Why was (and still is) Jesus such a disappointment to religious expectation?

In reading the scriptures, especially with a lifetime worth of comments and explanations ringing in our ears, it is easy to despise the Pharisees and other religious characters as hypocrites … the [...]]]> (..part of a new book)

Why was (and still is) Jesus such a disappointment to religious expectation?

In reading the scriptures, especially with a lifetime worth of comments and explanations ringing in our ears, it is easy to despise the Pharisees and other religious characters as hypocrites … the kind of hypocrites we could never be! However, modern Christianity might just have more in common with them, than what we are willing to admit. Especially in terms of their expectation of a coming Christ.

As with them, many today expect that the coming Christ will return to enforce His will upon the nations. Many are looking for a more concrete and visible kingdom. They expect more than a God who comes to tell stories, do a few miracles, dies and disappears. The significance of the incarnation is overlooked and the fact that God became man is, for the most part, simply seen as another oddity. The first coming of Christ is reduced to just another prophetic event that foreshadows the actual event – when God comes again and this time, hopefully, He will do it properly and effect some real change. What Jesus introduced is often categorised as just another dispensation, a period of time, which they give many beautiful names, like: the dispensation of grace, or the church age etc. The fact that Jesus is God’s final and complete Word, the fulness of time, is hardly acknowledged.

What did these religiously trained people, the Pharisees, expect from the coming of the Messiah, and why?

From an early age they were trained in the scriptures. And this training was by no means limited to theory – how to live it, apply it, was absolutely central to their religion. Much good came from their rigorous focus on the scriptures.

For the most part these people were sincere, honest and devout. In the midst of a world that worshipped many strange gods and esteemed many questionable values, the Jews indeed had a privileged position and knowledge of God.

So just imagine what kind of Christ they expected.
If you devoted your life to the study of God’s self-revelation through the scriptures, in the midst of many weird and plainly wrong philosophies … maybe a bit of Godly confirmation of how right you are, is not expecting too much.

In the midst of world powers who have no regard for the scriptures and who makes fun of your beliefs, is it really expecting too much for the coming Messiah to sort them out – to pummel them into submission and shame them with the foolishness of their beliefs?

If you sacrificed time with family and friends, for the sake of religious duties, if you gave up comforts and pleasures and instead developed your self-discipline to the highest degree possible and you did this without any real recognition or gratitude from those who are not as devoted as you … then maybe, the coming of the Messiah would be the event in which you received your just reward … and they, theirs. Obviously, those who do not make the effort, those ill-disciplined, pleasure-seeking unbelievers should get what they deserve as well!

Can you see how the expectations developed. They expected, not unlike many expectations today, that the coming Christ would come to set the records straight, would come and balance the books, would come to enforce the will of God, to make His justice triumph by justifying the righteous and condemning the guilty. A Christ who justifies the ungodly was simply unthinkable!

Well, these well-behaved, devout, right-believing, orthodox, sincere believers, turned out to be sincerely wrong and very disappointed with Jesus.

At the start of Jesus’ ministry, He still showed some real potential. The miracles and healings looked exactly like the kind of Christ they expected – one who could enforce Gods will, one who could take the kingdom by force, divine force! They could even excuse His odd little stories about grace, if He just continued to enforce God’s will. But then He seemed to tone down the miraculous, warning people not to say anything about it. At one of the most opportune times, when a frenzied crowd of more than 5000 wanted to make Him king, He simply left.

Then His odd stories became more and more explicit and plainly offensive. It seems as if He deliberately honours those who deserve contempt and He deliberately shames those who throughout their lives devoted themselves to the most noble occupation of interpreting and practising the holy scriptures. The heroes of Jesus’ stories always seem to be the most unlikely candidates – Samaritans, social outcasts, victims, the shameful, the last, the least the little and the lost!

His own disciples did not even know what He was on about – how unintelligible He must have been to these devout religious scholars.

