The Puzzle of Christianity. Peter Vardy

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       FOUR

       The Message of Jesus

      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, which was one of many attempts to achieve independence for Israel after the Babylonian captivity. Given the fidelity of God to God’s chosen people, it was felt that the suffering of so many young men could best be explained by a life after death. However, many Jews did not take this position; Judaism has always been a religion anchored firmly in this world rather than the next and concentration on post-mortem survival has always been somewhat peripheral. Jesus, however, proclaimed a life after death and, more than this, emphasised the fatherhood of God and God’s love for all human beings. The word ‘all’ here is significant, as it became clear to Jesus during His ministry that life after death and fellowship with God were open to all human beings and not just the Jews. This was a crucial new insight. It is not clear that Jesus always realised this; stories such as Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman (John 4:4–26), or His healing of the servant of a Roman centurion (Luke 7:1–10), seem to indicate that He came to a gradual realisation of the universality of God’s love. This was, however, an insight that was already present in some strands of Judaism. For instance, the prophet Jonah was forced to recognise that God was the God of the whole of creation, not just of the chosen people of Israel. Again, Christians will differ here; some will hold that Jesus had perfect knowledge throughout His ministry, so the idea that He ‘came to recognise’ something would be rejected.

      On one occasion Jesus was approached with a very simple question, but one with profound consequences. Matthew and Luke’s Gospels record different occasions for the question. In the Gospel of Luke, it is asked by a lawyer (Luke 10:25) and in Matthew by a rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16). The question was universal: ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ The questioners were probably expecting a simple answer. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus turns the question round and asks the questioner what is written in the Jewish law. The lawyer’s reply is succinct:

       ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

      (Luke 10:27)

      Jesus agrees and tells the lawyer to go away and do this. The first part of the quotation is the Jewish Shema which every devout Jew would have recognised, and the second is the Great Commandment or Golden Rule. It seems so simple! The lawyer, being a lawyer, then asks, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan:

      ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. “Look after him,” he said, “and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”

       ‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’

       The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’

       Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

      (Luke 10:30–37)

      It is worth noting that the expert on the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’ He could not bring himself to utter the name of the Samaritans, so despised were they by devout Jews, and yet the Samaritan is the hero of Jesus’ story. The significance of this is profound. Firstly, Jesus is speaking to a devout Jew who would have regarded Samaritans as pariahs, so making a Samaritan the central figure in the story would be profoundly disturbing. Secondly, the characters who ignored the needs of the injured man were a priest and a Levite. The tribe of Levi was the tribe from whom the priestly class were normally drawn, so, effectively, Jesus is saying that two of the types of people who, in Jewish society, were regarded as most holy and righteous were, in fact, not so. СКАЧАТЬ