-- Le Lavement des Pieds, by James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum
How is Jesus to be represented?
This is the most critical question in history. Is He to be proclaimed and presented in greatness, as greatness has been generally understood?
But does that greatness -- with all the trappings of royalty, riches, naked power, even domination and violence -- square with the Jesus we read in the Gospels? Did the character of Jesus' presence change from His earthly ministry after He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven?
Apparently, to the latter question, some indeed think so.
I do not.
The bleak life
The world of the Apostle Paul and the early church was a lot wilder than what we usually think.
People were generally pessimistic. Most people in the Graeco-Roman world of the Roman Empire (that stretched all over the Mediterranean, touching on India in the East and Ireland in the northwest), really believed that nothing was going to change. If you were born poor or enslaved, then that was the way you were going to die.
And the afterlife was just a faded existence of shadows, languishing forever underground (literally) in Hades or Tartarus.
And it was always and only meant to be. You were pre-determined by fate.
[How intriguing it is that certain of these pagan pessimisms continue on, as undying artifacts even in Christianity: fate and determinism, underground and fundamental inferno, even the idea that nuptial relations are somehow impure and disqualifying from consecration.]
This, obviously, worked out just fine for the aristocrats and princes of the day: it was an effective means to keep the lower class profitably in its place.
Secret societies and conspiracies
Well, this is just wretched stuff. So it’s not surprising at all that into this Graeco-Roman world came all sorts of imported religions, mostly from the Orient.
“Mystery religions” and cults sprouted up like mad. They promised an escape from this prison of fate and doom.
There were all sorts of wild cults that cropped up all over the Roman Empire. Most, if not all, insisted on secrecy. There were coded signs and secret gestures. There were dark rituals held in caves and way out in the countryside.
Some of these cults were called “Dionysian.” They engaged in wild drunken frenzies called “bacchanalias” (from the Greek god Dionysius, or “Bacchus” as he was known in Latin). They’d whip themselves up into excess and ecstasy, speak in tongues, and often engage in violence (occasionally, it is said, in homicide).
The Gnostic hope
On the tamer and much more civilized side was the “Gnostic movement.” This was more of a culture than a specific religion. It had its influences on the Jewish community and even in the new Christian community of the first century.
Gnostics generally believed that there was a mystical path to escape the cold hard fate of the dark world. Maybe, if one could grasp a “knowledge” (ie., “gnosis,” hence “Gnostic”) of the way things really are – not the “fake news” of what everyone else knew – then one could pass through a whole sequence of levels and gates and tollhouses from this present darkness up and up and up to “The One.”
I don’t wish to demean this Gnostic desire. It is a valid one. It is a rejection of that horrid despairing culture of fate and oppression.
But the problem of Gnosticism, aside from its rejection of the Incarnation, was that it left the rest of Creation behind. It was essentially individualistic. There was little regard for the neighbor and the neighborhood. There was little to no care at all about the land and the animals, the rest of the people and the world.
Gnosticism was very much a “religion of escape.”
I’m sure you’re already thinking this: “Holy smokes, nothing much has changed. We’ve got mystery religions and gnostics all around us today.”
Indeed. There are all sorts of Christian communities that are “religions of escape.” Conspiracy theories are the “mystery religions” of today that dismiss common civility and rationality as “fake news.” We’ve got loads of secret societies – real ones, not just online – that promise to whisper, in your ear, the “way things really are.”
The new society
So when the Christian Gospel entered the scene, starting about 33 AD, it was viewed very much as another Gnostic Jewish sect.
It’s true. Christians were considered by the Roman Empire as Jewish until about 70 AD. At that time, the Jews rejected Christians because they did not join them in the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans. And thus the Romans, because of this rejection, considered the Christian movement an illegal religion and began to persecute them. Why? Because the Christian community refused to join in with the Graeco-Roman crowd of a thousand gods, where every religion was counted as valid, just as long as you considered the Roman Emperor a god, too, and burned incense in front of his statue.
Because the Christians refused to become part of this polytheistic civil religion of the Roman Empire, they were called “atheists.”
I’m not kidding.
Signs and wonders
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In this first century especially, the proclamation of the Gospel was often accompanied by “signs and wonders.” There were many miracles of dramatic healings and exorcisms.
These signs were mainly shown to demonstrate that this Christian movement was an extension of the Gospel ministry of Jesus Christ Himself. He was indeed sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and through the Holy Spirit He was enacting the Kingdom of God through His Body, the Church.
There is nothing like “signs and wonders” to attract a crowd or create a movement. Great men have always used spectacle to gain power.
A man named Simon Magus (ie, “the Great One”) was performing spectacle in the land of Samaria (north of Judea) in Acts 8.9-24. He heard Philip (of the Seventy) preach the Gospel and believed and was baptized.
Then, after he saw the “signs and great miracles performed” by Philip and the Apostles Peter and John, he actually had the chutzpah to go up to the apostles, offer them money, and say “Give me also this power” (Acts 8.19).
He found that you don’t say things like that to real apostles, the true representatives of the true King. “Your silver perish with you,” the Apostle Peter said, “because youth thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God” (Acts 8.20-21).
Simon Magus thought Christianity was expanding through greatness, through spectacle, and he wanted to get in on the ground floor of this new powerful scheme.
But he was way off the mark.
The golden rule
In the Body of Christ, in the only true Kingdom with the only true King, one doesn’t succeed through performing spectacle and get powerful by manipulating crowds.
One becomes great by being the least. One becomes first by being last.
Because the Master Himself, Jesus Christ, came to serve, not to be served. He denied Himself, and poured out His life as a ransom for many.
Christianity is about meekness, poverty in spirit. It is only about peacemaking and proclaiming God’s forigveness and mercy, and giving forgiveness.
