I forgot to mention in my last post that in my head John the Baptist is Samuel L. Jackson. If that helps set the scene as I see it then all the better. So here we are, mad-man John (played by Mr Jackson) has been a ranting and raving about the coming of a saviour and then Jesus rocks up gets baptised in some quirky right-of-passage, then the Holy Spirit joins the party and God proclaims (loudly or quietly) that he's happy for Jesus to go ahead and get on with the proceedings.
I wonder what the Holy Spirit that descended looked like exactly. Matthew describes it as 'like a dove' but also says that it is 'lighting on him'. I don't know how you would identify that as a holy spirit or how you would decide to call it that, maybe Jesus gave some insight.
So Jesus follows the spirit in it's dove/spotlight form in the desert. After 40 days and 40 nights of not eating or drinking he's tempted by "The Tempter" (Matt 4:3). With the power of scripture knowledge alone Jesus repels this threat by spouting sound reasoning. I don't know about you but if I don't eat or drink for 40 minutes I start hallucinating so I would say that it is entirely possible Jesus could have gone a bit loopy from breathing in too much sand after 40 days. But what strikes me as more interesting is that Jesus went alone, that's part of the point - that he was alone in the desert with no food and drink. So the only account of these events would be his own and Matthew the Tax collector laps it up. A man walks out of the desert over a month after he wanders in following a spot light, says he was tempted by the devil but resisted and that angels looked after him and this logical number cruncher hears the tale and runs with it. Must have been the way he told it!
After stopping briefly to fulfil yet another prophesy Jesus decides it's time. This is it. Jesus is ready to teach. This is big, Jesus, Son of God, teacher of teachers, is ready to give his first advice to the world. What pearl of wisdom did he hit them with? "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." (Matt 4:17). Wow. I bet that was a refreshing change for the punters. I bet afterwards he wished he had just waited a little while and thought about what his first lesson was gonna be so as to sound less like the preacher with the sandwich board that stands in the city centre (that's downtown for you american folk). But I guess he had 30 odd years to come up with his first lesson so maybe that was exactly what he wanted to say - I guess it's direct to the point!
Back to those prophesies for moment. He's getting through them pretty quickly! Matthew being the facts man he appears to be is very keen to point out every two seconds that pretty much everything Jesus does was fore told at some point. The cynic in me wants to say yeah well the prophesies would be well known and you could certainly go about trying to ensure you fulfilled a lot of them. But this is an impressive rate of completion by anyones standards. I'm not gonna go researching the exact ins and outs of the prophesies but suffice to say I'm impressed.
Ok, back to the story. No man is an island and Jesus needs some cronies, so one day when he's walking along the beach and spots two guys and he decides these guys are gonna be his new best mates. Humour me for a minute. You're a fisherman, it's all you know, one day so chap struts up and says 'alright lads, come with me and I'll help you do something more with you life', so you jump up and go...?! No. You think 'cheers mate but I'm pretty good at this finishing lark and you're a bit odd.' But no, they just up and go. Maybe he gave them a tenner and a portion of chips to sweeten the deal? As if that wasn't strange enough the same thing happens again when he ask two more guys! I bet Zebedee was really pleased that his two sons wandered off to follow this loon, leaving him with nets to fix and debts to pay (to one of matts mates) (that's totally made up Zebedee may or may not have been rolling in dosh). It's an impressive skill though, to ask folk to leave their lives and follow you and for them to just do it. Maybe he asked loads of people and they all turned him down but he just decided not to tell anyone.
Jesus goes about teaching and healing people (Matt 4:23). Matty boy is very blasé about the whole performance of Jesus' first miracles, he doesn't even say that anyone else was amazed, I guess healers were two-a-penny back then. He does say that it was enough to get Jesus a following though which set him up for something that every christian in the world loves to rave about - his hiking expedition.
Last weekend myself and the Manvas crew took a little hiking trip out to the Malvern hills to do manly things like make snow angels and snow babies and to admire the pretty foliage, it was really good to get out of the hustle and bustle of life with a few mates and get up high to gain some perspective. Jesus was a hiking man too, so to get away from the crowds he climbed a hill and waited for the boys to arrive. If they weren't in Galilee they probably would have made snow angels too - they could even have asked Joseph what the real one looked like. Now it's time for Jesus to flex those teaching muscles, I bet he wishes he'd come up with this sermon for his first venture into teaching but hey - nobody's perfect ;)
I've never been a fan of The Beautitudes (Matt 5:1-11). I think my problem extends from my least favourite hymn verse, from 'All things bright and beautiful' : "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, god made them high or lowly and ordered their estate". What I hate about it is that it effectively translates to 'ok so you're poor, but don't go being jealous of the rich or being angry at the injustice, this is how god made your life so put up and shut up' which I think is a terrible message that leaves the masses open to all sorts of exploitation by people in 'authority'. This was also how I always viewed The Beautitudes and I think it's all down to the word 'meek'. The meek shall inherit the earth is pretty much the most quoted part of the this chapter. Now to me 'meek' means spineless, weak, submissive - see where my line of thought is going?