Eventually the Pharisees had enough of all the paradoxical sayings about seed hidden in the ground, and yeast hidden in dough. They wanted something a bit more concrete and visible, so they come to Jesus with a straightforward question: “When will the kingdom of God come?” (Luke 17:20)

Jesus, however, had a habit of never satisfying the self-righteous with a straight-forward answer. Instead He gives them a bit more of the hidden, mysterious stuff:
He replies to them by saying, The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed or with visible display … (Luke 17:20 AMP)

Rather, it is already here … within you! (Remember the hidden seed and the unseen yeast) (Luke 17:21)

In the Matthew account He says: The kingdom of God doesn’t come by counting the days on the calendar … the arrival of the Son of Man isn’t something you go to see. He comes like swift lightning to you! (Matthew 24:27 MSG)

The coming, the appearing, the revelation of Jesus Christ is not a quiet, sombre or gentle realization – it is a thunderous flash of lightning that silences every other noise and blinds you to every other sight! Jesus offers more than boring academic knowledge – He offers Himself … his dangerous, adventurous, living self!

Jesus then starts speaking to His disciples. These guys who would be entrusted with proclaiming this message in the near future … they had very little insight into what was about to unfold. He says to them: “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, Look here! or Look there! Do not go after them or follow them.” (Luke 17:22, 23 NKJV)

He is saying that there are going to be times where you would desperately desire a more visible, more concrete display of the reality of this kingdom. You would love to have an opportunity to point to something more tangible, but the message I’m entrusting you with will always be foolishness, a scandal, if judged by human wisdom. Because at the heart of this message there will always be a God who does not flaunt His omnipotence or endorses your religious convictions, but rather, a God who becomes vulnerable, a God who becomes man and simply … dies! At the core of this message there will always be a salvation that is not achieved through your good living, but a salvation that is hidden in death!

There will be plenty of temptation to pursue a logic that is a bit more acceptable or a sign that is a bit more convincing than the scandal of the cross. Don’t be suckered into that, says Jesus. My kingdom is more like lightning that lights up everything, the whole world, at once. (Luke 17:24) Remember, He comes like swift lightning to you. It lit up Paul’s world so much that he wrote: “Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ.” … “So from now on, we do not look at anyone from a worldly viewpoint.” (2 Cor 5:18,15)

This event is first and foremost not an external event.
What no eye have seen, what no ear has heard, what has not entered the imagination of man, God has revealed through His spirit. (1 Cor 2:9) What you cannot learn through natural observation, what no man can teach you, and what your own imagination cannot fabricate … God makes known in the most intimate and overwhelming way possible – combining His spirit with yours – spirit fusion – infinitely more powerful and bright than nuclear fusion!

Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words. (1 Corinthians 2:13 ASV)

God’s word is first and foremost not aimed at your head … it is spirit – a wholly different dimension and substance and the way in which it is communicated is through spirit fusion.

Jesus then continues His conversation with the disciples: “But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.” (Luke 17:25 KJV)

Its so easy to misread these sayings of Jesus as some long range eschatological predictions. But remember what was on His mind. He knew that in a short few days He would face a certain and horrific death. There are few things I can imagine that would so focus a persons mind as a death sentence. His own death and resurrection is most certainly on His mind. However, despite the significance of this event, it would be completely missed by most … people would continue to eat, drink, marry, plant, build and not realise the imminent death (if one died for all, then all have died) that stared them all in the face.

If you try to save your own life by the way you live … you’ll lose it. When you suddenly realize that it is not in the way you live, but rather your inclusion in my death, that saved you, don’t just continue in that old worthless pursued. When the Son of man come to you like lightning, as Paul experienced not to long after this event, then don’t just plod along in your old lifestyle, let Him take you wherever He wishes … into the full realization of your death and resurrection in Him.

