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April 25, 2022

Day 5: Through Treachery Satan coils to strike

Jews have been persecuted, loathed, feared and mistreated in many ways and this is recorded both in the Bible and in history outside it. Of course, many people have experienced persecution and discrimination at the hands of other nations. But history demonstrates a tendency to inevitably target Jews in a unique way over other groups. A special word has been coined to label discrimination specifically against Jews – antisemitism. This demonstrates the enduring peculiarity of their mistreatment. But the most perplexing aspect of antisemitism is that it is not confined to one time period, one region of the world, or simply a small group of perpetrators.

A Brief List of Anti-Semetic events

For example, consider these:

The movement led by the Persian official Haman to annihilate the Jews in the ancient Persian Empire, about 480 BCE. The Book of Esther records account and it forms the basis of today’s Jewish Purim festival.
The Greek Seleucid campaign to wipe out Judaism from the Biblical land of Israel in the 160’s BCE. This then resulted in the Maccabean Wars.
The Roman destruction of, and Jewish expulsion from, Jerusalem in 70 CE to worldwide exile. Later on the Romans renamed Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina to eradicate anything Jewish from Judea.
The massacring of Jews across Europe and also in Jerusalem through the Crusades of the 1100’s and 1200’s CE.
The forcing of Jews to live in segregated and walled parts of cities across Europe. These were widespread from mid- 16th century to 19th century. These were called ‘ghettos’ and this is the historical basis for this word.
The ‘pogroms’ or massacres of Jews in 19th century and early 20th century in Imperial Russia (including Ukraine and Poland). In the pogroms thousands of Jews were killed and raped. ‘Pogrom’ is thus one of a few Russian words that came into English from this specific Russian persecution of Jews.
The Dreyfuss affair in France in 1890’s resulting in mass discrimination against Jews in France.
The expulsion of Jews from across the Arab world after 1948.
The Spanish expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492.
The British expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.
The expulsion of Jews from southern Italy in 1541.
The periodic expulsions of Jews from France, Germany, and other Kingdoms across Europe throughout Middle Ages (see map)

Medieval ghetto
Russian pogroms
Dreyfuss affair
The annihilation of Kaifeng Jews in Imperial China — Historical Expulsions of Jews across Europe

Causes of Antisemitism

But what causes antisemitism? Wikipedia, in its series on antisemitism, can show many instances of antisemitism through history and across cultures, but cannot point to a definitive cause that explains it. The difficulty with any explanation is that it cannot adequately explain both the breadth and long history of antisemitism. A racial cause might explain Nazi-derived antisemitism, but does not explain Christian antisemitism of the Middle Ages. A Christian/Judaism polemic might explain the Christian antisemitism, but it does not explain the 19^th century French antisemitism that broiled France for over a decade in the Dreyfuss affair. And then there is the ancient antisemitism of the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans.

The Bible on the root cause of Anti-Semitism

However, the Bible offers a simple and straightforward explanation for the cause behind antisemitism. It spans the Book from its beginning to end. In the beginning, after Adam & Eve’s disobedience, God pronounced a curse upon the Serpent. He then prophesied a pattern of ‘enmity’ between it and the “Woman”. That woman was not Eve but Israel. (details here)

Then, at the end of the Bible in the book of Revelation, a vision references back to that showdown. It identifies the ‘serpent’ and the ‘woman’. Here is the vision:

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ²She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. ³Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. ⁴Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. ⁵She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne…
Revelation 12: 1-5

⁹The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him…

¹³When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
Revelation 12: 9, 13

The Enmity focused particularly on the Child of the Woman

The child born of the Woman is Jesus. The Woman is the Jewish Nation, from which Jesus came. The Serpent, also called ‘the dragon’, is identified as Satan. Back in the Garden, God had said that there would be ‘enmity’ between the woman (Israel) and the serpent (Satan). History has documented the ever recurring antisemitism. That it comes from a wide variety of social conditions and perpetrator nations shows the enduring reality of this enmity.

But God also predicted enmity towards the offspring, or son, of the Woman. We see this enmity build on Thursday, Day 5 of Passion Week, when the Dragon rises to strike the Son. We have been looking at Jesus through his Jewish lens. The Bible presents him as the archetype of the Jewish Nation (synthesis of that thesis here). So it is not surprising that the Offspring of that Woman should also experience that same enmity.

Judas: Controlled by The Dragon

The Bible portrays Satan as a ruling Spirit who manipulates hatred and intrigue behind the scenes. Satan had plotted to have everyone worship him, including Jesus. When that failed, he set about to murder him, manipulating people to carry out his scheme. Satan used Judas on Day 5 to strike Jesus, just after he taught about his return. Here is the account:

Judas betraying Jesus for 30 Silver Coins

22 Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching, ²and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people.³Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. ⁴And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. ⁵They were delighted and agreed to give him money. ⁶He consented, and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present.
Luke 22: 1-6

Satan took advantage of their conflict to ‘enter’ Judas to betray Jesus. This should not surprise us. The Revelation vision describes Satan like this:

⁷Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. ⁸But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. ⁹The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Revelation 12:7-9

The Bible likens Satan to a powerful dragon cunning enough to lead the whole world astray. As that ancient serpent he now coiled to strike. He manipulated Judas to destroy Jesus as the Gospel records:

¹⁶From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
Matthew 26:16

The next day, Friday, Day 6 of the Week, was the Passover Festival. How would Satan, through Judas, strike? We see next.

Day 5 Summary

The timeline shows how on Day 5 of this week, the great dragon, Satan, coiled to strike his foe Jesus, the Seed of the Woman.

Day 5: *Satan, the Great Dragon, enters Judas to strike Jesus*

April 20, 2022

Day 4: Look to the Stars

Perhaps nobody has invited modern culture to imagine the stars like the pioneer science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and the innovative science-fiction franchise Star Trek have.

Isaac Asimov
^{_{Rochester Institute of Technology, PD-US-1978-89, via Wikimedia Commons}}

Isaac Asimov – 20th century most prominent science fiction writer

Born into a Soviet Jewish family, Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) moved with his family to the USA while still young. He was the most prolific writer of the 20th century, writing over 500 books. But he rose to fame with his science fiction writings, particularly the Foundation Series. Begun in the 1940s, the Foundation series a galaxy-spanning Empire. The Empire opposed two newer governments covering star clusters on opposite ends of the galaxy, called Foundation. The two Foundations were launched because the hero, through a fictional mathematics called psychohistory, predicted the decay of the Empire. The establishment of the Foundations would guard intergalactic civilization’s downfall. The book series has the heroes and villains blasting off between stars and planets we jet across oceans today.

20th Century most prominent Science Fiction on the screen

This imagining of inter-stellar travel went from printed pages to TV screens with the broadcasting of Star Trek. Star Trek featured William Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as First Officer Mr. Spock. They led their crew of the starship USS Enterprise into adventures across deep space as they traveled by warp speed across star systems. Shatner (1931-) and Nimoy (1931- 2015), were both born into Jewish families, only 4 days apart. Shatner was born in Canada and Nimoy in Ukraine.

