Jesus
Page 9
If discipleship is the cruciform life, then the cross is the ultimate symbol of orthodoxy as paradoxy.25 The cross brings opposites into relationship, not so much as a dialectic to be synthesized, but more as a double helix to be embraced and lived. In Christ, all opposites are not so much reconciled as transcended in the oneness of twoness. We are born for ontological tension: we are in, but not of, the world. We are made for the harmonious oscillation of abundance and austerity, celebration and asceticism. Before Lent? Carnival. Before Ash Wednesday? Shrove Tuesday. Holy Saturday brings together the opposites: fire and water, light and darkness, hell and heaven, death and life.
The first arm of the cross is the vertical, our relationship with God. The second arm of the cross is the horizontal, our relationship with others, ourselves, and creation. If you just pick up one arm of the cross, it becomes a stick most often used to beat other people with. If we are, in Jesus’ words,27 put on earth that we may learn to bear the cross, the crossbeams of love, we must pick up and carry a cross with both arms crossed. Heresy is one-arming truth. Unorthodoxy is the cross uncrossed. From the very beginning of the Jesus story, we discover the essence of faith: living the cruciform life.
On the heavy wooden door of an old Scandinavian church, there is a large handle shaped in a circle and made of wrought iron. Inside the circle is a large cross cradled in a wrought-iron hand. To open and close the door, you grasp the cross. In grasping hold of the cross, the hand points directly at you. Every door that opens in life is a question: What does the cross mean to me? To you? What are we going to do about it? It’s the question that even opens the door of Jesus’ birth.
THE LINEAGE OF JESUS
Jesus is fully God and fully human. John’s gospel gives us a clear look at His divinity, while the other gospels show us His humanity. Through the lens of His divinity, we see the outline of the king-priest Melchizedek, who was “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God.”28 Of the two more-traditional narratives of Jesus’ birth, Matthew and Luke, Matthew’s account spends more time tracing the genealogy of Jesus than it does telling the story itself.29
What kind of story is a genealogy? A genealogy was important, a legal document often structured so it could be committed to memory.30 The genealogy of Jesus proved three things that identified one big thing: first, that Jesus’ lineage started before Abraham with Adam, the first human;31 second, that He was a descendant of Abraham (a Jew); third, He was related to King David (a contender for Israel’s throne). Those three things identified Jesus as the authentic Messiah in the eyes of the Jewish people.
Matthew’s genealogy begins with the Greek expression biblos geneseos, which means “the book of genesis.” This mirrors the beginning of the micro creation account in Genesis 2:4—“This is the biblos geneseos of heaven and earth”—and Genesis 5:1—“This is the biblos geneseos of Adam.” Matthew was narrating the record of the new creation with Christ coming into the world as the new Adam. Significantly, Luke called Adam “the son of God” in his genealogy.32 And as we have already seen, John’s gospel is a replay of Genesis.
When we peel back the genealogy of our Lord from both Mary’s and Joseph’s sides, we come to a startling revelation. God the Father chose some of the worst examples in human history to be blood kin to the Son of God Himself. Consider the Lord’s kinfolk:
• Judah—a Jew who had sex with his daughter-in-law, thinking she was a prostitute
• Tamar—a Gentile who bore two sons out of incest
• Rahab—a Canaanite prostitute33
• Ruth—a Moabite (the Moabites’ lineage began with incest between Lot and one of his own daughters)
• David—a king who committed adultery and murder
• Bathsheba—a woman who committed adultery
Can you imagine a more embarrassing lineage? It’s certainly no lineage suited for a king. Yet these were the ancestors of the spotless, holy Son of God. They are His great-great-great-grandmothers and greatgreat-great-grandfathers. This was no accident. It was the sovereign choice of a sovereign God, who chose each of these people to be the blood kin to our Lord.
This poses good news for every child of God. In the words of Hebrews, “He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”34 Jesus Christ was willing to come from a humiliating lineage—a lineage His Father chose for Him—to show us that no past is so shameful that God cannot make it beautiful. No matter what you may have done in your past, Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call you His brother or sister. What comfort and rest we find in that kind of a God.35
The most humble of all places for this particular King to enter into the world was never beneath His dignity. No more than the genealogy from which He came. Yes, this babe born in Bethlehem was the promised seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head.36 He came without a proper bed, without a proper shelter, without robes, chariots, or processionals. His mother and nonbiological father were not rich enough to offer a lamb. So they offered a pair of turtledoves and pigeons when Jesus was circumcised.37
God made His entrance into this earth in the least expected of all places through the least expected of people. And as such, the worst and the best, the richest and the poorest, and the first and the last will seek Him out then and now. The conditions of Jesus’ birth demonstrate to us that no one and no place is beneath His dignity or His reach. He hallows and sanctifies all things, all places, and all people with His presence. This is Luke’s story in his remarkable gospel.
