Hope of the World

Jesus follows up the Beatitudes with a statement that His listeners are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. I want to focus on this “light of the world” imagery and try to pull it apart, so let’s take a look at the teaching itself.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

In order to understand Jesus’s statement about “a town built on a hill,” we will need to understand a bit about ancient cities and where they were built. If you were to go to an archaeological dig in Israel today, most often an ancient town would be found on top of (or inside of) what’s known as a tel, which is an ancient collection of buried cities built on top of one another. You needed to build a city in a particular location for a whole host of reasons; things like water, commerce, and defense dictated where a city would need to be constructed. This means that a new city will need to be built in the same location as the old one. So you will need to build on top of the ruins of the last city. Therefore, a city ends up being built on top of a city that was built on top of a city, forming a tel, and you end up with “a city on a hill.”

An example of a tel (Tel Lachish)

Not only this, but if you keep on digging, you would find the most wealthy homes are built inside the city walls. The prime real estate is found inside the city, because of ideas like protection and convenience. Simply put, the rich live “in town.” The middle class will often build their home into the wall. This ancient form of housing is called casemate. The homes are a component of the wall itself. This multistory complex (think apartments) is also useful in defense, as the city can fill the homes with stones, and the wall increases from 10’ wide to 25’ wide. You also see casemate housing being referenced in the Tanakh: when people are being lowered out of windows in baskets (e.g., Rahab, David, etc.), they are being lowered outside the city walls from one of these homes.

This, however, puts the poor in an awful predicament, often having to fend for themselves and find their own housing. They are not allowed in the city, and they are not afforded room around the outside of the city walls; they cannot live at the bottom of the hill, either, which is all farmland. Often, the poor have to take refuge close to the town “dump” — a designated area for sewage and trash. This area is often referred to as the place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” in the context of the poor. It is the place “where the worm never dies and thirst is never quenched.”

So, in concept, a city on a hill (which looks like a shining light in the darkness to a weary traveler, by the way) is the hope for the poor. They look to the city to find what they hope to be protection and shared abundance. Many scholars are beginning to think this is what took place at the city gates. The gates (built primarily for defense of the city under siege) were not often needed as defense structures; most cities would only see a siege once every century. What would you use such a large structure for the rest of the time?

The city gates at Tel Gezer

Archaeology continues to show that the city gates served not only as the “city hall” and courthouse, but also for the social welfare system of the city. Simply put, the gates are where the world of abundance meets the world of need.

Again, a city on a hill is the hope of a world in need.

“You are a city on a hill…”

The people of God are the hope of the world. I say this fully aware of the famous quote from the famous pastor who said, “The Church is not the hope of the world — Jesus is.”  Point taken. However, let us be perfectly clear: Jesus plans on being the hope of the world by working through His followers.

This has always been the case. God has always been looking for partners. God has always been putting His people at the crossroads of the earth. God has always chosen to redeem the world through people choosing to put Him on display to a world in chaos. If we are a city on a hill, what will people find when they look to us? Do they find sustenance, compassion, mercy, and justice (mishpat)? Do they truly find a light shining in darkness? Do they catch a glimpse of a God who, from day one, has been putting the world back together?

“You are a city on a hill.”

Blessed

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’s public teaching ministry begins with what many of us know as the Sermon on the Mount. Most scholars will be quick to say they don’t believe Jesus actually gave this long “sermon” of a teaching, but instead Matthew is arranging many of Jesus’s teachings into a “package” that he wants his Jewish readers to see as one large teaching.

But even before Jesus starts teaching, the record of Matthew is already interesting. Chapter 4 ends with a description of Jesus going throughout the Gailiee and teaching in their synagogues. We are told that He healed many folks and crowds came out to see Him. Matthew includes a description of who is in these crowds. There are people from the Galilee (religious Jews), people from the Decapolis (pagans), people from Jerusalem (Sadducees?), Judea (Herodians?) and the region beyond the Jordan — a quick way of saying everybody was there.