These three superbly talented Jewish visionaries led the entire world to imagine stars, space travel, and mankind’s future there. In doing so, they followed their fellow Jew, Jesus, who also told us to look at the stars. However, he foretold a future cosmic sign so drastic that Asimov, Shatner, and Nimoy never visualized anything like it.

Jesus references the Stars

We are going through each day of Jesus’ final week, exploring him through his Jewish roots (synthesis here). He had uttered a Curse on Day 3, dooming his Jewish nation to desolate exile. Jesus also predicted that his curse would expire, setting in motion events closing this age. The disciples asked about this and Jesus explained. He predicted his return and how it would extinguish the stars.

The Gospel records it like this.

24 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ²“Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; everyone will be thrown down.”

³As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Matthew 24: 1-3

He started by giving details of His Curse, predicting it would begin with the Temple’s destruction (occurring in 70 CE). Then in the evening, he left the Temple to go to the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem (i¹). Since the Jewish day begins at sunset, it was now Wednesday, Day 4 of Passion Week. This was when he described his coming return.

Anticipating The End

We have an instinctive fear that the world is heading to some catastrophic end. Whether through nuclear war, an asteroid impact, climate change, environmental collapse, or another pandemic, we fret over this threat. Elon Musk’s reported motivation for SpaceX is so he can escape from the doomed Earth and restart mankind on Mars.

So we hope that, maybe somehow we can find some way to set the world right. Jesus claimed that this was precisely the mission he was on, but he taught that before he could fix wrong ‘out there’ he had to first cleanse our corruption within. Then, later, he would right the world in his Second Coming. Jesus anticipated his Second Coming on Day 4 of this week, describing the Signs of his return.

Day 4 – Signs of his Return

⁴Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains.

⁹“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. ¹⁰At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹²Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. ¹⁴And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

¹⁵“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— ¹⁶then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. ¹⁸Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. ¹⁹How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! ²⁰Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.

²²“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. ²³At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵See, I have told you ahead of time.

²⁶“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

²⁹“Immediately after the distress of those days

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

³⁰“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. ³¹And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
Matthew 24: 4-31

Signs: The False and the True

On Day 4 Jesus looked past the coming destruction of the Temple. He taught that increasing evil, earthquakes, famines, wars, and persecutions would characterize the world before his return. Even so, he predicted that his message of Good News would still be announced across the whole world (v 14). As the world learned about Christ there would be growing numbers of false teachers and pseudo-claims about him and his return. Indisputable cosmic disturbances would be the true sign of his return in the midst of wars, chaos, and distress.

Thus he calmly asked us to picture what science fiction visionaries famous for imagining all sorts of things in space could not imagine. He predicted an instantaneous and timed snuffing of the light from all stars, the sun, and the moon. A scene like that has not even been imagined by our brightest. Yet he soberly predicted a cosmic extinguishing of light to signal his return.

Then he calls himself the ‘Son of Man’, coming on the clouds of heaven. This references an ancient prophecy from Daniel about the coming of the Son of Man.

Assessing the Signs

In Asimov’s Foundation Series, mathematicians used the (fictional) science of psychohistory to predict the coming events in galactic history. Here Jesus also predicts large, sweeping events. He does so without using any analytical discipline, but based solely on his ability to foresee the future.

This raises the all-important question: Are his predictions accurate?

We can see that war, distress and earthquakes are increasing – so events generally seem to follow his outline. But there are no disturbances in the heavens so his return is not just yet.

How close might we be?

Luke’s Perspective

To answer this we look at how Luke records, the conclusion of Jesus’ discourse.

²⁰“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. ²¹Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. ²²For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. ²³How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. ²⁴They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Luke 21: 20-24

We see here that Jesus not only predicted details of how the curse would unfold (Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews scattered around the world – which happened in 70 CE), he also predicted what would happen to the land during their exile (It would be in ‘desolation’ and ‘trampled on by the Gentiles’). For almost 2000 years, the land was trampled on by various Gentiles (Romans, Byzantines, Arab Muslims, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, and British). But Jesus predicted that this succession of foreign rulers would one day come to an end. He did so by qualifying that the land would be trampled ‘until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’. The Jewish people regained Jerusalem in 1967, after a 1900-year exile.

The Roaring and Tossing Seas

He then continued.

²⁵“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
Luke 21: 25-26

An ongoing global discourse today concerns climate changes, rising sea levels, and increasing the intensity of ocean storms. Nations come together regularly in conferences like COP26/COP27 to try to develop global guidelines. That sounds a lot like, “Nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea”. Not all his predicted events have occurred yet, but some seem to be happening right now.

He concluded his predictions of events with this:

²⁹He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. ³⁰When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. ³¹Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.
Luke 21: 29-31

The Fig Tree greening up before our eyes

Remember the fig tree, symbolic of Israel, which he had cursed on Day 3? The withering of Israel began in 70CE when the Romans destroyed the Temple and it remained withered for 1900 years. Jesus told us to look for green shoots from the fig tree to know when His return was ‘near’. In the last 70 years we have witnessed this ‘fig tree’ beginning to green and sprout leaves again. We literally saw this greening of the land from satellite imagery.

Perhaps we should exercise care and watchfulness in our times since he warned against carelessness and indifference regarding his return.

Stay Alert!

³⁶“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

⁴²“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. ⁴³But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴So you also must be ready,because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

⁴⁵“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? ⁴⁶It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. ⁴⁷Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. ⁴⁸But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ ⁴⁹and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. ⁵⁰The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. ⁵¹He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 24:36-51

Jesus then taught on his return using specific parables or stories. They are given here.

Day 4 Summary

On Wednesday, Day 4 of Passion Week, Jesus described the signs of his return. It climaxes with the extinguishing of the luminous heavenly bodies.

*Day 4: Events of Passion Week compared to the Hebrew Torah regulations*

He warned all of us to carefully watch for his return. We can now see the fig tree greening, exactly as he said it would one day. So perhaps we should take heed.

The Gospel next records how His Enemy moved against him on Day 5.

Describing each day that week, Luke explains:
Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives.
Luke 21:37 ↩︎

April 15, 2022

Day 3: Jesus utters The Withering Curse

In 1867 celebrated American author Mark Twain, visited the land of Israel (Palestine as it was called). He travelled across the land, writing his observations in his best-selling book Innocents Abroad. He used the words “unpicturesque”, “unsightly”, and “desolate” to describe what he saw. Twain wrote,

“Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes…. desolate and unlovely.”
Innocents Abroad

Of the Jezreel valley, Twain wrote,

“Stirring scenes … occur in the valley no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent-not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings.”
Innocents Abroad

He described the Galilee as

“the sort of solitude to make one dreary … Come to Galilee for that … these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, that never, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and fade and faint into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of Capernaum: this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal palms … “
Innocents Abroad

Mount Tabor …

“stands solitary … [in a] silent plain … a desolation … we never saw a human being on the whole route … hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country”
Innocents Abroad

Desolate Land or ‘flowing with Milk and Honey’?

