pilate appealed to the crowd, asking them whether they would prefer him to free a robber and thief named Barabbas, or Jesus. Given the popularity of Jesus the week before, and the crowds that surrounded Him, Pilate might well have expected Jesus to be the automatic choice, but the High Priests had got the crowd on their side and their choice fell on Barabbas. Jesus was, therefore, taken off to be crucified.
Figure 3: The crucifixion was a degrading, agonising and humiliating punishment, but Christians see it as their key symbol, representing Jesus sacrificing Himself out of love for all human beings.
Crucifixion was an appalling punishment used routinely by the Romans. The condemned person had to carry their own cross and was then nailed to it (with nails through the wrists and ankles, although medieval art portrays the nails as going through the hands and feet). The cross was then lifted up and it could take up to twenty-four hours for a person to die. The pain was excruciating. Death usually came from asphyxiation, as the person could no longer breathe. In Jesus’ case, however, it was necessary that He should die within three hours as the Jewish holy day, the Sabbath, was about to start, so a soldier put a spear into His side to hasten His death. His mother, Mary, was at the foot of the cross as Jesus died, with one of His closest friends, John. After His death, Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross and He was placed in a tomb owned by a wealthy follower of His – Joseph of Arimathea.
There is another crucial claim associated with the crucifixion of Jesus which is made by Christians, and that is that human beings are in a state of sin, whether because of the sin of Adam and Eve, which affected the whole of humanity, or by individual sin. This sin distorts and undermines what it means to be a human being and deprives people of the chance to fulfil human potential. What is more, given that God is just, this sin requires punishment. Christians believe that God, through the person of Jesus, takes this sin on Himself; God suffers for every human being and, in so doing, releases people from the effects of sin. It is for this reason that Christians call Jesus both their Saviour, because He saves them from the effects of sin, and also their Redeemer, because He redeems people from their sin and atones for the errors both of every individual and also of humankind as a whole. Protestant Christians often refer to Jesus as their personal Saviour, and this is because they see Jesus suffering and dying on the cross out of love for every human being and taking on Himself the effects of their sin. Jesus makes the ultimate sacrifice out of love for His friends (as Christians feel themselves to be).
Figure 4: The statue of Christ the Redeemer towers over Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The outstretched arms represent the redemption of humankind through the crucifixion.
The symbol of Christianity became the cross, which was extraordinary as, for the Roman world, crucifixion was seen as the ultimate symbol of degradation. Yet for Christians, it is the triumph of good over evil, of forgiveness over sin, of love over hatred, of life over death. The cross is where the power of God’s love is shown most clearly.
Three days after being crucified, Jesus rose from the dead. This, of course, is one of the most important Christian claims and is central to Christian belief, so it needs to be dealt with in more detail in the chapter following the next one, which deals with Jesus’ teaching.
There is something artificial about separating the message of Jesus from the life of Jesus: the two are so closely related. For the people amongst whom Jesus lived, His life and actions were as important an expression of His message as His teachings. Given that Christians consider that Jesus is God’s Word made flesh, it follows that Jesus’ life and teaching are equally important. This was particularly the case as He often taught in parables. Parables are stories that are intended to be revelatory. They reveal insights and convey truths but they also reveal something about the people who interpret the parables. Parables seldom have a single meaning.
Jesus stands firmly in the Jewish tradition and many Jews today would be happy to see Jesus as a great rabbi or teacher who affirmed what was central in Judaism. However, there are also key differences. Two of the most important are:
1) Jesus did not see Himself as just another rabbi or teacher. He was clear that He was in a unique relationship with God, which Jews found very hard to accept. He referred to Himself as ‘the Son of Man’, but the Gospels indicate that this is a way of emphasising the human side of his nature without in any way undermining His unique status as the incarnate Word of God.
2) Jesus was unequivocal in believing in a life after death, and many of His Jewish contemporaries were far less clear about this. In fact, whether there was a life after death was a major point of dispute between two of the most influential groups of Jews – the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The idea of a life after death had come to prominence in Judaism reasonably late, probably around three centuries before Jesus. Some contemporary scholars see Jewish thinking as having been influenced by the deaths of tens of thousands of young men during what became known as the Maccabean rebellion,