Of all the holy haze that mists the story of Jesus’ birth, the greatest miracle was the conception. We often hear the phrase “the virgin birth.” While a virgin did give birth to the Messiah, the real miracle was in the conception.38 His Father was God Almighty—not in some metaphorical sense, but in reality. In Jesus we have the first motion of the new creation in the midst of the fallen creation. His DNA is human, but it is also divine. He is God “manifested in the flesh.”39 Hence He would be called “the Son of God” and “the Son of Man.”40
Jesus, while being fully God, was fully human. He came as human flesh to undo what had become a marred, warped, and distorted humanity. His incarnation was God’s making of Himself available to all human beings. God came as the last Adam, the Second Man, to set right a fallen humankind. He inaugurated a new creation but also a new humanity—a new race—a new kind of human where there was neither Jew nor Gentile but which would embrace all and live by the life of God. He also came as a human to be the unblemished and perfect sacrifice, having been tempted in all points, but “without sin.”41 Jesus’ sinlessness isn’t a myth; it enabled Him to reverse what Adam had done.
For all these reasons and more, God sanctified the womb of a virgin Galilean girl to bring into the earth the Creator of all things. In the birth of Jesus, we have the greatest glory and the gravest humility displayed. (The same can be said about the cross, which awaited Him some thirty years later.) As George MacDonald once put it, “They were looking for a king / To slay their foes and lift them high: / Thou cam’st a little baby thing / That made a woman cry.”42
..............................................
The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo.
—MAX LUCADO 43
..............................................
Herod was told that the child would be born in Bethlehem of Judea, as opposed to the lesser-known Bethlehem of Galilee.44 Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the birthplace of David and site of his coronation.45 But Jesus always comes in surround sound. If where Jesus was born was a royal city, where He grew up was a royal pain.
CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME
OUT OF NAZARETH?
Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a nondescript, Jewish agricultural village with probably fewer than four hundred inhabitants, and one of the southernmost villages in Galilee.46 Isaiah prophesied that the Messi
ah would come from Galilee.47 It was such a Podunk place that for Mark, the first miracle was the fact that Jesus came from Nazareth. Or as Nathaniel put it, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”48
Bethlehem was a little town in Jesus’ day. Only about a thousand people lived in the area, and infant mortality throughout Judea stood at about 30 percent in the first century.49 Most people know that Bethlehem means “house of bread” in Hebrew. What more fitting place for the “Bread of Life” to be born than in this breadbasket where Ruth gleaned in the barley fields of Boaz, the great-grandfather of King David, of whose lineage came Joseph, wedded to Mary, who gave birth to Yeshua known as the Messiah.50 Through the centuries, wheat and barley (the poor man’s wheat) have grown on Bethlehem’s east side.
But you can predict that where grains grow, close by, you will find the animals that feed upon them. And sure enough, on Bethlehem’s northwest side, there are the sheep to go with the wheat. There is an Arabic side to go with the Hebrew side. For the Arabic cognate of Hebrew lechem is meat, flesh. In Arabic “beth-lehem” translates into bet lahm (bayt lahem) or “house of meat.” In fact, the Syriac gospel and Peschitta51 use the Aramaic cognate for lachma for bread (house of meat). Even in Hebrew, lechem can mean food in general and in at least one instance refers clearly to meat.52
..............................................
Angels stand, but a holy person moves on.
—OLD HASIDIC SAYING
..............................................
When Jesus suggested that this bread is His flesh, He was bringing together the east and west hills of Bethlehem, something connected in the minds of His hearers that we have lost.
JESUS: THE LAMB FROM BETHLEHEM
In spite of all that has been written about that little town of Bethlehem, which lies just inside the West Bank, many of its most important features have yet to be explored. What is postcard familiar is that Bethlehem birthed princes, and as a boy, David tended sheep in the very northwest hills where today shepherds still tend their flocks of sheep and goats.
But what is less widely known and what connects with the Arabic translation of “Bethlehem” as a “house of meat” is this: the kind of sheep cared for by Bethlehem shepherds was a special kind that made the name “Bethlehem” synonymous with fields full of lambs ripe for slaughter. Bethlehem carried another brand identity alongside “house of bread”: “house of meat.”
In the midst of the butcher shop, incarnation.
Bethlehem shepherds were not just any shepherds tending sheep. They were descendants of David, tending “David’s flock”—sheep destined for the temple (another possible translation of “Beth” besides “house of ” is “temple”). Jerusalem was only a short two miles from those Bethlehem slopes. You may even think of Bethlehem shepherds as outsourced employees of the temple, royal shepherds.
..............................................
The ox knows its owner, And the donkey its master’s crib [phatne]; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider.
—GOD TO ISAIAH 53
..............................................
If truth be told, the center of religious life in Judaism was the massive slaughter of animals. According to the Torah, every day two lambs were required for sacrifice in the temple. That’s 730 lambs each year. The twicedaily offering of a male lamb was known as the tamid, or “the continuous offering.” It was the first offering and the last offering of each day.54 During the hour of the final sacrifice of the day, the Final Sacrifice was offered.