Mark Twain was particularly baffled because what he saw did not match at all what he read in the Bible, where powerful kings ruled over people, multitudes of people thronged around Jesus, and what was described many times in the Bible as:

… a land flowing with milk and honey.
Jeremiah 32:22

So what happened to the land?

It is what Jesus said and did on this Tuesday – Day 3 of Passion Week – that explains it. Jesus used mannerisms replete with symbolism and withering criticism of the people in his day. In doing so he demonstrated a gift for drama which we regularly witness from some similarly gifted fellow Jews today.

Witty & Gifted Critics Present and Past

Among the most gifted and well-known today for directing withering criticism, drama loaded with irony, and symbolic denunciation are Bill Maher, Seth Rogen, Ivan Urgant, and Sasha Baron Cohen.

Bill Maher, long running host of Real Time with Bill Maher, one of the most popular late night shows in the USA, regularly engages in political satire and social commentary, leaving none free of his withering criticism.

Seth Rogen, a Canadian comedian and filmmaker, achieved unique notoriety with his movie The Interview, portraying journalists undertaking an assassination attempt on North Korean dictator Kim Jung-un. North Korea threatened ‘merciless’ retaliation unless the movie was withdrawn. The controversy generated wide publicity and gained Rogen prominence for his ability to needle the North Korean dictator.

Sasha Baron Cohen, the well-known British satirist who, through his wild alter-ego characters Borat– the Kazak journalist, Bruno– the gay Austrian fashion reporter, General Aladeen in The Dictator has enraged so many groups that Cohen has had to increase his security detail.

Ivan Urgant, the host of the most popular Russian late-night TV show, had his show Evening Urgant cancelled because he criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Apart from being well-known for their satirical criticism, what these four all have in common is their common Jewish heritage. They illustrate that, though small in number, Jewish satirists are among the leaders in this genre of drama.

Jesus likewise was a master critic. But the criticism he leveled on that day has affected human history far more than modern-day critics’ ability to arouse satire lasting only through the next news cycle. It evoked Mark Twain’s wonder centuries later

Jesus’ Looming Conflict

First we review the week and then look at what he did that day.

Jesus had entered Jerusalem on Sunday as prophesied and then shut down the Temple on Monday. So the Jewish leaders planned to kill him. But it would not be straight-forward.

God had selected Jesus as His Passover Lamb when Jesus entered the Temple on Monday, Nisan 10. The Torah regulated what to do with the selected Passover lambs

⁶Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.
Exodus 12:6

As the people cared for their Passover Lambs, so also God cared for His Passover Lamb. Thus Jesus’ enemies could not get at him (yet). The Gospel then records what Jesus did the next day, Tuesday, Day Three of Passion Week.

Jesus Curses a Fig Tree

¹⁷And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

¹⁸Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. ¹⁹Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
Matthew 21: 17-19

Why did he do that?

What did it mean?

The disciples were amazed, leading to a puzzling statement from Jesus about casting mountains into the sea.

²⁰When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.

²¹Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. ²²If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
Matthew 21: 20-22

The meaning of the Fig Tree

The earlier prophets explain it to us. Notice here how the Hebrew prophets used the Fig Tree to picture Judgment on Israel:

The prophet Hosea went further, using the fig tree to picture and then curse Israel:

¹⁰“When I found Israel,
    it was like finding grapes in the desert;
when I saw your ancestors,
    it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.
But when they came to Baal Peor,
    they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol
    and became as vile as the thing they loved.
Hosea 9:10

¹⁶Ephraim is blighted,
    their root is withered,
    they yield no fruit.
Even if they bear children,
    I will slay their cherished offspring.”

¹⁷My God will reject them
    because they have not obeyed him;
    they will be wanderers among the nations.
Hosea 9:16-17 (Ephraim=Israel)

The destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE fulfilled these and Moses’ curses (see the history).

When Jesus cursed the fig tree, he symbolically pronounced another coming destruction of Jerusalem and Jewish exile from the land. He cursed them into exile again.

After cursing the fig tree, Jesus re-entered the Temple, teaching, debating and clarifying his curse, especially on the Jewish leaders. The Gospel records it this way.

Not an empty one – The Curse takes hold

We know from history that this destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, along with the expulsion of the Jews into worldwide exile, happened in 70 C.E.

With the Temple destruction in 70 CE Israel’s withering took place. Then, it remained withered for thousands of years.

*Roman Destruction of Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. Preserved Roman sculptures show them looting the Temple and taking the Menorah (large, 7-place candle)*

This curse does not reside simply in the pages of the Gospel story. We can verify it happened in history. This Withering Curse pronounced by Jesus lasted many generations. The people of his day ignored him to their destruction.

19th Century panorama view of Jerusalem – desolate

*The destroyed Temple ruins visible today*

The Curse to Expire

Jesus later clarified how that curse would come and how long it would last.

²⁴They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Luke 21:24

He taught that his curse (exile and Gentile control over Jerusalem) would last only ‘until the times of the Gentiles (non-Jews) are fulfilled’. He thus implied that his Curse would expire, explaining this further on Day 4.

The Curse Lifted

*Historical Timeline of the Jews on larger scale – featuring their two periods of exile*

This timeline shows the history of the Jewish people with further details here. Coming to our modern day, the timeline shows the end of the exile. In 1948, from a UN declaration, the modern state of Israel was founded. In the 1967 six-day war the city of Jerusalem, now the capital of Israel, was regained. We see the ‘times of the Gentiles’ coming to a close in modern-day news events.

The beginning and expiration of Jesus’ curse, uttered symbolically to the fig tree and then explained to his listeners have not remained simply fiction on the pages of the Gospel. These events are verifiable, making news headlines today (ex., USA moved its embassy to Jerusalem). Jesus taught profoundly, voiced authority over nature, and now we see that his curse left its imprint on his nation for thousands of years. We ignore him at our peril.

Aerial view of Jerusalem today – from wikimedia

Summary of Day 3

The updated chart shows Jesus cursing the fig tree on Day 3, Tuesday, while taken care of as God’s Selected Lamb. We see on Day 4 he foretells his coming return, coming to set right many wrongs.

Postscript on the Day 3 Withering Curse

Jews have a reputation of leading in many areas of human undertaking. This is regardless of whether they are Israeli or part of the world-wide diaspora of Jews. But this is not true in agriculture. Only Israeli Jews carry this distinctive. Israel has carved out a hard-earned reputation as a leader in agricultural technology. This started when the Jews first made Aliyah to Palestine over a hundred years ago. They then formed kibbutzim and moshav (essentially different kinds of co-operative communal farms). The Galilean north was swampy, the Judean hills were rocky, and the south was desert. The land was exactly as Mark Twain had experienced and described it. So the first settlers had to drain malaria infested swamps, clear land, and learn to irrigate.

Blossoming Green in Today’s desert

Today Israel is a world leader in drip irrigation technology, growing and exporting many fruits, vegetables, grain and dairy products. This is true in spite of the fact that Israel is not naturally conducive to agriculture. Over half the land is natural desert. With water shortage being a major and continual problem there, Israeli farmers have become world leaders in irrigation technology.

