As promised on Friday, we will now start unpacking the following long sentence:

The historical activity of Jesus of Nazareth is difficult to reconstruct with precision, but it is best understood as a form of prophetic activity within Judaism that is marked by a particular urgency and authority, and whose proclamation of God’s rule issues in a nascent community.

Ok, here we go.

• So there are formidable difficulties of historical reconstruction of Jesus as he existed in first century Palestine. First off, however, he really was a historical figure. He really did exist. He was a Jew living in Palestine under the rule of Tiberius Caesar. The difficulties of historical reconstruction have to do with our sources. We have very few outsider accounts of Jesus or the early Christians. There’s a few passing mentions by the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and a possible paragraph in the voluminous works of the Jewish historian, Josephus. But apart from those slender (and largely dismissive!) remarks, we are almost entirely dependent upon the Christian writings themselves. The earliest of these being written by the apostle Paul between the years 50 and 65 A.D., and the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which can be dated roughly between the years 70 and 90. And those narratives depend upon an earlier oral tradition over a period of some forty years, in which the memory of Jesus was handed on in Christian communities. And those gospels, furthermore, are told from the perspective of the resurrection. In other words, they are not neutral accounts. They are far from eyewitness accounts. They are rather religious witnesses and interpretations which seek to communicate the convictions of the Christian community, and are written from the perspective of belief that Jesus is now the risen Lord, the resurrected one. Therefore, the earliest Christian writings do not give us very good historical sources in order to present a reconstruction of Jesus as a purely historical figure. This is why the attempts to recover the so-called historical Jesus are so difficult. Because the early Christian writings were simply not written for that reason.
• Nevertheless, with great care, we are able to say some things about Jesus which are historically highly probable. First, his characteristic speech and action identify him as a prophetic figure within the symbolic world of Torah. Jesus is very much a figure within Judaism whose speech and actions are best understood as somebody who thinks as a Jew would think in that era. He appears in the narratives as a sort of prophetic figure that we know of in the Old Testament figure of Elijah. He is a wandering figure. He is a wonder working figure.
• Jesus’ most distinctive proclamation was of the rule of God–the Kingdom of God–and this rule of God was now immanent. So there’s a certain urgency to his proclamation, bearing within it a call to repentance. It is a call to a renewed commitment to God by an internal transformation and a change in behavior. “Repent,” which we translate from the Greek “metanoia,” is to change how you think, to change your outlook. So there’s a particular urgency in his proclamation. “The time is now.” “The time has come to completion.” “Repent and believe in the good news.”
• His proclamation also had a distinctive appeal to the outcast. He did not address himself to the religious elite among the people, but rather to the outcast. “Blessed are the poor” as opposed to “Blessed are you rich.” His ministry was characterized by an open table fellowship with sinners and tax collectors, those who were outcasts among the Jewish people.
• He speaks with a sense of authority. He interprets Torah, not as other Jewish leaders of that time, by referring to other authorities, but simply on his own authority. “You have heard it said…but I say to you…” In fact, one of his most characteristic locutions is the outrageous prefacing of his remarks by the word “amen.” “Amen amen I say to you…” “Amen” is usually something someone says to somebody else in order to assent to what they say. So, in other words, Jesus’ sense of authority is communicated by the fact that he self-validates his speech before he even begins it. (If he was not the Son of God, then we must conclude that he was at the very least, quite the ego maniac! A megalomaniac)
• Jesus’ choice of twelve followers is virtually historically certain, and it indicates that he had some sense of beginning a movement. And this movement was understood as somehow being the restoration of Israel itself, since the twelve members match the symbolic figure of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Wow. That was a lot.

Mark 4:26-29,35-41

Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day while he’s sleeping or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens.”

But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

Jesus’ sleep is like the sleep of the sower. He has done the work that is expected of him. The rest is left in God’s hands. This attitude of peaceful trust is the result of an unambiguous commitment to the Father’s will. On the one hand, there is a fervent and proactive sense of mission, to complete the work given me to do. This is complemented, on the other hand, by the placid expectation that the rest of the pieces will fit in place without my being unduly concerned about them.

-Michael Casey

Christianity’s beginnings were, in the very least, inauspicious. Its founder was executed as a criminal under Roman authority. And the gap between these inauspicious beginnings and the remarkable success of Christianity in gaining adherents throughout the centuries, and even today, is one of history’s most interesting stories.

Now Jesus of Nazareth both is and is not the founder of Christianity. He is not the founder in the sense that Muhammed is the founder of Islam or that Prince Siddhartha is the founder of Buddhism. In the case of Muhammed, we have someone who, over the course of his adult life, received revelations from Allah, had them written in the Quran, and in effect created a system of life for an entire people-a theocracy that could be codified into law.

Jesus’ ministry, on the other hand, lasted just one to three years, he delivered odd and parabolic discourse rather than a system of law, and he was executed shortly thereafter.

With Siddhartha, we have someone who achieved “nirvana,” and was able to communicate and engender that same experience among others through the teachings of the four noble truths.

Christians, however, do not think that they have the very same experience that Jesus did. Rather, they experience Jesus in a different way.

So Jesus is not the founder of Christianity the way those other two great founders are of their respective traditions.

Yet Jesus is certainly more than just a symbolic figure. He is the founder in the sense that his resurrection of the dead gives birth to this religious movement. In a further sense, Jesus’ human story–his words, his actions, his manner of death–remain central to Christian identity.

Now for a really long sentence:

The historical activity of Jesus of Nazareth is difficult to reconstruct with precision, but it is best understood as a form of prophetic activity within Judaism that is marked by a particular urgency and authority, and whose proclamation of God’s rule issues in a nascent community.