But to read them properly shows that it's not like this at all. It took a sharp (virtual) punch to the nose from a friend for me to actually consider them properly. You see, before I always thought that Jesus was saying people with these attributes are the people god likes most, the people who will get to go to heaven, therefore be more like these people: more meek etc. But I'm not so sure that's the case at all. Maybe Jesus was saying that these are the people who will most benefit from what he has to bring to the table. These people will feel blessed because all of their short fallings and all of their problems and frustrations will be resolved, maybe he isn't saying be more meek so you feel more blessed, but that is you do feel meek then you're about to be blessed with a great relief. Maybe.
So that's where I'll leave it for today. Oh so much more to come from The Sermon in the Malverns, I mean On The Mount. If you wanna laugh the following link is a clip of one of my favourite films, based on said sermon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDmMBIyfsU. Don't forget - "Blessed are the cheesemakers"...
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Monday, 9 February 2009
Ladies and Gentlemen I give you The New Testament
Some time after finishing reading Matthew I realised that my thought process is very much an 'in the moment' thing and that all the things I had thought of to say were long gone. So I restarted. This time I will be writing as I go. I'm actually really pleased I started over because it has been pointed out to me that I was looking at this book all wrong, well not all wrong, but I certainly wasn't looking at all of it. I changed Jesus' voice in my head so now he sounds more like that guy everyone knows who almost never raises his voice and some how can say the harshest thing to you without offending. But we'll get to Jesus in a minute because he's kinda mute for a little while.
I don't know if Matthew knew he was writing the first book of the New Testament, or even if there was an order set for a reason, but whether he knew it or not Matthew's book was to become the first. It was probably for the best that he didn't know, after all how would you start the first installment of something that has to tell everyone in the nicest way possible that the game has changed and that your position on the board isn't where it used to be and a lot of the rules have changed?
I don't know if I expected an introduction along the lines of "Hi everyone, my name is Matthew and I used to be a tax collector... this is the story of Jesus..." but it certainly isn't there. No instead Matthew welcomes everyone to the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a list of his geneology. I'm sure it's a really important point to a lot of people but it's not the way to draw your readers in. I think this says two things about Matthew. Firstly he's no writer. It's probably a good thing, a writer would be easily tempted to twist truth to make good stories or bury the truths in clever constructions and styles. It leads me to believe that what Matthew writes is pretty much just his thoughts on paper, he has what he wants to say and he writes it. Secondly he doesnt have time for small talk. He just jumps straight into listing a names of ancestors like he can't wait to get it off his chest, maybe he thought that was he was writing was so important that he just couldn't wait to share it. Either way, he opens his account with a list - like every good tax man.
So what is it that Matthew is so desperate to say?
Well the second chapter describes Jesus's birth and all about how his parents hid him from herod... you know, the nativity stuff. What strikes me is how short work Matthew makes of it. I dunno about you but to me a Virgin birth, Joseph's acceptance of it, multiple angel visits, tricking a powerful ruler and hiding the messiah in exile are pretty big deals but Matty boy covers it all in what 20 sentances?! In Matt's eyes it was clearly worth a mention but not worth wasting too much time on. He wanted to get on to something bigger, so do I, so lets go. One thing I notice is that Matthew isn't an emotions man - he never says "Joseph was pretty upset that his virgin wife was pregnant" he's a facts man. OK onward.
John Prepares the Way. Now Matt doesn't appear to feel the need to explain the passage of time between his brief run over Jesus' birth and his baptism except to mention John the Baptist. Reading about John I'm left wondering what would happen if some crazy fellow started ranting and raving in the 'wilderness' today, eating insects and dipping folk in water. Scary cult stuff. I doubt people would travel from all over the region to join in. I'd probably look it up on youtube though, so maybe if there were no youtube I would make a trip to see him just to see the spectacle. It appears he doesnt have a very high regard to religious leaders either, he's certainly got balls this fella. But how did John know this baptism lark? did it come to him in a dream? Did he just decide 'I think i will dip folk in water and say some magic words to prepare them for Jesus' arrival'? Matt doesnt know, nor care because he's working up to this...
So Jesus rocks up. As I said Matthew doesnt bother saying how long it's been or what Jesus has been up to but I'm reliably informed he's about 30. Another fortunate thing for me is that I spoke to Rach before writing this and learnt that J the B was infact Jesus' cousin. That's good news because I was ready to go off wondering how John immediately knows who Jesus is when he arrives. John doesnt wanna baptise him - fair enough in the circumstances, I wouldnt wanna give tennis lessons to Rapha Nedal either - but Jesus insists with the words "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." (Matt 3:15). Welcome to cryptic Jesus, it's all down hill from here. Maybe the 30 year gap was spent thinking up confusing ways to say things! in order to fulfill righteousness? Like some gateway Jesus has to pass through to become super-jesus. Maybe it was an instruction before he left the house:
God : "Now, have you got everything?"
Jesus : "Yes Dad"
God: "Do you remember the plan?"