Israeli farmers in just this last generation have been able to transform the land from a barren, withered landscape into a panorama of green. The satellite view in Google Maps shows this, comparing the borders they share with their neighbours. On Day 4, Jesus prophesied this would occur, holding a special meaning.

Israel-Egypt border (red highlight) with irrigated circles prominent on Israeli side

Israel-Jordan border (red highlight) with green irrigated fields visible on Israeli side

Demarcation line between Israel and Syria. Israelis have greened their landscape

Lebanon – Israel border: The cultivated block of fields on Israeli side basically follows the border

April 10, 2022

Day 2: Jesus Selected

Richard Wurmbrand, Ivan Urgant and Natan Sharansky represent the Jewish spirit of unarmed civil protest voicing objection to powerful and abusive institutions. As a result of their outspokenness, they became targets of the systems that they criticized. In that regard they followed in the footsteps of their fellow Jew – Jesus of Nazareth.

Tortured for his Faith – Richard Wurmbrand

Richard Wurmbrand (1909-2001), was a Romanian Jew who later became a Lutheran priest. He publicly taught from the Bible in a time when Romania strictly enforced communist atheism. Authorities imprisoned him from 1948-1956, including a three-year period of solitary confinement in an underground hole with no light. Upon his release he resumed leading the underground church. So the authorities imprisoned him again from 1959 to 1964 with frequent beatings. Authorities finally released him to the West because of an international campaign highlighting his plight.

Cancelled for his Convictions – Ivan Urgant

Ivan Urgant (born 1978) hosted the most popular late-night talk show on Russian state TV called Evening Urgant. He followed the format of well-known American late-night talk shows like The Tonight Show and The Late Show. Ivan Urgant gained notoriety in February 2022 by protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He posted “No to War” on his Instagram account. In a country that declared public dissent on the invasion illegal, it was a bold and high-profile stand. Russian Channel One then suspended his late-night show. Shortly thereafter Ivan left Russia and appeared in Israel.

Refused for his Brilliance – Natan Sharansky

Natan Sharansky (born 1948), gifted physicist, mathematician and chess prodigy, became one of the most recognized Soviet refuseniks. Refuseniks were Soviet Jews who were denied exit visas to Israel in the 1960s and 1970s. Soviet authorities denied Sharansky his exit visa in 1973 under the pretext that his work in physics gave him access to state secrets. Sharansky then became a public activist for all refuseniks in the 1970s, a risky move under the Soviet regime. Arrested in 1977 by the KGB, the authorities moved him around prisons and forced labor camps. In response to an international campaign highlighting his plight, he was freed in 1986 by Mikhail Gorbachev. Thereafter, Sharansky emigrated to Israel, where he has conducted a successful political career.

Jesus – Selected for his Perfect Timing

Jesus of Nazareth also demonstrated this inclination to activism, at great personal risk, through bold protest against a powerful bureaucracy. But his ability to time his actions and link them to past era-defining events, as well as directing them to future freedoms affecting you and me, remains unmatched. We have been looking at Jesus through his Jewish lens and here we examine his protest actions, unpacking their remarkable timing, and their meanings. After reviewing specific instances of the Jesus-as-Israel thesis, we reflect on it here.

On the second day of Passion Week, Jesus took his protest to a whole new level, setting in motion a chain of events that would forever alter history.

Significance of the Date

Jesus had just entered Jerusalem at the exact day prophesied hundreds of years before, revealing himself as the Christ and a light to the nations. That date, in the Jewish calendar, was Sunday, Nisan 9, the first day of Passion Week. Because of regulations in the Torah, the next day, 10^thof Nisan, was a unique day in the Jewish calendar. Long before, Moses had decreed the steps to prepare for Passover:

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ²“This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ³Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.
Exodus 12: 1-3

So, every 10^th of Nisan since Moses, each Jewish family would select a lamb for the upcoming Passover festival. It could only be done that day. In Jesus’ day the Jews selected the Passover lambs in the Temple in Jerusalem. This was the same location where 2000 years before God tested Abraham in the sacrifice of his son. Today, this is the location of the Jewish Temple Mount and the Muslim Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.

So at one specific location (the Temple Mount), on one specific day of the Jewish year (Nisan 10), Jews selected the Passover lamb for each family. As you might imagine, the vast number of people and animals, the noise of the bartering, the foreign exchange (since Jews came from many locations) would turn the Temple on Nisan 10 into a frenzied market. The Gospel records what Jesus did that day. When the passage refers to the ‘next day’ this is the day after his royal entry into Jerusalem, the 10^thof Nisan – the exact day that Jews selected Passover lambs in the Temple.

Cleansing the Temple

¹²The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. ¹³Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”And his disciples heard him say it.¹⁵On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves,¹⁶and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. ¹⁷And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.”
Mark 11:12-17

Jesus cleanses the Temple
_{^{Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons}}

At the human level Jesus went into the Temple on Monday, Nisan 10, and stopped the commercialism. The buying and selling had created a barrier for worship, especially for that of non-Jews. Jesus, a Light for these nations, therefore broke this barrier by stopping the commercial activity.

The Lamb of God Selected

But something unseen also happened at the same time. We can understand this from the title that John the Baptist had previously given to Jesus. In announcing him John had said:

²⁹The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1: 29

Jesus was ‘the Lamb of God’. In Abraham’s sacrifice, God was the one who had selected the lamb replacing Isaac by catching it in a bush. The Temple was at this same location.

When Jesus went into the Temple on Nisan 10 God selected him as His Passover Lamb.

Jesus had to be in the Temple on this exact day in order to be selected. And he was.

The Purpose of Jesus as the Passover Lamb

Why was he selected as Passover lamb? Jesus’ teaching above provided the answer. When he said, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’ he quoted from Isaiah. Here is the full passage (what Jesus spoke is in underlined).

⁶And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
    to minister to him,
to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
    and who hold fast to my covenant—
⁷these I will bring to my holy mountain
    and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
    a house of prayer for all nations.”
Isaiah 56: 6-7

Historical Timeline of Isaiah with some other prophets of the Old Testament

The ‘Holy Mountain’ that Isaiah had written about was Mount Moriah, where Abraham had sacrificed the lamb selected by God in place of Isaac. The ‘house of prayer’ was the Temple which Jesus entered on Nisan 10. However, only Jews could sacrifice at the Temple and celebrate Passover. But Isaiah had written that ‘foreigners’ (non-Jews) would one day see that ‘their burnt offerings and sacrifices would be accepted’. In quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus announced that his work would open a path to God for non-Jews. That path had started opening the day before when Greeks asked to meet Jesus.

Nations around the world noticed the protests of high-profile Jewish activists like Wurmbrand, Urgant and Sharansky. Jesus said that his work would similarly arouse the attention of the world’s nations. He did not explain at this point how he would do this. But as we continue the gospel account we will see how God had a plan to bless you and me.

