Another Exodus
24/09/09
This is the next part after you have read Ryan's styuff on exile and empire
There is a silence for 400 years and then secretly the presence of God slips back into the world. A young girl in a backwoods village, a barren woman married to a quirky priest, a carpenter, an angel, a star, a few nomadic travellers from the east…a new king is born.
He walks into a world that has the stench of Egypt all over it.
Again there is a huge empire weighing heavily on the people of the world, never mind on God’s people. The religious system has bought into it and is walking hand in hand with it. A slaughter of baby boys seems like some horror memory from the past and yet it barely makes a ripple on the psyche of the people of its day.
Jesus Christ, the anointed one, comes with a message of a new kingdom which will be written in the heart. But it is no philosophical idea alone, it has reality and revolution built into it.
He begins his mission from a desert place, preferring the fringes and the outsiders.
He seems to be wandering with purpose around the desert fringes of Judea. As a child he even came through and from Egypt, is this another exodus?
His wanderings gather momentum along with people who are also more comfortable at the fringes –
· a prophet who is the son of a priest but who lives wild and rails at the system of religion and its false gods and godless attitudes,
· a woman caught in adultery whom he accepts rather than judges,
· a tax collector to whom he extends the jubilee principle and who then goes on to extend that principle to his clients who are under a heavy weight,
· lepers, whose greatest wound is exclusion,
· a Samaritan village which he releases from the weight of thinking that Jerusalem is the centre for worship and they cannot go there,
· a Pharisee who hides in the darkness but is desperate to find a way of living in the light,
· a centurion in whom he finds more faith than in all Israel
· a murderer who hunts down people of the new way and destroys the new community by filling it with fear and violence.
He sets up moments of enormous importance and prophetic challenge –
· he breaks Sabbath rules and sets the whole thing free,
· he feeds the people with food in the desert and tells them it is a re-run of their Sinai desert experience,
· he stands on the temple steps and when the water is poured as a memorial of water pouring from the wilderness rock he claims that he is that water.
· He institutes a water ritual that is prefigured in the crossing of the Red Sea, that will replace circumcision, that speaks of death leading to life and when exercised with faith in God actually writes the new law on the hearts of people and sets them free to live by it.
· He uses the name of God as given to Moses – the I AM – and he uses it of himself repeatedly and deliberately.
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Slowly but surely he works his way inwards until the last week of his life is spent at the core of all that has become corrupt – Jerusalem, the temple, the priesthood, the empire.
He scatters the market place of the temple. The significance of this is not lost on those who understand the scriptures.
This man is attacking the core of the system, it is not really about bad trading practice, it is about a corruption that runs deep. He sets the blind free so that they can see who he is and see the new way, yet those who can see remain blind and in the darkness.
Just like at Sinai, he institutes a festival, literally a new Passover meal with a sharing in another blood ritual which ironically requires no more blood to be spilt, the blood that is remembered will be spilt once for all for ever.
He goes face to face with the high priest and the Roman Governor, he speaks of being a king with all the authority to bring this whole thing crashing down.
They plot his death but in actual fact they plot his accession to the throne which is achieved by death and curse.
As he is enthroned on yet another mountain top he cries out the secret of the new kingdom – forgiveness and redemption, a kingdom of grace and mercy where all are welcome, even those who are in the final throes of their own execution at the hands of the empire.
Now with huge amounts of symbolism the third day becomes the new Sinai (which was also designated as the third day).
The real presence of God, no longer limited by human constraint, appears repeatedly in upper rooms and on mountain tops, on beaches and roads across deserts and intentionally and deliberately speaks of the new kingdom and how it will work.
After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God. As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but "must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon."
6When they were together for the last time they asked, "Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?"
7-8He told them, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world."
A few days later the kingdom explodes into the heart of Jerusalem on what we now call the day of Pentecost and the Sinai covenant becomes a reality.
A new community is born, a community that seems to grasp the ways of God immediately although we soon realise it is embryonic and has to go on exploring and discovering the new life and power.
That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.
43-45Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.
46-47They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.
EXILE IS DISSIPATING; BUT WILL EXODUS BECOME THE NEW REALITY?
WHAT ABOUT THE EMPIRES?
WHERE IS THIS NEW COMMUNITY?
HOW CAN THEY BE FOUND?
HOW CAN I BE PART OF IT?