By His Wounds We Are Healed

At face value, Jesus’ teachings in the gospels are just that: teachings - - words to live by, moral guidelines, affirmations of what it means to be holy, and instruction on how to be a good and faithful servant. Yet there’s more, much more: a flourish of parable, paradox, allegory and metaphor. However you sift these teachings for meaning, the grandest parable Jesus told is the one he spoke with his own flesh and blood, the parable of his death and the resurrection.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time often used allegorical stories to teach the Jews about the Torah and how to live the covenant life Moses established with Yahweh. During his three years of ministry, Jesus challenged the Pharisees and their instruction to Jews on the Law because, (1), the Pharisees had become blind to the original Spirit of the Law, and (2), the Pharisees hypocritically preached obedience to the Law bit didn’t practice it themselves.

In contrast to the Pharisees’ use of allegories, the heart of Jesus’ teaching was delivered via parables. He told parables about The Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Sower, and so on. Unfortunately, Jesus’ disciples often had difficulty understanding these parables and Jesus had to explain the parables to them, including his final parable, the parable of his death and resurrection, which he explained, for instance, to Cleopas on the Road to Emmaus, and Thomas and the twelve in the Upper Room.

Most of Jesus’ parables became allegories or example stories upon their re-telling and recording by the apostles over time (Ludwig, 1). This is of key importance and distinction because an allegory points symbolically to realities of which the listener is familiar, while a parable suggests metaphorical meaning and demands creative interpretation by the audience (Pregeant, 345). In telling parables, and in ultimately demonstrating his own death and resurrection, Jesus was not interested in giving us simple pointers for daily living but in challenging us to a radical new way of living that requires the use of our imagination to understand. I think it is appropriate to say that Jesus was both a parable and a paradox in how he taught and lived. His vision of the Kingdom, for instance, was contradictory to what his followers expected, but in reinterpreting what the Kingdom meant, he revealed an even deeper truth.

How did Jesus’ death and resurrection become a parable? Reading the scriptures, the parable seems to unfold as part of Jesus’ teachings and is then later explained by Jesus himself after demonstrating the parable of his resurrection. In this way he seems to give the standard Dale Carnegie business presentation to the apostles: I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you, tell you, and recap by telling you what I told you. While Jesus is alive, for example, he says to his apostles:

• "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19)
• “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
• "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
• “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matthew 16:21)
• “For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.” (John 6:55)

After delivering some of these parabolic phrases, Jesus attempts to explain them to the apostles at various times and they clearly have difficulty understanding him:
• After relaying the Parable of the Sower: “He said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?” (Matthew 4:13)
• After describing the type of death he would die, Jesus says to Peter: “Get behind me Satan!” (Matthew 16:23)

In the midst of his passion, Jesus even attempts to explain the parable of his life and death to Pilate in John 18:33-38:

Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Pilate, like the apostles has two feet firmly planted in the physical world, and has trouble grasping the paradox and parable of what Jesus is actually talking about. Who is this guy? Is he a king? If so, where is his Kingdom? What is truth? Why doesn’t he just come out with it instead of speaking in parables? Doesn’t he know I have the power to release him or crucify him?

Ultimately, by seeing Jesus die on the cross, rise from the dead, and leave nothing but an empty tomb and a pile of burial dressings as evidence, the apostles begin to ‘believe but don’t understand.’ They garner the faith that the parable of Jesus’ death and resurrection is true, and not just a clever allegorical story or a tale of dynamic rhetoric.

• At the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James remembered his words, “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” (Luke 24:7)
• On the Road to Emmaus, Jesus says to Cleopas, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 25:27)

When Jesus’ Palm Sunday did not lead to Messianic Monday, the apostles’ hopes were dashed, and like Cleopas, they tried to move on and get on with their lives, despite their disappointment. They didn’t get the parable! Their imagination could not conceive that Jesus could still ‘win’ after ‘losing’ on the cross. They knew Jesus’ teachings but the teachings still only had metaphorical or allegorical meaning to them:

• “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)
• “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (Matthew 19:30)
• “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19)

After Jesus’ many post-resurrection appearances, the apostles did, however; finally ‘get’ the parable and this parable now blew their minds and captured their imagination. If God can raise a man from the dead, what else can he do? The apostles dejection and depression now became boundless hope (Ludwig, 11), and Jesus’ resurrection became more than the bodily return of their friend and teacher, but a redemptive event (Pregeant, 91). The parable predicted by Isaiah and the prophets before him was now a reality, “Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to nations that are rebellious, which have rebelled against me,” (Ezekiel 2:3) and “by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

Jesus: The Main Event

Jesus is both a person and an event in history. He happened at a certain time, at a certain place in Galilee of the late 20s, yet he is still happening today. You might ask, how is that possible?