Next days in Passion Week

After the Jews selected their lambs on Nisan 10, the regulations in the Torah commanded them to:

⁶Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.
Exodus 12:6

Since that first Passover at the time of Moses, the Jews sacrifice their Passover lambs every Nisan 14. We add ‘taking care of the lambs’ to the Torah regulations in the timeline we are building for the week. In the lower half of the timeline we add the activities of Jesus on Day 2 of the week – his cleansing of the Temple and his selection as God’s Passover lamb.

Activities of Jesus on Monday – Day 2 of Passion Week – compared to Torah regulations

Marked and Selected by the Authorities

When Jesus entered and cleansed the Temple, this also had an impact at the human level. The Gospel continues by stating:

The Angry Chef Priest
_{^{James Tissot, PD-US-expired, via Wikimedia Commons}}

¹⁸The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.
Mark 11:18

In cleansing the Temple the Jewish leaders targeted him for death. As Wurmbrand, Urgant and Sharansky were targeted by the leaders they protested against, Jesus was from this point on, a marked man.

They started by confronting him. The Gospel recounts that the next day:

²⁷They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. ²⁸“By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?”
Mark 11:27-28

We follow the schemes of the authorities, the actions of Jesus, and the Torah regulations on Tuesday, Day 3 of Passion Week, next.

April 5, 2022

Day 1: Jesus – Light to the Nations

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the galvanizing figure of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has become a familiar face to the nations of the world. Against the Russian claim that they invaded Ukraine to get rid of its Nazi government, Zelensky replies that he is Jewish. How then could his government then be a Nazi one, he asks. Zelensky has since gone on a virtual tour of the halls of power of nations around the world. He has given pitch-perfect addresses to government bodies of many nations. Zelensky spoke to the British Parliament, US Congress, the German Bundestag, the Israeli Knesset, the Canadian Parliament, the Italian Parliament, the Japanese Parliament, and the United Nations General Assembly, among others. He has been given the highest Czech honor, as well as national honors in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

The Jews – Light to the Nations

Zelensky has gone on a virtual tour of parliaments and halls of power of the world’s nations. He chastises, encourages, pleads, and goads them into moral action on behalf of Ukraine. He illustrates so well the prophecy that Isaiah foretold 2700 years ago about the Jewish people. Isaiah had prophesied:

“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
    I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
    to be a covenant for the people
     and a light for the Gentiles,
Isaiah 42:6

Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Isaiah 60:3

Jews have since carried this mantle of being a ‘light to the nations’ given 2700 years ago through Isaiah. They ponder its meaning. We know this from search results on popular Israeli websites. Here are the ‘Light to the nations’ results in TimesOfIsrael, and here similarly for the Jerusalem Post.

Claims to be a ‘Light to the Nations’

In spite of his prominent voice before nations today, Zelensky has never claimed to be a ‘light to the nations’. That would be presumptuous. The one Jewish person in history who is on record as having claimed that distinction is Jesus. But it is not only his claim to be such a ‘light’ that stands out. Rather, it is when and how he made it is remarkable. We look at this here and reflect on whether his legacy justifies this claim.

After the Triumphant Entry on Palm Sunday

Jesus had just entered Jerusalem mounted on a donkey as prophesied 500 years earlier. He did so on the exact day that the prophet Daniel had prophesied 550 years before. The Jews had been arriving from many countries for the upcoming Passover festival. Therefore Jewish pilgrims crowded Jerusalem.

The manner of Jesus’ arrival had caused a stir among the Jews. But it was not only the Jews who noticed his arrival. The Gospel records what happened right after he entered Jerusalem.

Jesus coming through Jerusalem on a Donkey

²⁰Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. ²¹They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” ²²Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
John 12:20-22

The Greek – Jew barrier in ancient times

It was extremely unusual for Greeks, (that is Gentiles or non-Jews), to be at a Jewish festival like Passover. The Jews shunned the Greeks and Romans of that time since they were pagans and considered unclean. And most Greeks considered the Jewish religion with only one (unseen) God and its festivals to be foolish. So these people regularly stayed apart from each other. The Gentile, or non-Jewish, society was many times larger than the Jewish society. So the Jews lived in a sort of isolation from much of the world. Their different religion, their kosher diet, and their exclusive Book created a barrier between the Jews and the Gentiles. Each side displayed hostility toward the other side (as we saw with the Maccabees and bar kochba).

… Prophesied to come down

But Isaiah (750 BCE) claimed to see far into the future and he foresaw a change for the nations. He had written:

49 Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the Lord called me;
from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name…
Isaiah 49: 1

And now the Lord says—
    he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
    and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
    and my God has been my strength—
⁶he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
    to restore the tribes of Jacob
    and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
    that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
Isaiah 49: 5-6

60 “Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
²See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.
³Nations will come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Isaiah 60:1-3

So Isaiah had foretold that the coming ‘servant’ of the Lord, though Jewish (‘the tribes of Jacob’), would be a ‘light for the Gentiles’ (all the non-Jews). He prophesied that this light would reach to the ends of the earth. But how could this happen with this barrier between the Jews and the Gentiles firmly set these hundreds of years?

Jesus’ Entry that Day begins the dismantling

That day when Jesus entered Jerusalem the light began to draw the first Gentiles because we see some approaching him. Here at this Jewish festival were Greeks who had journeyed to Jerusalem to meet him. Jesus had raised their interest. But would they, considered unclean by the Jews, be able to see him? They asked Jesus’ disciples, who brought the request to Jesus. What would he say? The Gospel continues

²³Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.²⁴Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.²⁵Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

²⁷“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. ²⁸Father, glorify your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”²⁹The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.

³⁰Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. ³¹Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.³²And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”³³He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

³⁴The crowd spoke up, “We have heard from the Law that the Messiah will remain forever, so how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?”

³⁵Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. ³⁶Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.
John 12: 23- 36

Belief and Unbelief Among the Jews

³⁷Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. ³⁸This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet:

“Lord, who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

³⁹For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:

⁴⁰“He has blinded their eyes
    and hardened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes,
    nor understand with their hearts,
    nor turn—and I would heal them.”

⁴¹Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.

⁴²Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; ⁴³for they loved human praise more than praise from God.

⁴⁴Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. ⁴⁵The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. ⁴⁶I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

⁴⁷“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.⁴⁸There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.⁴⁹For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. ⁵⁰I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
John 12: 37-50

Against the prevailing Jew-Gentile animosities of that day, Jesus said that he would be ‘lifted up’. He predicted that this would draw ‘all people’ – not just the Jews – to himself.

Jesus boldly claimed that he had ‘come into the world as a light’ (v.46) which the previous prophets had written would shine on all nations. And on the day when he entered Jerusalem, that light first began to shine on the Gentiles.

Jesus’ Light to the Nations in History

Consider now how the halls of power, with their accompanying institutions, where Zelensky has been speaking recently, have come about by Jesus’ influence on the nations.

Here are some quick examples.

These practices, customs, and institutions that we often take for granted today across the many nations came about as people throughout history were influenced by Jesus. From a strictly historical point-of-view, Jesus of Nazareth has been the brightest Jewish light shining upon many nations. Isaiah’s predictions 2700 years ago have come true through Jesus’ historical influence on the nations.

