The Political Jesus
Should our focus be more on the death and resurrection of Jesus or on his life’s work in general? Which one is more important? There is a really good (and short!) series of blog postings about the political Jesus over at the Colloquy blog that I encourage you to check out. I’m all about good theological discussions and this blog never disappoints!
After I finished reading the series I asked myself, “Why is this important?” What difference does this make in the way I live my life? This is important for one reason I can think of. The means by which Jesus was to carry out his father’s plan was as a “suffering” servant. As if the idea of God serving us is not mind-boggling enough, Jesus was not to just be a servant but one who would suffer. His ultimate suffering was to come at the crucifixion. There was no other way. He could not get out of it. The plan was set and he had to follow.
In the same way, we were created to glorify God by following the example of Jesus. Typically we as Christians in America follow an avoidance ethic as opposed to a resurrection ethic. What I mean is, we live our lives to avoid suffering as opposed to accepting suffering as the normative part of what it means to be a Christian. It’s pretty easy to find a Christian who thinks God wants to give them a peaceful (no suffering) life. God does want to give us that but we have to understand that a peaceful life does not mean a life without suffering.
This is why it is important to understand Jesus’ tempation as emphasizing his political nature rather than just his salvific (he saved us) nature. Jesus offers more than just salvation from sin. He offers us one of the greatest gifts we could ever ask for, a radical example of what it looks like to change our world.
Robert
I love theology and the challenge of making deep teachings non-boring. Let's face it, most of the time we hear theological teaching, it really is boring. Does it really have to be that way? Nope.
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Stephen
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Stephen
