{"id":129,"date":"2012-04-21T23:36:26","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T06:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/?p=129"},"modified":"2022-06-28T09:57:54","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T16:57:54","slug":"jesus-and-his-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/jesus-and-his-message\/ ","title":{"rendered":"Jesus And His Message"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jesus, the Jesus of history, the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth, the Jesus who was raised by his parents Joseph and Mary, the one who grew up as all good Jewish boys did memorizing the Torah<\/a>, attending the synagogue and pilgrimaging to the temple<\/a>; this Jesus began his public ministry with a simple announcement, “The Kingdom of God is near<\/em>!”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Vittore<\/a>
Vittore Carpaccio, Vocazione Di San Matteo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

For Jesus of Nazareth, from that point on forward, what began as his opening announcement remained his central message in all that he said and did.  He stayed on course with his Kingdom of God<\/a> motif right through to the very end of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this was Jesus’ main message then we might ask: “What is the Kingdom of God?”<\/em> and “how is it near (at hand)?<\/em>” Many did ask Jesus these questions and other questions just like them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Jesus had a peculiar way<\/em> of communicating his message when people would ask their questions. Many times he simply answered people’s questions with another question<\/em>.. He had a way of seeing behind people’s questions to something deeper and quite revealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also wasn’t nearly as literal and precise as we are today. Our modern sensibilities seem to prefer describing things in more of a straight forward and direct approach.  In contrast, Jesus chose to explain his message through simile and short stories called parables. Jesus went about saying such things like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kingdom of  God is like a mustard seed<\/strong>..<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kingdom of God is like yeast<\/strong> the a woman mixes into flour..<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is like a man who scatters seed<\/strong> on the ground..<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is like.<\/strong>. when a certain man was preparing  a great feast<\/strong>..<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Jesus were around today we could imagine Jesus being interviewed on the TV show Larry King Live. Larry might ask Jesus if he could explain more about his main message.  Jesus would begin explaining, “The kingdom is like<\/em> this..<\/em> or the Kingdom is like<\/em> that ..”  Larry King might ask Jesus in the closing 15 seconds of the show to simply break down his message into a headline or soundbite, something short, concise and clear. Jesus might say, “Well Larry, the Kingdom of God is like.. a..” <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You probably get the point already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been on a journey of following this Jesus. The one who was born, lived, died and resurrected a couple millennia ago. When at first I started following Jesus, it was for a variety of different reasons and motivations (I could talk to you about those reasons some time in greater detail.) The point I want to make now is that I now find myself following Jesus for a different set<\/em> of reasons. Some of the orignal reasons  remain, some have evolved, and many are brand new reasons altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paula and I have been apart of a community of people (here in Cape Town) who are learning together what it means to follow Jesus. Recently we have been learning about and deeply exploring this central message of Jesus, the Kingdom of God. There are four accounts of the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. When I first seriously started reading the story of Jesus I began in Matthew (because it was the first book in the New Testament). Matthew has Jesus going everywhere talking about the “Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>“. At the time when I first started reading Matthew some people told me that Jesus came to teach people how to get to heaven when they die. Therefore, I used to read Jesus’ parables explaining “the Kingdom of Heaven” and think that he was describing what Heaven will be like for us one day after we die and escape this earthy physical dwelling. I assumed he was talking about a place somewhere else, not here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"sermon<\/a>
Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean 19th century<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, Luke’s and Mark’s Gospel’s tells us Jesus was talking about the “Kingdom of God”. Even though these Gospels had “Kingdom of God<\/em>” instead of “Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>” I hadn’t really asked myself why the language was different in their account of things. I just assumed that all of these stories and parables were Jesus’ attempt at describing what Heaven was like and what we needed to do in order to get there<\/em> some day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally my motivations for following Jesus was more about getting to heaven, escaping this life. My hope was for a distant spiritual<\/em> place far away from this physical<\/em> place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, my motivations have been changing. I am waking up to the reality that actually Jesus wasn’t going around teaching people how to escape this world, rather he was planting creative stories in the minds and hearts of people which were explaining how God’s Kingdom was breaking into this one, the here and now, with renewing and transforming power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been discovering that Jesus’ Kingdom of God Message is about the present, not simply the future. It is about what God is doing through<\/em> us, not only what he does in and for us. Following Jesus and living for his Kingdom is not the least bit about escaping this world, rather, it is about shaping<\/em> our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Lord teaches us to pray for the reality  of God’s-realm (heaven) to become meshed with our-space (earth).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“May your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has become our prayer. May the reality\/life of heaven become reality in your life today. The Kingdom of God is at hand<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus, the Jesus of history, the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth, the Jesus who was raised by his parents Joseph and Mary, the one who grew up as all good Jewish boys did memorizing the Torah, attending the synagogue and pilgrimaging to the temple; this Jesus began his public…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,86,43,141,33],"tags":[117,116,68],"aioseo_notices":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":57,"label":"Ecclesiology"},{"value":86,"label":"Gospel"},{"value":43,"label":"Historical Jesus"},{"value":141,"label":"Kingdom of God"},{"value":33,"label":"New Testament"}],"post_tag":[{"value":117,"label":"Gospel of the Kingdom of God"},{"value":116,"label":"Jesus Message"},{"value":68,"label":"Kingdom of Heaven"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Bloch-SermonOnTheMount.jpg",536,600,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Nick","author_link":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/author\/nick"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":57,"name":"Ecclesiology","slug":"ecclesiology","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":68,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":57,"category_count":4,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Ecclesiology","category_nicename":"ecclesiology","category_parent":0},{"term_id":86,"name":"Gospel","slug":"gospel","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":128,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":10,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":86,"category_count":10,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Gospel","category_nicename":"gospel","category_parent":0},{"term_id":43,"name":"Historical Jesus","slug":"historical-jesus","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":52,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":11,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":43,"category_count":11,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Historical Jesus","category_nicename":"historical-jesus","category_parent":0},{"term_id":141,"name":"Kingdom of God","slug":"kingdom-of-god","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":141,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":141,"category_count":3,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Kingdom of God","category_nicename":"kingdom-of-god","category_parent":0},{"term_id":33,"name":"New Testament","slug":"new-testament","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":51,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":10,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":33,"category_count":10,"category_description":"","cat_name":"New Testament","category_nicename":"new-testament","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":117,"name":"Gospel of the Kingdom of God","slug":"gospel-of-the-kingdom-of-god","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":136,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":116,"name":"Jesus Message","slug":"jesus-message","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":135,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":68,"name":"Kingdom of Heaven","slug":"kingdom-of-heaven","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":80,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}