Passion Week Day-by-Day

But Jesus did not simply come to be a Light to the nations. He had also declared War on death itself. How he goes about this struggle is reviewed in a day-by-day recounting of his activities in Passion Week. We will go through each day of Passion or Holy Week and note what Jesus does and says each day. From these we will recognize patterns going back to the beginning of the world, bringing fresh meaning to his activities that week. We also reflect on the Jesus-as-Israel lens we have adopted.

The following chart goes through each day of this week. On Sunday, the first day of the week he fulfilled three different prophecies given by three previous prophets. First, he entered Jerusalem mounted on a donkey as prophesied by Zechariah. Second, he did so in the time prophesied by Daniel. Third, his message and miracles started to light an interest among the Gentiles. Isaiah had foretold this would shine as a light to the nations, growing brighter to people around the world.

We continue looking at the events of Monday, Day 2 of Passion week next.

April 1, 2022

Jesus declares War: As King, To an undefeated Enemy, Precisely on Palm Sunday

The Books of Maccabees, found in the Apocrypha, vividly recounts the warfare waged by the Maccabees (Maccabeus) family against the Greek Seleucids. The Seleucids were trying to impose Greek pagan religion upon the Jews of Jerusalem in 168 BCE. Most of the historical information about this war comes from the First Book of Maccabees (1 Maccabees). It describes how the Seleucid Emperor, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, instigated a de-Judaizing of Judea.

In 168 BCE Antiochus IV entered Jerusalem by force, killing thousands of Jews. Then he desecrated the Temple by mixing pagan religious practices with the Temple worship handed down by Moses. Antiochus IV forced Jews to also adopt pagan practices by sacrificing and eating pigs, desecrating the Sabbath, and forbidding circumcision.

Matthias Maccabees, a Jewish Priest, and his five sons then rose in revolt against Antiochus IV, adopting a successful guerrilla warfare campaign. After Matthias died, one of his sons, Judas (The Hammer) Maccabees led the war. Judas was very successful because of his brilliant military planning, bravery, and prowess in physical battle. He eventually forced the Seleucids to retreat. So the region around Jerusalem was briefly independent of the Hasmonean dynasty until the Romans took control. The Jewish festival Hanukkah today commemorates the winning back and cleansing of the Jewish temple from Antiochus IV’s defilement.

Zealous Jews going to war for the Temple

Model of Second Jewish Temple: Many fought for its purity

Religious convictions about the Temple, strong enough to go to war for, have been part of Jewish heritage for 3000 years. Josephus and Bar Kochba are well-known historical Jewish figures who waged war to preserve the purity of the Jewish Temple. Still today, some Jews risk conflict and battle to pray at the Temple Mount.

Like the Maccabees, Jesus was also very zealous for the Temple and its worship. He was zealous enough to also go to war over it. However, how he engaged in his warfare, and who he fought, was very different than the Maccabees. We have been looking at Jesus through his Jewish lens and we look now at this warfare and opponent. Later we see how the Temple figured into this struggle.

Triumphant Entry

Jesus had revealed his mission by raising Lazarus and now he was on his journey to Jerusalem. The way he would arrive had been prophesied hundreds of years before. The Gospel explains:

¹²The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. ¹³They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Blessed is the king of Israel!”

¹⁴Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:

¹⁵“Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt.”

¹⁶At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.

¹⁷Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. ¹⁸Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. ¹⁹So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”
John 12: 12-19

Jesus’ Entry – according to David

Period of Kings when they led processions into Jerusalem

Starting with David, ancient Israelite kings would annually mount their royal horse and lead a procession into Jerusalem. Likewise, Jesus re-enacted this tradition when he entered Jerusalem riding a donkey on the day now known as Palm Sunday. The people sang the same song from the Psalms for Jesus as they had done for David:

²⁵Lord, save us!
    Lord, grant us success!

²⁶Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
    From the house of the Lord we bless you.
²⁷The Lord is God,
    and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
    up to the horns of the altar.
Psalm 118:25-27

The people sang this ancient song written for the Kings because they knew Jesus had raised Lazarus. So they were excited at his arrival into Jerusalem. The word they shouted, ‘Hosanna’ meant ‘save’ – exactly as Psalm 118:25 had written long before.

But what was he going to ‘save’ them from?

The prophet Zechariah tells us.

The Entry Prophesied by Zechariah

Though Jesus re-enacted what the former kings had done hundreds of years earlier, he did it differently. Zechariah, who had prophesied the coming Christ’s name, had also prophesied that the Christ would enter Jerusalem mounted on a donkey.

Zechariah and other Old Testament Prophets in History

The Gospel of John quoted part of that prophesy above (it is underlined). Zechariah’s complete prophecy is here:

⁹Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
    righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
    and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
    and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
    His rule will extend from sea to sea
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.
¹¹As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Zechariah 9:9-11

The Coming King will fight … who?

This King prophesied by Zechariah would be different from all other kings. He would not become King by using ‘chariots’, ‘warhorses’, and ‘battle bows’. This King would remove these weapons and would instead ‘proclaim peace to the nations’. However, this King would still have to struggle to defeat an enemy. He would have to fight in a war to the death.

The Final Enemy – Death Itself

When we speak of saving people from death we mean saving someone so that death is delayed. We may, for example, rescue someone who is drowning, or provide some medicine that saves someone’s life. This ‘saving’ only postpones death because the saved person will die later. But Zechariah was not prophesying about saving people ‘from death’ but about rescuing those imprisoned by death – those already dead. This King prophesied by Zechariah to come on a donkey was to face and defeat death itself– freeing its prisoners. This would require an enormous struggle.

So what weapons was the King going to use in this struggle with death? Zechariah wrote that this King would only take “the blood of my covenant with you” to his battle in ‘the pit’.¹ Thus, his blood would be the weapon with which He would face death.

By entering Jerusalem on the donkey Jesus declared himself to be this predicted King – the Christ.

Why Jesus weeps with sorrow

When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (also known as the Triumphant Entry) the religious leaders opposed him. The Gospel of Luke describes Jesus’ response to their opposition.

⁴¹As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it ⁴²and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Luke 19:41–44

Jesus said specifically that the leaders should have ‘recognized the time of God’s coming’ on ‘this day’. What did he mean? What had they missed?

The Prophets had Predicted ‘the Day’

Centuries before, the prophet Daniel had prophesied that Christ would come 483 years after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. We had calculated Daniel’s expected year to be 33 CE– the year that Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. Predicting the year of the entry, hundreds of years before it happened, is astonishing, but we can even calculate his arrival on the day. (Please review here first as we build on it).

