At the Cross

Have you ever tried to read the Bible as if you didn’t know what was going to happen?  For most of us, we know the ending so well, we can lose sight of it’s impact.  Consider the grand scope of the OT.  God creates everything and charges humanity with ‘bearing His image’.  Man and woman are to be the markers that testify that God rules.

In the blink of an eye, they abandon that vocation to pursue self-rule.  Did you ever notice the first few verses of Genesis 5?  God made man in His image, but then after the fall, Adam fathered Seth ‘in his own likeness, after his image‘.  God’s image bearers are now bearing their own image.  At Babel, man sought to lift himself up and make a name for himself, and failed completely.  Immediately after that, God calls Abram, and begins His own project to lift man up.

God calls on Israel to bear His name and so recapture the image bearing vocation that He desired for all mankind.  For thousands of years, the Patriarchs, Moses, and the entire nation struggle to uphold this ideal, and be God’s people.  They have the Law, and the Land, and the Temple, but they still can’t do it.  The OT ends in utter frustration and despair.  God keeps hinting that someone is going to come along and fix all of this, but we just can’t see how things could ever go back to the way that He intended.  We close on Malachi 4, as God foretells the coming of One who will turn their hearts back from destruction, and we’re not sure if we really even want to keep reading.

But then something amazing happens.  A man named Jesus begins to work and teach in Galilee.  He just seems like a regular guy.  Yet, He quickly begins to do things that belie His boring exterior!  John opens his gospel by equating Jesus with the Word; a light shining out of the darkness.  John the Baptist gives Jesus the curious nickname of ‘the Lamb of God’, apparently associating Him with the Passover; a feast commemorating the greatest day in Jewish history.  Jesus tells His fledgling disciples in John 1:51 that He is Jacob’s ladder.  A symbol that simultaneously called to mind the close connection of God and His people, and the promise God made in that vision to Jacob, that He would bring Jacob home and give him the Land.  At the next Passover, John tells us that Jesus went to the temple and drove out the merchants who preyed on the pilgrims.  When asked how He could do this, Jesus equated Himself with the Temple, and promised to rebuild what would be torn down.

Law.  Land.  Temple.

In case we don’t get that Jesus is THE image bearer of God, God tells us!  He says, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’  Finally!  At long last, someone has taken on the task of humanity.  In Jesus, God has a human who truly bears His image!  In so doing, Jesus is the most human of all of us; think about that when you have time.

So He says a lot of peculiar things, and shows off some really cool powers along the way.  We begin to learn from Him that this image bearing thing isn’t what we expected.  Some people around Him are confused that He isn’t seeking to take control and ‘act like a king’!  Others are disturbed by His teachings and His rejection of things they have taken so long to establish.  Just like so long ago, God is rejecting their mighty tower and instead going with a wandering pilgrim.

We begin to see the dark clouds forming around Jesus, and wonder what is going to happen?  When will He throw down His enemies that are even now conspiring and rule Israel?  How will this end?

And then the most unexpected thing of all!  Jesus is arrested and tried.  He doesn’t fight back; he doesn’t argue.  Evil men, totally consumed with their own power and status, execute Jesus for threatening their position.  To do this, they persuade a cold, uncaring empire that Jesus is a threat.  It doesn’t seem that Pilate is convinced, but what is one life anyway?  His followers gather at the cross in disbelief, perhaps hoping that this will be the moment where Jesus will say, ‘ENOUGH!’ and use His powers to fight.  Those that hate Him, taunt Him with a similar idea, perhaps partly nervous that He might do just that.

But He just hangs there.

He hangs there while people laugh and cry around Him.  He hangs there while His blood pours down on to the ground.  He hangs there and dies.

If that were the end of the story, I don’t think many people would read the Bible anymore.  It would have to rank right up there as one of the most depressing tales ever told.  Surely, those who believed in Him were shocked and depressed.

But there is a twist in the tail.  Jesus of Nazareth came back to life.  He came back and ate and drank, he opened hearts and minds, he built a fire and cooked, he made promises and gave His disciples their own vocation.

He is the Living Word for all time.  He rebuilt the Temple, and now all people can meet with God.  He prepares a new Land with a new Promise, that God will bring people to it to live forever.

In the end, He tells the disciples that they have a new job.  It’s their turn to be the image bearers!  It’s time for them to shine this light in the world.  How will they do this?  How will we?

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