Jesus, after seeing the crowds, goes on to call His disciples to Himself and teach them. The “them” in the passage is slightly ambiguous. We have a few things helping us to determine what Matthew is saying. First, a rabbi would never address such a large crowd with this kind of teaching; however, we’ve already stated that it’s quite possible Jesus didn’t actually teach this entirely in the “sermon” form we see today. Second, in typical Greek, the “them” would be a reference to the closest antecedent, which would be the disciples. The key word in the last sentence would be “typical,” because if there is one thing I learned from Greek in my Bible training, it’s that the “rules” of the Greek language are much more fluid than we’d like (hence the reason Greek ruined my GPA, but I digress).

It would be safe to say that Matthew is pointing out the crowds for a reason and a purpose; you might also remember Matthew’s agenda concerning the outsider. This crowd has lots of people who simply “don’t belong.” This point of consideration will become important as we learn from the sermon on the mount.

Jesus opens with a famous passage that we like to call the Beatitudes:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Now, I’ve heard many a sermon about the Beatitudes being a list of things Jesus is inviting us to aspire to. However, there are a few things that may be incorrect about this approach. If this is true, then Jesus is announcing that God’s favor rests upon somebody else. When you become meek, when you get to the place of peacemaking, when you get to _______________, then you find the blessing of God. Not only does this run counter to many of the things we find in Jesus’s teachings, but this line of reasoning doesn’t work with all the statements. Consider the term “poor in spirit” or “those who mourn.” Do you want to aspire to mourning? Is Jesus really telling people to pursue a state of mourning? Do we really want to be people who find ourselves poor in spirit? This seems upside down.

Instead, Dallas Willard once suggested that the Beatitudes are, in fact, pronouncements of God’s blessing on all the people the world thinks are missing out. In essence, this would mean Jesus starts His teaching with pronouncements that look like the following:

God is for those who are spiritually bankrupt.
God’s favor in on those who mourn.
God is for those who are meek.

This sounds like an intriguing idea, but don’t we end up with the same problem as our other theory? It doesn’t work for all of the statements. Being merciful isn’t a negative quality. But Willard invites us to consider the context of Jesus’s teaching. In fact, being merciful would be a terrible quality. In a world being torn apart by Imperial Rome, to show mercy to your enemy would be an incredibly offensive idea. To be a peacemaker would be akin to asking for persecution.

So, in fact, the Beatitudes might be a list of pronouncements; Jesus might be announcing to the crowds — full of Jews, Gentiles, Herodians, Pharisees, and Romans alike — that God is for the ones they think He has abandoned.

That would fit Matthew’s agenda of the mumzer quite nicely.

And if we peer a little deeper into the teaching, we may begin to wonder if the list is a chiasm.

Poor in Spirit
    Those Who Mourn
        The Meek
            Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
            Merciful
        Pure in Heart
    Peacemakers
Persecuted

The stunning, thunderbolt center of Jesus’s teaching would be a stark message to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus might be saying, “Are you interested in righteousness? Do you hunger and thirst for it? Do you want to see it? Try showing mercy.” Into a world that is being rocked with injustice — into a crowd that has a mixture of Romans and the Jews they are mistreating — Jesus suggests that true righteousness looks like mercy.

And Jesus isn’t going to let up on this idea throughout His teaching. Jesus will continue teaching that we would pray for those that persecute us and love our enemies, and He even tweaks an ancient Jewish prayer to be a statement about forgiveness.

This Jewish rabbi is serious about loving people. So buckle up, because this ministry of Jesus is just getting started…

How to Bring Order Out of Chaos

Immediately following the baptism of Jesus, He is driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit. Here, Jesus is tested as the Israelites were tested in the wilderness. This time, however, the situation will be a little different. But before we go there, let’s go back to the beginning.

The very beginning.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty…

Tohu va’vohu, we once said. Formless and void; wild and waste. If you put nothing into a blender and hit “whip.” Chaotic nothingness. Chaos.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The word for “spirit” in the Hebrew is ruach. Ruach is used for “spirit” and “breath” and “wind.” Surprisingly, the same three words are interchangeable in the Greek, as well; the word is pnuema and it means “spirit/breath/wind.”