The Length of Time

The prophet Daniel had predicted 483 years using a 360-day year before the revealing of the Christ. Accordingly, the number of days is:

483 years * 360 days/year = 173 880 days

But in terms of the modern international calendar with 365.2422 days/year this is 476 years with 25 extra days. (173 880/365.24219879 = 476 remainder 25)

The Countdown Starts

When was the decree to restore Jerusalem which started this countdown? It was given:

In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes …
Nehemiah 2:1

Nisan 1 began their New Year, giving reason for the King to talk to Nehemiah in the celebration. Nisan 1 would also be marked by a new moon since their months were lunar. Astronomical calculations place the new moon of Nisan 1 of the 20^thyear of Persian Emperor Artaxerxes at 10 PM on March 4, 444 BCE in our modern calendar.²

The Countdown Ends…

So adding the 476 years of Daniel’s prophesied time to this date brings us to March 4, 33 CE. (There is no year 0, the modern calendar going from 1BCE to 1 CE in one year). The Table summarizes the calculations.

Start year	444 BCE (20^th year of Artaxerxes)
Length of time	476 solar years
Expected arrival in Modern Calendar	(-444 + 476 + 1) (‘+1’ because there is no 0 CE) = 33
Expected year	33 CE

Calculating the arrival of the Anointed One (= Christ)

…to the Day

Adding the 25 remaining days of Daniel’s prophesied time to March 4, 33 CE gives us March 29, 33 CE. This is shown in the table and illustrated in the timeline below.

Start – Decree Issued	March 4, 444 BCE
Add the solar years (-444+ 476 +1)	March 4, 33 CE
Add the remaining 25 days	March 4 + 25 = March 29, 33 CE
March 29, 33 CE	Palm Sunday Entry of Jesus to Jerusalem

Calculating to the Day

March 29, 33 CE, was Sunday– Palm Sunday– the very day that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the donkey, claiming to be the Christ.

By entering Jerusalem on March 29, 33 CE, seated on a donkey, Jesus fulfilled both the prophecy of Zechariah and the prophecy of Daniel – to the day.

Daniel had predicted 173 880 days before revealing of the Christ ; Nehemiah had started the time. It concluded on March 29, 33 CE when Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday

These many prophecies fulfilled on one day indicates the signs God used to identify His Christ. But later that same day Jesus fulfilled yet another prophecy from Moses. In doing so he set in motion the events leading to his struggle with the ‘pit’ – his enemy death. We look at this next.

Some examples on how ‘pit’ meant death for the prophets:

¹⁵But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
to the depths of the pit.
Isaiah14:15

¹⁸For the grave cannot praise you,
death cannot sing your praise;
those who go down to the pit
cannot hope for your faithfulness.
Isaiah38:18

²²They draw near to the pit,
and their life to the messengers of death.
Job33:22

⁸They will bring you down to the pit,
and you will die a violent death
in the heart of the seas.
Ezekiel28:8

²³Their graves are in the depths of the pit and her army lies around her grave. All who had spread terror in the land of the living are slain, fallen by the sword.
Ezekiel32:23

³You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
you spared me from going down to the pit.
Psalm30:3

2. For conversions between ancient and modern calendars (e.g. Nisan 1 = March 4, 444BC) and calculations of ancient new moons see Dr. Harold W. Hoehner’s, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ. 1977. 176pp.

March 25, 2022

Jesus’ Mission in the Raising of Lazarus

Stan Lee (1922-2018) became world-renowned through the Marvel Comics Superheroes that he created. Born and raised in a Manhattan Jewish household, in his youth, he was influenced by action heroes of his day. Stan Lee worked with fellow Jewish talents Jack Kirby (1917-1994) and Joe Simon (1913-2011). These three men created most of the superhero characters. Those whose exploits, power, and costumes so easily come to our minds from subsequent blockbuster movies. Spiderman, X-Men, The Avengers, Thor, Captain America, the Eternals, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, The Hulk, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, and Black Widow: they all originated from the minds and sketches of these three brilliant comic book artists.

We have all seen these Marvel Studio movies. These superheroes all have extra-special abilities and confront villains also possessing special powers, resulting in spectacular and vivid conflicts. The superhero, through perseverance, power, skill, luck, and teamwork, finds some way to defeat the villain. And more often than not, save the earth and its inhabitants in the process. In short, in the Marvel universe created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Joe Simon, the superhero has a mission to undertake, an enemy to defeat, and people to save.

We have been looking at the person of Jesus through his Jewish lens. We are seeking to understand him in the context of contributions that Jews have made to the world. Many may not realize it, but the suite of Marvel Superheroes that we enjoy today is another contribution that Jews have made to mankind. Their superhero themes of missions and villains resonate so naturally with our human spirit. It also raises questions about the mission of this real-world Jewish person of Jesus.

What was Jesus’ mission? What villain did he come to defeat?

Jesus taught, healed, and performed many miracles. But the question still remained in the minds of his disciples, his followers, and even his enemies.

Why had he come?

Many of the previous prophets, including the Moses, also performed powerful miracles. Moses had already given the law, and Jesus himself said he “had not come to abolish the law”. So what was his mission?

We see it in how he helps his friend Lazarus. What he did carries relevance for you and me living today.

Jesus and Lazarus

Jesus’ friend Lazarus became very sick. His disciples expected that he would heal his friend, as he healed many others. But Jesus purposely did not heal his friend so his wider mission could be understood. The Gospel records it like this:

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ²(This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) ³So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

⁴When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ⁵Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, ⁷and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

⁸“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

⁹Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. ¹⁰It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

¹¹After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

¹²His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” ¹³Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

¹⁴So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

¹⁶Then Thomas (also known as Didymus^[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus Comforts the Sisters of Lazarus

¹⁷On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸Now Bethany was less than two miles^[b] from Jerusalem, ¹⁹and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. ²⁰When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

Jesus comforting the sisters of Lazarus
^{_{Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons}}

²¹“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²²But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

²³Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

²⁴Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

²⁸After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

³²When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴“Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

³⁵Jesus wept.

³⁶Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

³⁷But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead

³⁸Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹“Take away the stone,” he said.

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

⁴⁰Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

⁴¹So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

⁴³When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
John 11: 1-44

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead
_{^{James Tissot, PD-US-expired, via Wikimedia Commons}}

Confronting Death

The sisters hoped that Jesus would come quickly to heal their brother. But Jesus delayed his trip on purpose allowing Lazarus to die, and no one could understand why. But this account allows us to see into his heart and we read that he was angry.

Who was he angry with? The sisters? The crowd? The disciples? Lazarus?

No, he was angry at death itself. Also, this is one of only two times where it is recorded that Jesus wept. Why did he weep? It is because he saw his friend held by death. Death stirred anger as well as sorrow in him.

Death – the Ultimate Villain

Healing people of sicknesses, good as that is, only postpones their death. Healed or not, death eventually takes everyone, whether good or bad, man or woman, old or young, religious or not. This has been true since Adam, who had become mortal because of his disobedience. All his descendants, you and me included, are held by hostage by an enemy – Death.

Against death, we feel that there is no answer, no hope. When someone is only sick hope remains, which is why the sisters of Lazarus had hope in healing. But with death, they felt no hope. This is true for us also. In the hospital, there is some hope but at the funeral there is none. Death is our final enemy. This was the Enemy Jesus came to defeat for us. This was why he declared to the sisters that:

“I am the resurrection and the life.”
John 11:25

Jesus had come to destroy death and give life to all who wanted it. He showed his authority for this mission by publicly raising Lazarus from death. He offers to do the same for all others who would want life over death.