On top of that, thousands of lambs were needed by Jewish families at Passover and other religious rituals. One of the most widely observed of the Jewish holidays, Passover required a lamb to be sacrificed for every household that could afford it. All the lambs were ritually killed at the same time in the same place.55 But before they were slaughtered, each lamb was required to be a pet in the family for at least four days.
So the day after the final Sabbath before Passover, shepherds from the Bethlehem hills drove thousands of lambs into Jerusalem, where they were taken in by Jewish families for at least two days and treated as members of the family. Before sacrificing the lamb, the Jewish priest would ask, “Do you love this lamb?” If the family didn’t love the lamb, there would be no sacrifice. When Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” He affirmed His identity as the sacrificial Lamb of God.56 When we love Jesus, we receive the gift of His sacrifice—redemption from death and a resurrected life.
We celebrate “the day after the final Sabbath before Passover” by a different name: Palm Sunday. There were two processions on that first Palm Sunday. One was an unwilling procession of thousands of perfect lambs herded into the city by Bethlehem shepherds. The other was a willing procession of the one perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.57
Bethlehem’s priestly shepherds had to learn and follow special techniques and rituals during the lambing season. Bethlehem lambs born for slaughter were special lambs. To prevent harm and self-injury from thrashing about after birth on their spindly legs, newborn lambs were wrapped in swaddling cloths. Then they were placed in a manger or feeding trough, where they could calm down out of harm’s way. After careful inspection by the shepherd, any spot or “blemish,”58 no matter how slight, meant instant rejection (slaughter). The Hebrew word tamiym (translated for lambs “without spot or blemish”) means “complete, whole, entire, sound.”59
..............................................
And you, O tower of the flock [Hebrew: Migdal Eder 60], The stronghold of the daughter of Zion, To you shall it come, Even the former dominion shall come, The kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.
—MICAH 61
..............................................
The shepherds who gathered around the Bethlehem stable where the Lamb of God was born were not witnessing anything new, except who was in the manger: the most important sacrificial Lamb who had ever been born, the Lamb who would close down the slaughterhouse of sacrifice, the perfect Lamb of God.
Everything about Jesus’ birth foreshadowed the purpose for Jesus coming into the world: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ’Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’”62 Even the ox and the ass, straight from Isaiah 1:3, testify to the fact that the promised one would come out of Israel’s promises and prayers. As in Balaam’s story63 the star of David came “to lead the wise of the world to the place where Israel’s king is born.”64
Jesus is the three shepherds: the good shepherd,65 the great Shepherd,66 and the Chief Shepherd.67 Jesus presented Himself as both sheep and shepherd, the good shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. It was a way completely different from the meat sacrifices of the old temple. The sheep now have a good shepherd who feeds them and does not slaughter them. The sheep now have a good shepherd who is one of them and understands them as one of them. The sheep now have a good shepherd who covers up all their spots and blemishes and presents them spotless and blameless.
Mortality rates for both lambs and ewes are high at birth. It is not uncommon for up to 30 to 40 percent of the lamb flock to be lost between late pregnancy and weaning.68 Ewes are notorious for not accepting orphan sheep. So every shepherd learns some methods to get a mother sheep to accept an orphan lamb. One is to take the mother’s placental blood and fluids and smear the orphan lamb with her smell. That will work some of the time. But what works best, but requires the most work, is to wash the orphan lamb in the blood of the dead lamb.
When Jesus proclaimed Himself the “door of the sheep” and the “good shepherd,”69 the Good Shepherd and the sheep became one.
Jesus died on the cross at the ninth hour (about three o’clock in the afternoon) when the Passover lamb would be sacrificed in the temple.70 Christ, the Paschal Lamb, was slain to atone for the sins of humanity and to open the gate of the true temple that promises God’s salvation for all people.
..............................................
’Twas much that man was made like God, long before. But that God should be made like man, much more.
—JOHN DONNE 71
..............................................
The “house of meat,” the temple rituals of sacrifice and slaughter, was transformed into the “house of bread.” Jesus, the One who was born in Bethlehem, in old Hebrew the “house” (beth) of “bread” (lehem), declared that the sacrifice of “meat” would no longer be the gateway to God’s salvation and God’s presence. Bread would become His body—His flesh, meat—and God’s presence would now be found around tables as much as at temples. In shutting down the slaughterhouse, Jesus moved us from the temple to the table.
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM AND
THE CROSS OF CALVARY
The Christmas story revolves around a tree. But it’s not a Christmas tree. And it comes already adorned.
The beginning of the Jesus theography is a star-crossed love story that brings together the star of Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary. The adoration of the Magi,72 one of the most frequently painted scenes in all of Christian art, testifies that this birth has relevance not just to Israel but to all humankind. This would be a Savior not just of the house of Israel but of all houses of all humankind.73 The day after Christmas, December 26, is when many churches celebrate the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Still during Christmastide, on December 28, many churches remember “the massacre of the innocents,” the firstborn sons whom Herod killed.74
The Christmas story is part of a larger story that addresses a world of injustice, suffering, and even death. The joy of that first Christmas wasn’t a cute joy but a joy that overcame obstacles and barriers, even moved mountains and liberated sheep.
..............................................