Christianity is opposite from and upside down to everything we are used to in the world. We don’t take an eye for an eye (ie., lex talionis). We don’t be nice to our friends and rotten to our enemies. We don’t harbor grudges, keep long accounts, and take revenge.
Jesus tells us to do good despite our getting done bad by. “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return … Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6.35-36).
The great man theory
There is a “Great Man” theory in the writing of history. Many historians believe that the history of civilization is ushered by “Great Men” who move mighty peoples and events. These men might be good and wonderful like Jesus, Buddha, and Confucius, or awful and bad like Hitler, Stalin, Orbán, and Mussolini – what matters in this theory is that Great Men forcefully make a big impact on the way things really work.
Christianity completely disagrees. We reject the “Great Man” theory in the Body of Christ. We don’t need heroes or illustrious men. We do not bow and scrape before kings or despots. We are not impressed by power and celebrity. We don’t pay particular heed, certainly not favoritism, to the rich and to the aristocracy:
“Not many of you were powerful, not many were of noble birth” (1 Corinthians 1.26).
“Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you into court?” (James 2.5-6).
The Great Man theme of history is a symptom of authoritarian ideology that is infecting the world, as all sorts of people are relapsing into fan clubs for Strong Men like Stalin in today’s Russia, Franco in today’s Spain, Mussolini in today’s Italy, even Hitler in nationalistic cults all over today’s world.
So much agony has been inflicted, so much blood has been spilled, in the self-promotion campaigns of the Great Man. How much abuse, how much propaganda and cultism has been erected by sycophantic structures for the sake of protecting and enabling the power of the authoritarian? The world reels.
True greatness
Authority and leadership in Christianity is totally the opposite of the Strong Man. Christian authority and headship go only in the way of servanthood, of self-emptying (ie, kenosis), of self-denial and bearing one’s own Cross …
… of following in the way of Jesus, Who thought His equality with God the Father as something not to be grasped (Philippians 2.6), but instead, “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (2.8).
The symbol of Christian authority is not in a crown nor a sword, not kingly robes and thrones or majestic edifices.
The symbol of Christian authority – true greatness – is Jesus washing the feet of His friends, on the way to Golgotha.
Enter the Apostle Paul. He worked tirelessly and at great pain and self-sacrifice (2 Corinthians 11.23-29), just like the Risen Christ told him to on the Damascus Road (Acts 9).
It is a little-known fact that Christianity, at the time, had a lot of poor representatives. There were many like Simon Magus who subscribed to the Great Man Theory, and tried to apply it to themselves.
They were the “super apostles” that St Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 11.5. These Great Men were not the real Apostles of the Twelve or of the Seventy. They were instead poseurs – self-anointed celebrity preachers who loved fame and celebrity. Many of them – and I know this is hard to believe – actually call themselves “super apostles.”
Today’s “super apostles” (and we've got them by the hundreds) love huge venues and slickly produced variety shows and televised extravaganzas (eg, the hideously called “New Apostolic Reformation” movement), so they didn’t disappear after St Paul.
They did a lot of boasting, of self-promotion. They preached unceasingly about their special hyper-spiritual experiences. They spoke in tongues. They ginned up the crowd. They even performed miracles.
They were mightily impressive. They were Great Men indeed. And they raked in the cash.
The Weak Man Theory
Only at this point, in this context, can we understand the odd, arresting words of the Apostle Paul: “I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 12.1).
The Apostle Paul, too, had visions, just like the Super Apostles. He had been “caught up” (ie, “raptured”) into the same heavenly worship as would the Apostle John later on in Revelations. He too heard things that he couldn’t really understand and certainly could not articulate.
But St Paul said that he could not really “boast” or self-promote or brag (because that’s what self-promotion is) about visions and ecstasies at all.
Instead, what St Paul actually could boast about was not his strength or greatness, but his weakness.
“I don’t want anyone to think more of me than he sees in me or hears in me” (2 Corinthians 12.6). That is perfect congruence. That is the total opposite of hypocrisy.
That is also outright foolishness in real-world politics. That kind of thinking will get you nowhere in power and wealth. That is not the way to become a celebrity or influencer on TikTok or Instagram.
And then St Paul doubles down on this anti-Strong-Man anti-common-sense:
“And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too enthusiastic” (2 Corinthians 12.7).
This is hardly the stuff of charismatic religion, hardly ecstatic. This is not dionysian enthusiasm at all, not the stuff you hear in rallies or crusades.
Who knows what the thorn is? There have been many theories. For my part, I’m pretty sure that it was bouts of severe depression – and who could blame Paul for these, as he had to contend with memories of his own persecution of the Christian Church that he now loved, that he lived for, and that he was suffering and dying for?
Three times St Paul begged for relief from this torn. Three times -- despite the fact that the Apostle had gone up into the third heaven and had started many churches and had performed miracles and written the Epistles that would forever structure Christian doctrine.
God had other ideas: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 6.8).
In the Body of Christ, Christ can only be King once we resign from the throne of self. The Holy Spirit – which is the Comforting Kingdom of God – will fill a soul, a psyche, only when it is no longer stuffed by ideology and idolatry.
“I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses,” the Apostle said, against all the histories of the world, “so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 6.9).
The Apostle Paul utterly rejected the Strong Man Myth.
He subscribed, instead, to the Weak Man Theory.
“But God forbid that I should glory,” he wrote to the Galatians, “save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6.14).
There was never, nor ever will there be, any greater weakness than crucifixion, far worse than any weakness inflicted by a thorn.
Yet at that very point, the "still point of the turning world," is that singularity, precisely when and where, God revealed his greatest power, His greatest Sign and Wonder of all time, that He is indeed and only Love.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
✾
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