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light…

God speaks and order begins to come from the chaos. God places man in the center of this story and invites him to partner with the Creator in managing, stewarding, exploring, and enjoying this new order. But this partnership is tested, and, as we all know, the testing ends in great tragedy.

If we break down this story of creation, it centers around chaotic waters. Large bodies of water always symbolize chaos (and eventually evil) in the Jewish mind. We could whittle the story of creation down to this:

CHAOS
WATER
SPIRIT OVER WATER
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD
ORDER IS EXPECTATION
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY


What is the next story with large bodies of water? The flood. Consider the list above in light of the story of the flood:

CHAOS — The world had descended into chaos.
WATER — God covers the world in chaos.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach blows over the water and the water begins to recede.
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks to Noah, commanding him to come out of the ark and…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …partner with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership is tested and ends in tragedy.


What is the next story with large bodies of water? The exodus from Egypt.

CHAOS — The Israelites had descended into chaos.
WATER — The Red Sea stands between them and order.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach blows over the water and the water divides.
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks to Moses (either at the Red Sea or Mt. Sinai, you pick) and sets up a…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …partnership with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership is tested and ends in tragedy (whether this is the testing in the desert or the Golden Calf).


What is the next story of large bodies of water? The crossing of the Jordan.

CHAOS — The land of Canaan had descended into chaos.
WATER — The Jordan River stands between the Israelites and order.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach blows over the water and the water is stopped up.
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks to Joshua and asks His people to…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …partner with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership is tested at Jericho and ends in tragedy as Achan refuses to follow instructions.


It’s my hope that we’re seeing a pattern, yes? Well, this pattern is still found in the story of Jesus’s baptism. Consider:

CHAOS — The world finds itself in chaos.
WATER — Jesus comes down to the Jordan River to be baptized.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach hovers over the water (and Jesus, who is in it); the “hovering” has not been seen since the story of Creation. Could the author be insinuating that we have a “new creation” on our hands?
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks from heaven…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …and Jesus will now spend the rest of his ministry partnering with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership needs to be tested…

But now, the testing will — for the first time in human history — end with a victorious triumph over chaos. And in this story of Jesus’s testing, we are given a blueprint or a formula (if you will — I write this very tongue-in-cheek) for success. How does Jesus model for us what it looks like to bring order to chaos?

This time, when man is tested, He will respond: “It is written…”

Jesus has the Text in Him. Jesus is prepared and ready. Jesus knows the path.

But just like we looked at with the Essenes, it’s not enough simply to know the path. A man must walk it. He must trust the story of God. He must be willing not only to get the Text in himself, but he must also trust that Text. So, first I ask you: What would have happened if Jesus didn’t have the Text in him? And I know that many Christians would say that the Spirit would provide the answer, but that’s not what Jesus modeled! The Spirit wasn’t what provided the answer; in fact, the Spirit is the one who drove Him into the desert to be tested in the first place.

So what would happen to you if the Spirit drove you into the desert this week to be tested? Would you have the Text in you? Would you be ready? Jesus was.

But it’s not enough only to know the Text. You also have to trust it. Satan knew the Text, as well; he quotes it during the second test. (Did you know that he misquotes the Text? How would we know that if we don’t have the Text in us?) So, simply knowing the Text isn’t enough. You also have to walk in it. It’s not enough for Jesus to know that “Man does not live by bread alone…” He actually needs to wait upon every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.

To know the path.
To walk the path.
To bring order to chaos.
To be a part of the new creation.

Tavilah T’shuvah

One of the ways that the gospel writers introduce us to Jesus is by setting the stage with the “stage setter” himself, John the Baptist. Matthew starts out chapter three this way:

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.’ ”

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

Matthew describes this character who is pursuing the life of being that voice crying out in the desert. This figure is a man of rustic character, wearing camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist. The question is raised in the mind of the reader: Who is this man? Is he a mad man? Why would he be wearing such a distinct outfit.