If you still think these words simply predicted a future event, then don’t worry, the disciples themselves also interpreted these words as some future event, definitely not as the death and resurrection that would soon surprise them. And so they continued: “Then they asked Him, Where, Lord? He said to them, Wherever the dead body is,there will the vultures or eagles be gathered together. (Luke 17:37 AMP)

I like the insight in the Message Translation: Trying to take all this in, the disciples said, “Master, where?” He told them, “Watch for the circling of the vultures. They’ll spot the corpse first. The action will begin around my dead body.” (Luke 17:37 MSG)

A dead Christ is definitely not the kind of Christ they expected. Everyone thought the action stopped at His death; no one thought the action would begin around His dead body. But God always has a few surprises up His sleeve.

So much more happened in the death of Christ, than the death of one man. When we miss the significance of this event, we will soon be distracted by new themes, enticed by alternative events … all of which will leave us disappointed.

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matthew 11:2, 3 ESV)

John became disappointed in the very Jesus he once preached. The reality of his own circumstances, the contradiction of the prison and the uncertainty of his own future loomed large in John’s mind. And so he sends messengers to ask if He is the One … if now is the time, or whether they should wait for another. Many, like John the Baptist, have become disappointed in the very Christ they once preached. In the midst of contradiction and conflict, they have answered the question for themselves ” …are you the One or should we wait for another”
Their answer might be dressed up in impressive spiritual sounding words, elaborate end-time doctrines, but in summary it is nothing less than: “…Jesus’ first coming was a bit of a disappointment, we should wait for another”.

So let me state it as clearly as I can: Jesus is not just another promise, another prophesy, another dispensation all pointing to something greater or more significant. He is the fulfilment of every promise, the completion of every prophesy, the fullness of time, the beginning and the end, God’s original thought and also His final conclusion about your life.

Can you hear Jesus saying: ”I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end”? He is your origin and He is your end!

He is the end: the end of confusion, the end of guilt, the end of distance between yourself and God, the end of your searching and the end of your waiting. He is the end of your own efforts to find peace and contentment, the end of your own philosophies to find meaning, the end of your faith and the end of your hope. Any hope you ever had to attain contentment through your own efforts, is brought to a crushing end in Him. He is your Armageddon – the final battle in which God wins. He is the final judgement; He is God’s complete will and final word. No judgement to come will contradict or dishonour what God has declared in Christ, when He embraced you to Himself.

He is your beginning – both your original creator and your new beginning, your Redeemer and Saviour. He is the beginning of a whole new way to understand God and yourself (1 John 5:20). He is the beginning of a whole new faith of which He is the author and perfecter. (Heb 12:2) He is the beginning of a new hope – a hope no attached to a future date, but and expectation fully resting upon a person present within you: Christ in you the hope of glory. He is the beginning, the source of your innocence – in His own righteous person He represents your blameless innocence.

He is the beginning of a spontaneous and adventurous life, a life of discovery and exploration of the limitless dimensions of His person. This romance needs no artificial boundaries or protocols, but inspires total abandonment – we can throw ourselves into His arms in total trust and enjoyment, for He has thrown Himself into our existence, scattered Himself onto this earth, forever committed Himself to our humanity when He became a man.

So enormous is the event of Christ, that God Himself will spend all the ages to come explaining and unveiling to us the exceeding greatness of His kindness toward us in the event of Christ. (Eph 2:7)

What God communicated in the Word that became flesh in Christ Jesus, is the unveiling of how He wants His kingdom to come – a kingdom that is not enforced on anyone, but a logic, a word, that enters into the the very heart of the conflict and contradiction of human life and brings its peace there. Resurrection life is the kind of life that can even enter death and be victorious there. The only way He ever wants to bring all things into subjection to Himself, is from the inside out through willing participation, for it is God who is at work within us both to will and to do His good pleasure. (Phil 2:13)