Jesus: "Yes Dad"
God: " Oh one more thing, before you do all those things we had planned first you have to spend thirty years growing up not doing too much, then when you're ready go get baptised, then if I'm happy and I think you're ready we can go from there"
(God played by Brian Blessed, Jesus by that ginger guy from Love Actually and the BT adverts)
Either way it seems to me like it was a sign that he was ready for the big stuff, to start he teaching. Afterwards the 'rises out of the water' maybe that means gets out of, maybe it means flys, and God speaks. How loud do you suppose god speaks? When he says "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." do you suppose that it was just enough for John and the surrounding folk to hear? I mean God's gotta be pretty loud for his voice to get down here. Just a thought.
Ok so this post was pretty dull, but it gets better I promise. More to come very soon!
I don't know if Matthew knew he was writing the first book of the New Testament, or even if there was an order set for a reason, but whether he knew it or not Matthew's book was to become the first. It was probably for the best that he didn't know, after all how would you start the first installment of something that has to tell everyone in the nicest way possible that the game has changed and that your position on the board isn't where it used to be and a lot of the rules have changed?
I don't know if I expected an introduction along the lines of "Hi everyone, my name is Matthew and I used to be a tax collector... this is the story of Jesus..." but it certainly isn't there. No instead Matthew welcomes everyone to the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a list of his geneology. I'm sure it's a really important point to a lot of people but it's not the way to draw your readers in. I think this says two things about Matthew. Firstly he's no writer. It's probably a good thing, a writer would be easily tempted to twist truth to make good stories or bury the truths in clever constructions and styles. It leads me to believe that what Matthew writes is pretty much just his thoughts on paper, he has what he wants to say and he writes it. Secondly he doesnt have time for small talk. He just jumps straight into listing a names of ancestors like he can't wait to get it off his chest, maybe he thought that was he was writing was so important that he just couldn't wait to share it. Either way, he opens his account with a list - like every good tax man.
So what is it that Matthew is so desperate to say?
Well the second chapter describes Jesus's birth and all about how his parents hid him from herod... you know, the nativity stuff. What strikes me is how short work Matthew makes of it. I dunno about you but to me a Virgin birth, Joseph's acceptance of it, multiple angel visits, tricking a powerful ruler and hiding the messiah in exile are pretty big deals but Matty boy covers it all in what 20 sentances?! In Matt's eyes it was clearly worth a mention but not worth wasting too much time on. He wanted to get on to something bigger, so do I, so lets go. One thing I notice is that Matthew isn't an emotions man - he never says "Joseph was pretty upset that his virgin wife was pregnant" he's a facts man. OK onward.
John Prepares the Way. Now Matt doesn't appear to feel the need to explain the passage of time between his brief run over Jesus' birth and his baptism except to mention John the Baptist. Reading about John I'm left wondering what would happen if some crazy fellow started ranting and raving in the 'wilderness' today, eating insects and dipping folk in water. Scary cult stuff. I doubt people would travel from all over the region to join in. I'd probably look it up on youtube though, so maybe if there were no youtube I would make a trip to see him just to see the spectacle. It appears he doesnt have a very high regard to religious leaders either, he's certainly got balls this fella. But how did John know this baptism lark? did it come to him in a dream? Did he just decide 'I think i will dip folk in water and say some magic words to prepare them for Jesus' arrival'? Matt doesnt know, nor care because he's working up to this...
So Jesus rocks up. As I said Matthew doesnt bother saying how long it's been or what Jesus has been up to but I'm reliably informed he's about 30. Another fortunate thing for me is that I spoke to Rach before writing this and learnt that J the B was infact Jesus' cousin. That's good news because I was ready to go off wondering how John immediately knows who Jesus is when he arrives. John doesnt wanna baptise him - fair enough in the circumstances, I wouldnt wanna give tennis lessons to Rapha Nedal either - but Jesus insists with the words "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." (Matt 3:15). Welcome to cryptic Jesus, it's all down hill from here. Maybe the 30 year gap was spent thinking up confusing ways to say things! in order to fulfill righteousness? Like some gateway Jesus has to pass through to become super-jesus. Maybe it was an instruction before he left the house:
God : "Now, have you got everything?"
Jesus : "Yes Dad"
God: "Do you remember the plan?"
Jesus: "Yes Dad"
God: " Oh one more thing, before you do all those things we had planned first you have to spend thirty years growing up not doing too much, then when you're ready go get baptised, then if I'm happy and I think you're ready we can go from there"
(God played by Brian Blessed, Jesus by that ginger guy from Love Actually and the BT adverts)
Either way it seems to me like it was a sign that he was ready for the big stuff, to start he teaching. Afterwards the 'rises out of the water' maybe that means gets out of, maybe it means flys, and God speaks. How loud do you suppose god speaks? When he says "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." do you suppose that it was just enough for John and the surrounding folk to hear? I mean God's gotta be pretty loud for his voice to get down here. Just a thought.
Ok so this post was pretty dull, but it gets better I promise. More to come very soon!
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