Jesus’ Kingdom is already but not yet. By being the Kingdom of God in the way he walked, talked, healed, and prayed in Galilee in the 20s, he created the Kingdom everywhere he went. When he walked among his apostles, followers, and objectors he breathed the disruption of the Kingdom of God into the lives of everyone he touched. Most everyone was intrigued, but generally, those with power and status feared and challenged him while those without power and status listened, followed, and rejoiced in the Good News he preached.

In practical terms, while the man of Jesus began teaching his difficult message of the Kingdom to the enslaved Jews in the 20s, Herod Antipas and other Roman leaders couldn’t have known or cared less about him. They just wanted to continue a peaceful rule, complete their grand construction projects, and have their taxes paid to fund the projects. Crossan calls this situation “urbanization for commercialization.” Meanwhile, in Galilee, however, the farmers, peasants, and fisherman bore the brunt of this Roman commercial vision and were painfully moving from being poor to destitute. Jesus the man offered a socio-economic alternative: “Come follow me” - - an invitation to hear him, share fellowship, and embrace hope in the Kingdom event he spoke of happening in their daily lives right now! (It was a message of hope and light in the vein of what later became called, Liberation Theology, centuries later, as African Americans and the Salvadorans in the 1980-1990s came to know it.) In concrete terms, Jesus’ most receptive audience in the 20s was the poor. The poor really “heard” the gospel (e.g. “Those with ears to hear, should hear”). Those with a radical need, the begging & prayerful, connected with the radical message of Jesus and the Kingdom more easily because they had less to lose and everything to gain.

So how could Jesus be both a man and an event, or a man and a Kingdom? To borrow a phrase from Clayton Christensen, Jesus was/is a “disruptive technology.” As Jesus’ contemporaries discovered, yes, Jesus was a man. Yes, he was a Jew. Yes, he was the son to a man named Joseph and a woman named Mary - - yet he was also a radical and a revolutionary to some - - while being a troublemaker and blasphemer to others. As defined, disruptive technologies are innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect (Wikipedia). They are particularly threatening to the leaders of an existing market, because they create competition coming from an unexpected direction (Wikipedia). This is exactly the effect that Jesus had on the places he lived and preached in Galilee in the 20s. He was unexpected, threatening, and created competition for the Jews and Romans in power at the time. Who was this “disruptive technology” called Jesus? No one seemed to know for sure at the time:

- Who did the people of his hometown say he was? “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven (John 6:42)?” Where did this man get all this (Mark 6:1)?”

- Who did the people in other towns and villages say he was? “John the Baptist; and others say, Eli'jah; and others one of the prophets.” (Mark 8:27)

- Even John the Baptist himself asks who he is, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (Matthew 11:3)

- Finally, Jesus poses the question to his disciples, and asks, “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15), and Peter responds by saying, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:16-17)

So, Jesus and his message of the Kingdom is the “disruptive technology” of his time and, as a result, people across the board want to know who he is and why he is. To the poor, oppressed and outcast Jews under the Roman rule of Herod Antipas, his disruption is welcomed (e.g. show us the way and save us from our oppression and poverty), while those Jews and Romans in positions of power and status question and reject him (e.g. thanks, but no thanks Jesus, we like things the way they are). Finally, in speaking to the apostle Peter in the quotation above, Jesus acknowledges the “assist” that the Holy Spirit is giving Peter to help him “make the leap” in knowing who he is and what he is about. This is a leap that others, “without ears to hear,” have trouble making.

Jesus is both a person and an event because he disrupts the societal norms of the time with his message of the Kingdom, which is often told through parables. He disrupts the status quo by healing the sick, eating with sinners, and telling radical parables that flip the expected storyline on its head to challenge the listener to look at and live in the world in a completely different way. His parables startle and jolt the listener into thinking differently, challenging them to take an imaginative leap into the metaphorical while they might otherwise be more comfortable resting in the safety of the literal. It’s not a comfortable message, yet it isn’t meant to be. It’s not a cosmic message that is meant to happen somewhere “out there,” it’s a personal message that’s meant to happen “in here.”

