John 4:46-53 Reflection

In this verse of the bible it says how Jesus cured an official's son by telling him to believe that his son will be okay. How may it differ if Jesus were to be living today in modern society? Would people believe? How would they react? Why?

John 4:46-53- When Jesus returns to Cana in Galilee a royal official's son who was ill. The official asked Jesus to cure his son. Jesus than goes on and tells the official that many will not believe he can cure his son unless there is proof to back it up. Jesus tells the official to believe and his son will live. The offical leaves and begins to believing and spreading the word to his servants that his son will live. After the fever left his son everyone around him came to believe that this was a work from Jesus in curing making it yet another miracle. Without the belief in Jesus the son would never been cured. A moral lesson is being examined here and as long as people believe they will succeed.

Pleasantville & "kingdom" of God

The movie "Pleasantville" shows a town that is hinged upon on evil and accepted social structures.  The entire town is in black and white to represent conformity.  It isn't until a few characters turn "colored" that more and more citizens of Pleasantville try to fight the darkness in order to bring about a society based on more virtuous ideals.  

Just as the citizens of Pleasantville combat against flawed social institutions, Jesus wants us to oppose the "kingdom" of Satan in order to bring about the "kingdom" of God. We need to be able to challenge the social values that we are used to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_op5mpTs

Chapter 6 summary : The "Kingdom" of God

            Jesus spent much of his time liberating the poor and oppressed through his spoken word.  Chapter six of Jesus Before Christianity refers to three passages of Isaiah that convey Jesus’ attitude and feelings towards the meek

         The deaf, that day,

                        will hear the words of the book

                        and, after shadow and darkness

                        the eyes of the blind will see.

                        But the lowly will rejoice in God even more

                        and the poorest exult in the Holy One of Israel. (29:18-19)

 

                        Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

                        the ears of the deaf unsealed,

                        then the lame shall leap like a deer

                        and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy.  (35:5-6)

 

                        The spirit of the Lord has been given to me.

                        He has sent me to bring good news to the poor,

                        to heal the broken-hearted;

                        to proclaim liberty to the captives,

                        freedom to those in prison;

                        [or: to proclaim new sight to the blind,

                        to set the downtrodden free]

                        to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor.  (6:1-2*)

                       

            In these passages, the poor and oppressed are referred to as the deaf, blind, lame, poor, broken-hearted and so on.  The verbs that follow are God’s promises to the meek. They are promised restoration of sight, hearing, joy, freedom, and in general liberation.  It is important to note that proclaiming good news is a form of liberation. Jesus’ preaching was centered around bringing good news to the poor or in other words “evangelize”. The gospel or good news, which Jesus proclaimed to poor, was promising and hopeful; it was a prophecy. He prophesied the coming of God’s “kingdom” for the poor and oppressed.  The clearest example of his prophecy can be seen in the beatitudes.

                        Blessed are the poor

                        because yours is the kingdom of God.

                        Blessed are you who are hungry now

                        because you shall be satisfied.

                        Blessed are you who weep now

                        because you shall laugh. (Lk 6:20-21)

             Matthew extends the needs of his readers to those who are weak at heart or spirit.  These words undoubtely provided great hope to the poor.  However, these hopes did not have to do with the heaven because in Jesus’ time heaven was synonymous with God.  Heaven was literally thought of as the ‘resting place’ for God.  People did not think about going to heaven after death, all the dead go to sheol (the underworld of the grave)  The Christian belief in heaven came about after Jesus’ resurrection where he ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of the Father. 

            The “kingdom” of God and its characteristics are clarified in chapter six.   To help us understand we can turn to the Our Father.  To say “Thy kingdom of God” is the same as saying “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.  Perhaps the biggest mistranslation is of Lk 17:21: “The kingdom of God is within in you” rather is should read: “The kingdom of God is among you or in your midst”.  Since every other reference to the kingdom of God says it is yet to come, the verse must mean that the “kingdom” of God will suddenly be among us.  More importantly, the “kingdom” of God is not within a person but where a person can live.  Jesus speaks of the “kingdom” of God in a visual way, describing it as a walled city or a house.  Due to the fact that Jesus spoke about the “kingdom” as a city or a community we can conclude he had a politically structured society of people in mind. 

            So when and how will God’s kingdom come about?  We first need to understand that the “kingdom” is not of this world, the values of the kingdom are not in compliance with the values we hold on Earth today.  The “kingdom” of God is any less political than our society it simply is opposed to the human “kingdom” or as Jesus would say the “kingdom’ of Satan. 

Jesus condemned all political and social structures in his time and would condemn our society because our perverse and evil values belonged to Satan.  Even if there are good people on this world, evil always has the upper hand.  When God’s “kingdom” comes, God will replace Satan and all evil will be eliminated.  Jesus saw his healing and ministry work as a warfare against Satan.  He strongly believed the “kingdom” of God would reign supreme and that good would always overcome evil, the ultimate dualism.  Jesus assures us that the “kingdom” of God will come however one of the greatest and vital questions goes unanswered by him: will a great catastrophe to occur in order to bring about the "kingdom" of God

Chapter 13

Nolan begins this chapter with the fact that Jesus was persecuted just like thousands of other Jews. Jesus’ conviction was that he was inciting the people to revolt and oppose taxes. However, the question became did he? 
 
 There are two main schools of though regarding Jesus’ conviction guilty or innocent. Some (mainly the roman authorities) viewed him as a violent revolutionary attempting to over throw the Roman imperialists to attain liberation. Others claim that Jesus was an innocent pacifist that told the people to pay their taxes and love your enemies.
 
 The Jews made no distinction between Religion and Politics, so since was Jesus a heavily religious man he was also viewed as extremely political and therefore was expected to be part of the Zealot’s movement for ‘liberation’. Although he was not, the Zealots wanted to use force to remove the oppressive Romans from power and place themselves on top instead. Jesus had a fundamental problem with that plan; simply replacing the Jews for the Romans would not liberate anyone from anything and would not cause oppression to die. Jesus said warned them “Unless you change you will all be destroyed.” The Zealots could not possibly overthrow the Romans in a military battle due to their numbers. Instead, Jesus advised, “The only way to be liberated from your enemies was to love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, to pray for those who treat you badly.” Jesus’ idea for liberation went far beyond any previous conceived notion. The idea of a religious liberation to make way for the ‘Kingdom’ of God. When asked the question “Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus’ response was a shock to everyone that heard it. Jesus claimed that it was ok and good to return the property of Caesar (i.e. money) to him. He responded this way because he saw the true reason for the question. It was not out of love for God that they asked it was out of greed and the conquest for power and prestige.

 During this time, there were many class struggles of oppressors and the oppressed. One such was the upper class Jews (the Pharisees) oppressed the poor Jewish and criticized them from not being religious enough and being “unclean.” Jesus in turn criticized the Zealots along with the other upper class people for being overly religious and lacking in compassion. They were proud of their religious zeal and viewed themselves superior and that is why Jesus criticized them. Jesus looked kindly upon the sinners and the ‘unclean’ because they were humble and knew they needed redemption. Jesus foretold that the upper class Jews would be the ones excluded from the ‘Kingdom’ because of their lack of compassion and superiority complex.