It’s in the Text. Second Kings 1 to be exact:

When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you come back?”

“A man came to meet us,” they replied. “And he said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell him, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” ’ ”

The king asked them, “What kind of man was it who came to meet you and told you this?”

They replied, “He had a garment of hair and had a leather belt around his waist.”

The king said, “That was Elijah the Tishbite.”

John the Baptist showed up wearing his Elijah costume. When the king heard the description of the “man” who had spoken to the messengers, he immediately knew who they were describing. Apparently, people knew about Elijah and how he dressed. John the Baptist is making the claim that he is a prophetic Elijah figure. If John the Baptist was a western American, he would stand on a chair and declare that he thought he was Elijah. He would then give his defense in a three-point treatise where all three points started with the same letter.

John the Baptist isn’t a westerner, however; he is an easterner. And so he shows up wearing his Elijah costume.

His message is one that Elijah would resonate with, as well. It would be helpful to go back and review the teaching about Elijah here.

John the Baptist shows up and calls everyone to repentance. We’re told that entire crowds come out to be baptized. In the gospel of Luke, we are told about the characters in this crowd. Some are tax collectors, some are soldiers, many are cultural outcasts. Some students of the Text have pointed out it is possible John was performing mikveh for a bunch of people who were not allowed to perform mikveh at the Temple. This would be easy to swallow considering John is the son of Zechariah, and very possibly a product of the Essenes (maybe even the Essenes at Qumran).

John stands in the water and invites people to a “baptism of repentance” — what is called tavilah t’shuvah. This mikveh was an Essene baptism. While the Pharisees performed mikveh as a regular, ritual cleansing, the Essenes performed a baptism of repentance. It required that the baptized be truly repentant BEFORE they enter the water. John is calling the people to change their behavior and mark this repentance with the waters of mikveh.

And then, John looks up to see the Pharisees and Sadducees:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”

John is not a fan of what the leadership has done to the people of God. He’s inviting the people to repent and follow after God, not the misguided devotion of the Pharisees or the corrupted system of the Sadducees. This is one fiery Essene holding revivals out in the desert, outside of bounds of the religious systems of power.

But then, John reveals the theology that drives his ministry:

“The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

John’s understanding is that Messiah is coming, and He’s bringing the kingdom of God with Him. This kingdom of God is coming with fire and judgment. John uses electric language about an ax at the root of the trees and a winnowing fork purging the threshing floor and a baptism of fire (harkening the reader to the first baptism of fire — Sodom and Gomorrah). John believes that judgment is at hand and the people need to repent.

Is this a correct assessment of the situation?

It seems to me that Jesus said he came not to condemn the world, but to save it — to shine light in dark places. What’s going on here? In order to answer that question, I’m going to put this post on hold and let the reader speculate on their explanation until a story later in the gospel accounts (and no, it won’t be the next post). What is John’s understanding of the world? Is he correct?

A Gospel of Two Kingdoms

Back in the beginning of our study, I argued the narrative God was telling through His Text was “A Tale of Two Kingdoms.” We spent much of our time in the Old Testament showing how these two agendas continued to pop up as the central theme to the story of the people of God. Whether it was their time in the desert, learning how to lead with their voice and not the stick, the tension of living in shephelah, the challenge of living with abundance, or the way that we approached the socio-economic realities of our world, we kept seeing an agenda of empire and an agenda of shalom.

This narrative makes a prominent appearance at the very beginning of the gospel records. There are two birth narratives in the New Testament, one in Matthew and one in Luke; in a very interesting fashion, both of them set the stage for the life of Jesus in a world of contrast.

The gospel of Matthew draws out the deep background of the rule of Herod the Great. It showcases how paranoid Herod was that a future ruler would ever pose a threat to his kingdom.

Depending on how reliable one finds our historical sources (extra-biblical as well as biblical), Herod was the richest man ever to walk the face of the planet. If history is correct, there would not be even a close second; Bill Gates would mow Herod’s lawn. One of my teachers taught me that Herod’s income came in at well over a hundred times the national GDP of his country (don’t ask me how the math is done on those numbers, but just imagine even a fraction of that being true).