Listening to and truly hearing Jesus’ parables demands a change of heart, a change of mind, and a changed action. Parables like the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan shake our personal foundations if we let them (Ludwig, page 12). These parables portray the undoing of a myth, and, if taken seriously, can undo our reality (e.g. “Really, the Samaritan is the hero, and the Prodigal is received by the father with open arms? Why? That’s not the way things work in our world. Why would God think and act differently? That can’t be!). As such, the parables are more than the moral lesson or example story they appear to be on the surface, they point to the painful proposition that if we (and Jesus’ contemporaries) are to become the person of Jesus today and bring the event of Jesus’ Kingdom to our daily lives, we need to humbly adopt a change of heart, mind, and action. We “get ahead” in this world by “getting behind” the man of Jesus and his ridiculous, challenging parables, and by doing so we can participate in the event of Jesus - - the Kingdom of God - - in our daily lives.

The First Shall Be Last and the Last Shall Be First

The central focus of Jesus’ ministry is to preach, teach, and demonstrate God’s radical grace, and, by doing so, stir up the surrounding socio-political environment. It is a continual call to action. Jesus does this from the beginning of his ministry when he declares, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” and he continues it to the end when he dies on the cross - - dying as a criminal, rather than a king.

Jesus is a radical teacher, preacher, and healer. He heals the sick, casts off demons, and calms the seas. He goes toe to toe with the Pharisees in interpreting and explaining the scriptures. But his overall message, the message that permeates all his ministry is of God’s radical grace and love - - a love that does not conform to social norms or expectations. It is a love that delights, surprises, puzzles, and annoys. These are teachings that were hard for first century Christians, and they continue to be hard teachings for Christians today.

The radical grace and love Jesus speaks of is illustrated throughout the parables. For instance, in parable of the Pearl in Matthew 13:44-45, the gift of grace calls the individual toward a response that is radical and risky - - selling everything and buy a field of buried treasure. Other parables put at odds the rich and poor, the accepted and the rejected, those with status against those without status, and ultimately Caesar’s reign against the reign of God.

Jesus confronts Pharisaic legalism in the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), challenging the view that, through the eyes of the older brother, human beings can somehow merit divine favor through their own actions, separate from God’s grace. In doing so, Jesus also confronts the attitude of resentment that some, like the older brother would have, when God’s grace seems to fall on those who don’t deserve it, like the younger son.

Jesus takes on Jewish dietary regulations in Mark 7:15, saying, “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” This teaching must have perplexed the Pharisees who were focused on obediently serving Yahweh by observing 600-plus purity laws. They must have thought, “He must be joking. If we abandon these purity laws, how will we be able to tell who’s a sinner and who’s not. We’ll lose our status and power.” This theme carries over in the parable of the Great Supper (Luke 14:16-24), when Jesus shows that those that are concerned about their social standing are really unimportant in the big scheme of things. The affluent refuse the banquet invitation, while the socially outcast sit and dine at table. The blindness that occurs due to the affluent’s social status, robs them from the surprising, gracious gift of God’s love in the banquet.

Jesus shatters conventional wisdom about love of neighbor in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). To the listener’s surprise, the hated Samaritan becomes the hero. The story demands the overthrow of prior values, closed options, set judgments, and established conclusions (Pregeant, page 67). In the parable, Jesus shows that the love of God, like the Samaritan, looks radically beyond the constraints and prejudices of society to act and do what its right whatever someone’s race, religion, or ethnicity may be. This theme is picked up again Matthew 5:39-46, when Jesus challenges his audience to turn the other cheek and love their enemies.

The role of women in society is questioned and challenged by Jesus in the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8). In the parable, Jesus, speaks of a woman who, by challenging a judge, proceeds to cross social barriers and boundaries because she refuses to accept the judge’s denial of her plea for justice. Women in the first century Middle East were marginalized, but Jesus never seemed to care about what other’s thought of him being in the company of women, whether he was speaking to Mary Magdalene or the Samaritan woman at the well.

Jesus challenges the belief that financial success was a sign of God’s favor in Mark 10:25, when he tells the apostles, “It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” Jesus goes one step further in Mark 12:16 when he says about the payment of taxes, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” In these teachings Jesus seems to be saying that both individual wealth and the wealth and power of governments is nothing compared to the wealth of riches to be gained through the Kingdom of God.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus is a radical lover and teacher who challenges social and political norms. He hangs out with the wrong crowd, he breaks societal norms, and he has no status, yet he teaches with authority. In all of his parables and teachings, Jesus seems to be saying, “Listen to me - - my Father’s love is bigger than all of your daily concerns and worries to pay taxes, follow rules, work for prosperity, and fight for status. All I want you to do is love me and love your neighbor and if you take the radical leap and do that, the rest will take care of itself. Other people may not like you or agree with you if you do this, but if you do it, you will be blessed and will share in my Kingdom.”