I wrote about a similar
thread of thought a few posts ago discussing Captain America. There are a lot
of allusions to Christ in our culture. Most super heroes (especially characters
like Superman) are essentially messiah figures. Soldiers sometimes sacrifice
their lives for a greater cause. We admire figures who fight for freedom of one
sort or another.
Should this be the case
though? Is fighting for freedom a Christlike example? Let’s look at that idea
for a bit.
Now, it is not shocking
to me that we have done this in our society and even our churches. After all,
the word Χρίστος (Christos, usually transliterated as “Christ” but more so
translates to “Messiah”) is the word that has the meaning of Savior, and that word can be applied
to many figures depending on perspective and context. First century people did
the exact same thing. The Prince of Peace was born into a world that was
absolutely drenched in violence caused by messiah figures.
In the Old Testament,
God is the people’s Savior and Deliverer. Sometimes He uses figures to help in
this, but it is always by His hand that victory comes. Some of these secondary figures go awry
from time to time though. Gideon ends up seeking personal vengeance,
worshipping idols, and using unethical means of warfare despite such humble and
God filled beginnings. Although we usually paint him as a hero in VBS, Samson was no more than a brute who engaged in all kinds of inappropriate behavior
and even at the end of his life, seeks personal glory instead of glory for God (Judges 16:28).
In between the Old and
New Testaments, one of the most significant things to happen in Jewish history
was what a man named Judas Maccabee (literally “the hammer”) accomplished. Under him, the single most successful Jewish
revolt (at least since the days when God was delivering the Israelites by His own hand) was
achieved. Under the Maccabees, the Jews were able to throw off their Greek
oppressors. The Maccabees eventually start turning on their own people, but
nevertheless, their success “would shape the way Jewish people in Jesus’s day
would understand – and anticipate – the kingdom of God” (Sprinkle, 115).
Many messiah figures
heralded themselves even in Jesus’s lifetime and afterwards. I could go into
the details of these men’s exploits, but they can be summed as essentially
being about throwing off Roman (no longer Greek) oppression in order to bring
back God’s kingdom, sometimes claiming to be prophets, but always showing
themselves as saviors to the people. They pretty much all failed though.
This was the first
century understanding of what it meant to be a messiah ushering in God’s
kingdom. Enter a Jewish carpenter from a small town who taught people to “turn
the other cheek” and “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Who could possibly
take this “Messiah” seriously?
There are many times
when Jesus would inform people NOT to
tell other people that He was the Messiah. Why would He do this? Because the
term itself, as well as what bringing God’s kingdom to earth meant, had been
incredibly tinted by the blood drawn by Maccabean swords.
Jesus would redefine
what Kingdom and Messiah meant. When asked by Pilate if Jesus was a king, Jesus
replied that “My kingdom is not of
this world. If my kingdom were of
this world, my servants would have been fighting,
that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the
world” (John 18:36).
Now, Jesus isn’t
referring to some metaphysical, spiritual thing when He said “not of this
world”, instead he is saying that in His kingdom, the citizens do not act in
the same way that the world does. The same use of “the world” is found
elsewhere, such as “do not love the world,” not meaning the actual world but
the socially constructed systems of the world (Sprinkle, 2013).
In Jesus’s definition of
God’s kingdom, there is no fighting for it the way that the world does or the
Maccabees did.
This is why it bothers
me when we “fight” for religious freedom, or for anything really, through either violence or political
means. Jesus had absolutely no intention of overthrowing Rome (a government far
more oppressive than ours has ever been). Instead He challenged it
ideologically through concepts such as social stratification, treatment of the
outcast, economics, and the idea that enemies are to be loved.
Fact is, while we are
busy bleeding while fighting our enemies in order to obtain or maintain
religious freedom, Christ is bleeding in order to make our enemies whole.
There is nothing more
noble than sacrificing one’s life for others, because that is what Christ did.
However, Jesus wanted to differentiate himself from the other “messiahs” who
used violence in order to free people. Jesus absorbed violence into Himself in
order to save people; He never reciprocated
or perpetuated it.
I realize that some of this is provocative. As always, feel free to hit me up and we can dialogue about all this. However, let this marinate and permeate your brain so that God's truth, not mine, America's, or even your local church's truth, can be how we think. May we always seek to sharpen one another.
Work Cited:
Sprinkle, Preston. Fight: A Christian Case for Nonviolence. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2013. Print.
