Perspective: The Message Within the Message

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The Message Within the Message

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?  Or what will they give in return for their life?"

Matthew 25:24-26 (NRSV)

When all around me starts to fall

And when my faith it seems so small

Even in my darkest hour, I will believe

From "Believe" by Mainstay

By the time Jesus began His public ministry, a rather eccentric prophet named John had already sparked a revival in the area.¹  He challenged people to rethink their lives and change their ways.  He lived in the wilderness, and he baptized the people who came to him as a sign of their repentance.  People began to wonder if this strange prophet was the Messiah, the one who would liberate the Jewish people from Roman occupation and usher in an age of peace and prosperity, but he always spoke of one yet to come who was greater than he.²

One day, Jesus himself goes to the Jordan River to be baptized.  After He is baptized, He kneels down to pray, and, while He is praying, the heavens are ripped open.  The Holy Spirit descends from heaven and lands on Him in the form of a dove.  Then God the Father calls down from heaven with a very important message for Jesus.³

You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.

I delivered a sermon about this story, as told in the Gospel of Luke, three years ago at my home church, in which I suggest that what God says to Jesus is something we all need to hear.  When a familiar story like this comes around again, it is often a challenge for me to read it with fresh eyes, as I tend to fall back on on what I have already observed.  Luckily, I recently purchased up a copy of biblical scholar William Barclay's commentary on the Gospel of Luke at a used book store.  I figured it would come in handy since the Lectionary, which guides my daily Bible reading, focuses heavily on Luke's Gospel this year.  I was glad that I had picked up this book, because what Dr. Barclay wrote about this story blew my mind.

It seems that, hidden within God's message to Jesus, there is a second, more-subtle message only someone who is very familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures would notice.  God's first declaration, "You are my Son, the Beloved," would have called to mind the second Psalm, which is written from the perspective of God's "anointed."

I will tell of the decree of the Lord:

He said to me, "You are my son;

today I have begotten you."⁴

The Hebrew word for "anointed" is mashiyach, from which we get the word messiah.⁵  The Jewish people had been waiting for a Messiah who would save them from oppression, and John understood himself to be the one who prepared the way for this Messiah.

God's second declaration - "With you I am well pleased" - would have called to mind the Book of Isaiah, which contains four songs about a certain servant of God.  A similar declaration is found in the first of these servant songs.

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,

my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

I have put my spirit upon him;

he will bring forth justice to the nations.⁶

The fourth of these servant songs describes the suffering that this servant will have to endure on behalf of others.  The song describes him as "a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity" who was "wounded for our transgressions" and "crushed for our iniquities."⁷  Because of this, this servant of God is sometimes known as the "Suffering Servant."

God's message for Jesus is both beautiful and profound at the surface level, but the message within the message is that Jesus is both the long-awaited Messiah and the Suffering Servant.⁸  God is basically saying to Jesus, "You will save Your people, but You will suffer on their behalf."

This hidden message casts what happens next in the Gospel story in a new light.

Jesus immediately goes into the wilderness to process everything that has just happened, and the enemy begins to whisper in His ear.  Jesus is hungry because He has been fasting, so the enemy suggests that He use His divine power to transform stones into bread.  Jesus refuses.  The enemy then shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and offers Him world domination if He will only swear allegiance to him.  Again, Jesus refuses.  Finally the enemy whisks Jesus away to the highest part of the Temple and suggests that He jump and allow angels to catch Him.  That would prove to everyone watching that He indeed came from God.  For a third time, Jesus refuses, and the enemy leaves.⁹

Basically, the devil tries to get Jesus to avoid suffering by taking the easy way out.  Turning stones into bread would be an easy way for Him to avoid the pain of hunger.  Summoning angels as proof His divinity would be an easy way for Him to avoid the pain of rejection.  Exchanging His allegiance for world domination would be an easy way for Him to avoid the pain and humiliation He would inevitably experience on the cross.  Later on, Jesus tells His disciples that someday He will have to suffer and die, and one of the disciples tells Him that they won't let this happen to Him.  Jesus then says to him, "Get behind me, Satan!"  Satan was, after all, the one who tried to get Jesus to avoid suffering.¹⁰

We cannot rightly say that Jesus was "tempted" in the wilderness unless the devil's suggestions weren't at least somewhat appealing to Him.  Jesus was fully divine, but He was also fully human.  Humans generally don't want to suffer, and Jesus was no exception to the rule, as evidenced by the fact that, as the time nears for Him to face the cross, He prays, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me."¹¹  Even so, Jesus refuses the path of least resistance and rejects all easy answers, remaining true to Himself and true to His calling.

So often, people turn to faith as a means to escape suffering, and, for many, Christianity is little more than a "Get out of Hell Free" card.  Such people are in for a big disappointment, for sometimes faith actually brings us face-to-face with suffering.  Jesus even says that following Him means taking up a cross.  This cross is not some symbol we wear around our necks to show off our spirituality; it is the suffering we will face for doing what is right.  A life of faith is not for the pain avoidant.  In our recent history, was there anyone more saintly than Mother Teresa?  For much of her life, she secretly felt the absence of God.  She served God by tending to the suffering people in Calcutta, but she was secretly suffering herself.¹²

So why in the world would anyone choose to endure suffering if it could possibly be avoided?

Consider for a moment the word passion.  Usually we associate the word passion with love.  When someone loves a cause, we say that she is passionate about it.  When two people are deeply in love with each other, we say that there is passion between them.  The original meaning of the word passion is "suffering."¹³  When we speak of the passion of Christ, we are referring to His suffering on the cross.  These two connotations are very different but are not unrelated: people are willing to suffer for something or someone they love deeply.  Love makes the suffering worth it.  Consider the champions of civil rights like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela who suffered greatly so that other people could live better lives.

The word passion is also the root for the word compassion.  Compassion is a deeply felt awareness and concern for the suffering of another person or, more literally, suffering alongside another person.¹⁴  Jesus is the ultimate example of compassion.  In Him, we see that God is not only aware of our suffering but also suffers alongside us, for we see, in Him, that God took on human flesh and entered into our suffering.  In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Only a suffering God can help."

The Gospel story does not end with Christ's suffering on a cross: it ends with an empty tomb.  Christ also suffered to show us that, as Frederick Buechner would say, "The worst thing is never the last thing."

Life entails suffering, and the life of faith is not exempt from suffering.  The one who calls us to follow Him chose to endure suffering, refusing to take the easy way out, all because of His love for humanity.  He suffered, died, and rose again to show us that we are not alone in our suffering and to show us that suffering is not the end of the story.  We follow in Christ's example by showing compassion to others and by putting aside our own comfort for the sake of others.


Notes:

1. William Barclay.  The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition.  1975, Westminster Press.  p. 37
2. Luke 3:1-20
3. Luke 3:21-22 (NRSV)
4. Psalm 2:7 (NRSV), emphasis added
5. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H4899&t=RSV
6. Isaiah 42:1 (NRSV), emphasis added
7. Isaiah 53:3,5 (NRSV)
8. Barclay, p. 38
9. Luke 4:1-13
10. Matthew 16:21-23 (NRSV)
11. Luke 22:39-46 (NRSV)
12. Peter Rollins.  Insurrection: To Believe is Human, to Doubt, Divine.  2011, Howard Books.  pp. 157-160
13. Wiktionary: Passion
14. Wiktionary: Compassion

Bautismo de Cristo was painted by Juan Fernández de Navarrete around 1567.