Jesus Christ for Contemporary Life. Don Schweitzer
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baptized by John positioned Jesus as implicitly criticizing other Jewish religious authorities and institutions, as these were included among those addressed by John’s call to repentance. It is crucial though to note that John’s and Jesus’ at times radical criticism of other Jewish movements and institutions came from within Second Temple Judaism. Both John and Jesus were Jews. Neither departed from underlying assumptions shared by the divergent movements within Second Temple Judaism14 and thus by the other Jewish religious leaders and institutions they criticized. Their criticisms and denunciations were part of an inner-Jewish debate at that time about the nature and purposes of God. They were in no way a criticism of Judaism per se.
A Contemporary Debate
Jesus has recently been at the center of a debate between those who interpret him as having been an eschatological prophet of Jewish renewal, acting in expectation of a dramatic new action by God,15 and those who downplay the presence of eschatological expectation in Jesus’ teaching, preaching, and symbolic activities, or who argue that this does not indicate an expectation on his part of an imminent action by God, and who tend to see the apocalyptic elements in the Gospels as later additions to traditions that grew up about Jesus after his death.16 The debate is partly about how diverse Second Temple Judaism was and where Jesus should be located within this. Both sides have emphasized that Jesus belongs within this milieu and have enhanced contemporary understandings of Second Temple Judaism. Jesus’ baptism by John and the presence and importance of eschatological expectation in Jesus’ message, widely attested “in many different gospel sources and literary forms,”17 suggests that he too was an eschatological prophet who shared John’s expectation that God was about to dramatically intervene in history. Eschatological expectation is present to the same degree in every tradition about Jesus. Jesus probably made varying impressions on different social groups so that different kinds of traditions arose about him.18 But eschatological expectation does seem to have given decisive shape to Jesus’ message and public activity as a whole.19 A non-eschatological Jesus looks odd situated between his baptism by John and the eschatological orientation of the early church after his death. “The origin of Jesus’ activity in the apocalyptic movement of John the Baptist, the known events of his life, and the apocalyptic movement initiated by his followers after his death suggest that Jesus understood himself and his mission in apocalyptic terms.”20
Jesus’ Message: The Coming Reign of God
The gospels describe Jesus’ baptism by John as connected to the beginning of Jesus’ own ministry, which had significant differences from John’s. While John’s ministry was located on the banks of the Jordan River, Jesus circulated among villages in Galilee, preaching, teaching, healing, casting out demons, and having table fellowship with those considered sinners. Whereas people came to John, Jesus went to people. This basic difference is also reflected in Jesus’ message. Like John, Jesus preached that God was about to decisively intervene in history and that people needed to repent and recommit themselves to God in light of this. But the focus of Jesus’ proclamation was not so much the threat of judgment as the possibility and joy of salvation and reconciliation with others.21 If John with his prophecies of coming judgment, “came across to the people as a grim ascetic, . . . as a sort of dirge, . . . Jesus . . . [came] across as a song!”22 In Jesus’ public work, the gracious initiative of God was extended to people as they were, before they repented. In his parables and public activity Jesus proclaimed that God’s coming brought a possibility of salvation that was of surpassing value and available to all as a gift.
This message, exemplified in his eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, relativized many moral norms as a means or barrier to being accepted by God. Even flagrant sinners and the wicked were told that through God’s forgiving grace they too could enter the coming reign of God. Yet this also created new divisions around the acceptance or rejection of Jesus and his message. At the heart of Jesus’ message was the claim that peoples’ hope lay ultimately not in what they did, but in the gracious initiative of God.23 This emphasis on the reign of God as a gift, a feast to which all were invited, was central to Jesus’ preaching and teaching. Aspects of this scandalized some other Jewish religious leaders and helped create opposition to him. What was scandalous though was not so much the idea that God’s grace came as a gift, but Jesus’ claim that it was extended through his person to those considered unrighteous and that people would be judged in accordance with their response to him.
Jesus proclaimed the coming reign of God to be a state of salvation that would embrace the whole person and potentially all creation. Its coming in fullness would include past generations as well as the present through the resurrection of the dead.24 It was of surpassing value, worth more than anything else a person might have. It would involve a renewal of Israel and the fulfillment of God’s long-standing promises of salvation. Its coming would establish “the wholeness and integrity of creatures”25 through overcoming all forms of suffering and evil.
The reign of God was to have an egalitarian nature. Leaders were to be servants of others. While Jesus’ preaching often seems to have lacked the critical focus on sinful social structures characteristic of the Hebrew prophets, his proclamation had a politically and socially revolutionary dimension.26 The powerful would be cast down and the poor and oppressed lifted up. This clearly implied that Rome was not eternal and that its rule would soon end.27 The reign of God was to be free from oppression of all kinds. No one would be dependent upon the influence and power of others.28 As all are children of God, all were to be equal. Jesus’ message was also culturally revolutionary. Some women found a new open space around him as members of his following.29 Social and religious conventions were declared not binding if they hindered people from responding to his call. Jesus understood this reign of God to be already present to some degree in his healings, exorcisms, table fellowship with sinners, and in the community of those who accepted his message.30 Though still to come in fullness, it was already initially present in his work and the movement gathered around him.
According to Jesus, the nature of the reign of God as salvation, its coming into history, and its character as a gift result from God’s goodness. It is God’s nature to give good things to people, to bring the reign in which all life will flourish. Thus present in Jesus’ preaching is the idea that there is a dynamic quality to God’s being. God’s goodness moves God to act, to bring the reign of God. This reign comes as a gift but it is not peripheral to God. Its coming will bring an increase to God’s joy. It issues from a “relationship of God to history” that is intrinsic to God’s being.31
However, this reign of God is an embattled reality within history. It broke into the present in deeds of saving power that were part of Jesus’ ministry, yet it was also contested and opposed. There were times when Jesus could do no miracles. There were many who spurned his invitation to the reign of God. This points to an important paradox about Jesus and his message. Jesus claimed the power of God was at work in his ministry and manifest in his healing miracles and exorcisms.