On Monday, we will begin unpacking each part of this behemoth sentence.

Have a great weekend!

If you’re like me, and need to look up the definition of “nascent,” I’ll save you a few clicks: It means something coming into existence showing future potential. It usually has to do with a process or organization.

Sometimes you need to take a step outside and a look back.

You need perspective. Reminding. A different angle or lens.

Most all of us have grown up immersed in or at least surrounded by Christianity in some form. So much so, that we tend to lose sight of its basic structure, its history, its beliefs. This can happen even for adherents.

Over the next several weeks, we will be giving a survey of the basic elements of Christianity as a religion.This has been very helpful, grounding, and encouraging for me. And I very much hope it will be good for you as well to get a little bit of an outsider’s look if you have been an insider, or a bit of an insider’s look if you have been an outsider to Christianity. For insiders (those who have been immersed in it), it is easy to forget to look at Christianity as a religion.

So first off, we must begin with, what is a religion?

Here is a preliminary definition that I find most helpful:

Religion is a way of life, organized around certain experiences and convictions, having to do with ultimate power.

Now let’s break down this weighty definition. (Hopefully it can serve to “take back” this word from its many negative connotations that have accumulated over the years.)

• First of all, it is a way of life. Religious people do not think of religion as some segmented part of their existence, but as pervasive of all their life. It is not a matter of simply worshipping one hour a week, but of perceiving all of reality from a different perspective, and acting because they have that perspective. So it is a way of life.
• But it is also organized. Religion is not simply something that happens in the head, or in the feelings, or in individuals. It is a matter of bodies and communities. It is a matter of what bodies do, and what communities do when they are together. Therefore, it is an organized way of life.
• It involves certain experiences. The experiences are what give birth to religions, and what religions try to communicate. Joachim Wach, former Sociologist of Religion at the University of Chicago, has given us a marvelous definition of religious experience as: a response to what is perceived as ultimate, involving the whole person, characterized by a peculiar intensity, and issuing an appropriate action. Religious people do not think that they are making this up. They think that they are responding to something that is ultimately real. And because they are responding to this ultimately real thing, they must also organize their life in a certain fashion.
• Religion involves more than experiences, it involves convictions. Religions construct the world in a certain way. They interpret reality in a certain way, so that its adherents who share these experiences and convictions really do have a different world than those who do not share those experiences and convictions.
• Finally, the phrase ultimate power is very important. People who are religious are not organizing their life around the pursuit of money, the pursuit of pleasure, or the pursuit of political power. Rather, they are responding to that which goes beyond the human manipulation of power–to something that is transcendent, that goes beyond the pleasurable, the beautiful, the useful, even the good, to that which is in some sense ultimate.

Religion, then, is a way of life organized around the experience of ultimate power, and is characterized by certain experiences and convictions.

Tomorrow we will look at eight basic terms that are used in all religions, but have a specific meaning within Christianity.

I am using material from lectures given by Luke Timothy Johnson for The Teaching Company’s The Great Courses series.

I believe that all of your life, consciously or unconsciously, is a response to something.

Or someone.

All of our activity, accomplishments, and thoughts are response.

To what?

To who?

A response emanating from deep within, perhaps from where we cannot, at moment, even detect.

To what we would have.

To what we would be.

To what we would avoid.

Maybe to our “shoulds.”

What is your life a response to?

Pay attention today for what any given thing you are doing or thinking at the moment may be a response to.

What if we lived as if what Jesus and Scripture have revealed to us about God is actually true?

If we lived out the universal and Life-giving commands which have been graciously handed to us?

If we endeavored to live mindful of what we know to be the deeper reality? In the large space of God’s presence, we beheld our worries, memories, physical afflictions, and responsibilities in the context of our belovedness?

I think if we kept just a handful of foundational truths of God before us continually, as reminders of what actually is, we would live in peace, joy, and immense capacity.

Oh if we would draw near to God in His worship with a true heart, in full assurance of faith concerning our enjoyment of Christ and His salvation, how differently we would live.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, casting all your cares upon Him, committing the disposal of yourself to Him in all your concerns.

Trust by faith that your sins are really blotted out, that He totally forgives all that is confessed, He grants you the desires of your heart if you delight in Him, and you will not be shaken if you keep Him in mind continually, remaining in His love for you (Is.26:3,Ps.16:8,Jn.15:9).

Persuade yourself thru Christ that God, according to His promise, will never fail you or forsake you; that He takes Fatherly care of you; that He’ll withhold no good thing from you, and will make all things to work out for your good. We know He will! No irredeemable harm can ever come to you!

These rock solid foundational truths beget in us a right frame of spirit, thoroughly furnished for every good work toward our neighbor.

Attention to these truths, to Jesus and Scripture, places our life and world within the remembered reality of God’s grace.*

Yesterday at Ekklesia we sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Growing up, I must’ve sung this song over fifty times. But it was not until yesterday that the words penetrated me with the reality of God’s truth and beauty and care at a level much deeper than the surface. It communicates so well the reality waiting for us to live into–fellowship and union with Christ.

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer!                     O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,  All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?   We should never be discouraged; Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful, Who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness; Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy-laden, Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge; Take it to the Lord in prayer.    Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer;                                                                                                               In His arms He’ll take and shield thee, thou wilt find a solace there.

Please take this song with you today and ingest it into your soul, metabolizing its truth into your life.

Know this, that I will be singing this song all day today. So if you are ever wondering at any point what I may be doing, you can rest assured I will be singing this–in the car, at school, the chiropractor, Ripple Effect, the gym…and it will be easily and completely memorized by day’s end. I’m just sayin’, I’m gonna do that.

*Paraphrase of a Susan Phillips quote

Overdoing often leads to undoing.