A video concerning this subject is available here: http://youtu.be/GZFi4c-6MQk

Part 2

The original, authentic Word was face to face with God from the very beginning. God Himself is the content of this communication – revealing His personal presence and unique expression in all that exists.
In fact there is nothing original or innovative outside [...]]]>
(Extract from ‘Imagine’)
The Nature of this Word

The original, authentic Word was face to face with God from the very beginning. God Himself is the content of this communication – revealing His personal presence and unique expression in all that exists.
In fact there is nothing original or innovative outside of Him! He is the only Creator and the source of all inspiration and creativity. Everything that is, has ‘Made by God’ stamped on its existence.
The life that was in Him was made manifest in man – His life shines in man. (The very life of God is what ignited the existence of man) This original light still shines even in darkness and no amount of darkness can put this light out. (John 1:1-5 AR translation)

Original, Authentic and Pure.

The very first thing John has to say about this Word is that it is original and communicates the nearness of God. In fact, this word is inseparable from God. Original means it is not derived, borrowed or the latest fad. This is what God intended from the start. Neither is this a message that has been passed on and adjusted through the course of time, but rather it is the pure, undiluted purpose of God. It is not subject to interpretation or mediation, this is the direct Word of God. If His own person is not the content of this gospel, then we are dealing with something other than the Word John spoke of. This Word is God!

Not only is this Word original, authentic and pure, but it reveals that you have your origin in Him. Consequently, you are an original! You are an authentic invention of the one and only Creator. The original motivation and creativity that gave you birth is revealed in this Word. Your identity, as God imagined it long before you were born, is displayed in all its purity and beauty by this Word. The ‘additives’ of time, the disappointments and achievements that veil your true substance is stripped away by this Word. Your true self, your uniquely-born-of-God self is revealed.

The nearness and intimate nature of this Word.

It is understandable that a people who are alienated and confused about God would develop philosophies about His unknowability – or transcendence for the theologically minded. And indeed this is true if we approach Him from our natural mind and reasoning. But in Christ He took the initiative to make Himself known. This Word doesn’t just communicate ideas about God. God communicates Himself in this Word. I’m so glad we don’t have to occupy ourselves with our thoughts about God, because He has made His thoughts toward us, abundantly available. Become absorbed in His thoughts toward you.

No man has ever seen God at any time; the only unique Son of God, Who is in the bosom, in the intimate presence of the Father, He has declared Him [He has revealed Him and brought Him out where He can be seen; He has interpreted Him and He has made Him known]
(John 1:18 AMP)

There is no greater fulfillment than the intimate bosom of our Father, our maker. Jesus, the unique Son of God has made that place of intimacy available. He reveals your own individuality and the Fathers unique love for you. He is not ashamed to call you brother because we all have the same origin and in His Father’s bosom is much room. You too are a unique offspring of the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its identity.

The uniqueness and creative nature of this Word.

All of creation is testimony to the infinite creativity of our Creator. Despite the diversity we see in nature, it all points to the One Artist. When God thought of the ultimate expression of His creativity, the masterpiece of His artistic expression, the end result was mankind! This masterpiece would be a self-portrait: His vision of Himself, His likeness and image expressed with artistic skill upon the canvass of the human heart. However, each and every person would be an unique expression of His person. Unique … but still a full expression of His person. In other words, we do not receive just a part of God, but ‘of His fullness have we all received’ – we receive all of God, yet we uniquely and individually represent Him.

Having been exposed to original works of art from an early age, I never developed a taste for copies or prints. No matter how vibrant the colours, the fact that a machine made duplicates of an original, the fact that the artist was not involved, seemed to rob such prints of all their spirit and beauty.
On a few rare occasions I was able to watch my granddad at work in His studio. The interaction of the Artist and his work of art, the process and techniques can never be replaced by a mechanical counterfeit.

God is the Creator, not the duplicator! You are a unique artistic invention. The authentic thought of the one and only Creator found expression in you. The Artist was intimately involved in your creation.
(Extract from ‘Imagine’)

Time and Eternity.mp3