In Israel, everywhere you go you can see signs of the impact that Herod had on the world. Herod desired to be the greatest man who ever lived. He took this pursuit very seriously and did everything so wildly over-the-top that to this day, we are not sure how he and his architects did what they did at that point in history. The list is quite staggering. Whether the stones that we still find on the Temple mount (we’re talking about the sheer size of the stones, the perfection of the construction, the magnitude of the project), the underwater harbor poured in the self-built city of Caesarea, the construction and opulence of the famous fortress of Masada — even a cursory study of one of these sites would impress any student.

Yet, the King of the Universe wraps Himself in flesh and is born in a stable in Bethlehem, which isn’t just the backwater town of Joseph and his family. Bethlehem also happens to be the location for one of Herod’s three great palaces, the Herodium. Herod built an entire palace on top of a mountain that he had constructed.

Yes, I said that Herod built a mountain.

The ruins of the Herodium

And to steal a phrase from my teacher, Ray Vander Laan, the subversive nature of God’s plan is that He will send His son to be born in the shadow of the palace of the “greatest” man to walk on Roman soil. There are two kingdoms that are being put on display in Matthew’s gospel.

One king is the richest man ever to live. He constructs incredible buildings that stagger the mind and accomplishes incredible feats of human engineering. His ingenuity and wealth are second to none. He builds mountains where there aren’t any, pipes in water to places that it could never previously reach, and corners the market on beauty and innovation. He is the most powerful human being that the world has ever seen. His life is decorated with silver, gold, and the richest of fare.

The other king is born to a poverty-stricken, rejected family from the rural town of Nazareth. He is born in sheep crap surrounded by the ash of shepherd’s fire and the feces of cattle. His birth is announced to the marginalized of society and his advent is celebrated by shepherds.

One king is the leader of Empire. The other is the king of Shalom.


Luke’s gospel seeks to accomplish a similar juxtaposition. With a very brief phrase, Luke sets his audience on alert:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

And in those five words, Luke says more than we probably realize. These words are chosen deliberately by Luke. It should be noted that in no historical setting can Quirinius be the governor of Syria during the birth of Jesus. I have watched some biblical literalists do incredible gymnastics to try to explain how this is accurate; however, in no possible scenario is Jesus born during the census of Quirinius. We do not have record of a census taken by Augustus for those details, either, so this could be a marginal addition by somebody trying to make sense of the story, or Luke may be trying to make a statement that we are missing context for, or we may not have all the pieces of history yet. Regardless, it’s worth noting that something is taking place there.

At any rate, Luke is trying to set his own stage for his own narrative about the tale of two kingdoms. His version of the Christmas story puts us in the juxtaposition between two other kings.

One king thought himself to be god incarnate. The son of an ascended Julius Caesar, Augustus claimed that a mighty star in the sky (apparently seen by many), referenced today as “Caesar’s Comet,” was actually his father Julius ascending to his rightful throne as god. If Julius was god, then that would make Augustus the son of god. From this point in Roman history, emperors would — almost without exception — claim incarnate deity among their many attributes. Augustus was exclaimed by Roman propaganda (we already looked at the “gospel” plague found in Priene) to be “the Son of the Most High,” the “eternal Prince of Peace,” the “King of kings,” the “Lord of lords,” etc. It was often proclaimed that there was no other name under heaven which a man could be saved from terror except that of Caesar Augustus.

And yet in a stable is born a baby, who Luke claims to be the true King of kings, Lord of lords, Prince of Peace, and Son of the Most High God.

One king plays the part well. The other king challenges everything we expect of the Ruler of the Universe.

It’s a Tale of Two Kingdoms. And we’re being invited to consider our deepest assumptions about the world. What is real power? What is wealth? Where does security come from? Who is God? What is God trying to save me from?

What do I really want and what do I strive for? Empire? Or shalom?

Would I have even noticed the King of the Universe, born in a stable, or would I simply look for a better Caesar? Is this a problem?

Who is truly King?