Greater than the Superheroes

Think of it! Jesus fought an adversary that even Stan Lee, with his brilliant and wide-ranging imagination, could not envision pitting his superheroes against. A number of them, despite their powers, succumb to death. Odin, Iron Man, Captain America, and some of The Eternals, were not just defeated by villains, but also held captive to death.

The audacity of Jesus as presented in the Gospels is this: Without any special strength, agility, technology, or exotic weapons, the gospel writers present him calmly confronting death itself, simply by speaking.

That Stan Lee did not attempt some such superhero plot shows that the Gospel did not originate from human resourcefulness. Even the most imaginative of us cannot visualize a successful confrontation with this enemy. Death reigns supreme even over the superheroes of the Marvel Universe. It would seem implausible then that the gospel writers, without the opportunities to expand their imaginations like Stan Lee and we have, would have been able to conjure up such an exploit simply in their minds.

Responses to Jesus

Though death is our final enemy, many of us contend with smaller ‘enemies’. These come from issues (political, religious, ethnic etc.) going on around us. This was true in Jesus’ time also. From their responses we can see what their main concerns were. The Gospel account records the different reactions.

Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. ⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. ⁴⁸If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

⁴⁹Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

^{_{Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons}}

⁵¹He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, ⁵²and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. ⁵³So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

⁵⁴Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.

⁵⁵When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. ⁵⁶They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?” ⁵⁷But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.
John 11:45-57

The Drama continues escalating

So the tension rose. Jesus declared that he was ‘life’ and ‘resurrection’ and would defeat death itself. The leaders responded by plotting to put him to death. Many of the people believed him, but many others did not know what to believe.

We should ask ourselves if we witnessed the raising of Lazarus what we would choose to do. Would we be like the Pharisees, focused on something else, missing the offer of life from death? Or would we ‘believe’, putting our hope in his offer of resurrection? Even if we did not understand it all? The different responses that the Gospel records back then are the same responses to his offer that we make today.

These controversies grew as the Passover approached – the very same festival that the Moses inaugurated 1500 years earlier. The Jesus story continues by showing how he, in a manner steeped in unsurpassed drama, took this encounter with Death a big step further. This step reaches out to you and me and Death’s hold over us.

He did this in the last week of his life, with bizarre actions that would even shake Dr Strange’s head. We look at the last week of his life day-by-day, learning the remarkable timing of his entry into Jerusalem.

March 18, 2022

Jesus Teaches Contrarian Investing

Perhaps the most common stereotype people make about Jews regards money. Rumors, wild conspiracy theories, and slander have falsely been directed at Jews side-by-side with sinister associations of wealth and power.

1898 cartoon showing Rothschild with the world in his hands. Cover illustration for Le Rire, 16 April 1898

For example, this cartoon depicting Lord Rothschild appeared on an 1898 cover of the French magazine Le Rire. It shows him with devilish hands, and a miserly face trying to grab the whole world. Le Rire published this during the Dreyfuss affair, a highly public anti-semitic trial which rocked French society for a decade.

But there is little doubt that some outstanding Jews have demonstrated financial shrewdness. We highlight some here.

The Legendary Rothschilds

The Rothschilds were a Jewish family operating as private bankers to governments across Europe. They began during the Napoleonic wars (1803-1815). Based in London, they had family connections across European capitals. They earned millions in interest from government loans and securities from many European nations. The Rothschilds ingeniously invested their profits into railroads and other infrastructure across the European continent as the Industrial Revolution spread.

Investment banking in the Americas

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Jewish entrepreneurs founded American investment banks which today dominate global commerce:

Goldman Sachs (founded 1869 by Marcus Goldman),
Lehman Brothers (founded 1847 by Henry Lehnam and bought out by Barclays),
Bear Sterns (co-founded in 1923 by Joseph Bear and bought out by JP Morgan Chase),
Salomon Brothers (founded by descendants of Haym Salomon and bought out by Citigroup)

These were all founded by entrepreneurial Jews with a knack for finance and investment.

George Soros

Today George Soros (1930 – ) carries the same reputation. Born into a Jewish family in Hungary he relocated to the United States, beginning his own investment hedge fund in 1969. Wikipedia reports his net worth as $9 billion – after having given away $32 billion. He is most known for betting against the bank of England in 1992. This brought the UK’s Pound sterling to its knees, earning him billions in the process.

Central Bankers

Jews have a prominent association with the US Federal Reserve. The Fed is the most powerful central bank in the world. It affects the economic livelihood today of everyone on the planet. It came into existence in 1913 primarily through the work of Jewish-German immigrant Paul Warburg. The past three chairmen of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan (1987-2006), Ben Bernanke (2006-2014), and Janet Yellen (2014-2018) are Jewish.

US Federal Reserve Eccles Building
_{^{Federalreserve, PD-USGov-BBG, via Wikimedia Commons}}

On a per capita basis Jews tend to demonstrate a keen entrepreneurial spirit with a financial interest that has brought many into high profile financial roles. But there is nothing sinister or a world conspiracy behind this as some have suggested.

Many do not realize it, but the most well-known Jew in history, Jesus of Nazareth, also taught and lived as an investor. However, he used non-traditional metrics in his investment outlook. We look here at the investment philosophy of this representative of Israel.

Jesus as Investor

Using a sufficiently long investment time horizon is the key to investor and banker success. They also need to properly assess the ability of borrowers to repay loans. Jesus, equally gifted as his Jewish brethren surveyed above in financial thinking, used a totally different investment time horizon than they did. This changed his risk/reward financial thinking, radically altering it from ours.

Jesus summed up his overall view on investment risk/reward with this.

¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21

Jesus’ views on risk/reward

Say what you will about the reality of his long-term perspective on ‘treasures in heaven’, his valuation of ‘treasures on earth’ is shrewdly spot on. The Rothschilds have lost the financial power that they had 150 years ago. The European wars, the wealth confiscated by Nazis from Jews, and the nationalizing of European industries greatly reduced the Rothschilds’ family wealth. Most of the American banks surveyed above underwent bankruptcy or takeovers by other banks. They no longer operate. Jesus’ assessment that amassed value on earth corrodes has been demonstrated time and again. We do not always recognize it because our time horizon is short. But he used a time horizon stretching far out.

Jesus’ Investment Time Horizon

Jesus’ investment time horizon was uniquely long. Thus, he looked at value from the perspective of eternity in the Kingdom of God. Seeing value from his perspective allowed another rich Jewish investor to likewise assess value differently. The Gospel records it like this:

19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.²A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.³He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

⁵When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”⁶So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

⁷All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

⁸But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

⁹Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Luke 19: 1-10

Zacchaeus in the tree
^{_{Randers Museum of Art, PD-US-expired, via Wikimedia Commons}}

Does Money Serve or Master?

The pledge by Zacchaeus to donate his assets to the needy and to promote the first ever ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ project does not mean owning temporary earthly assets are wrong. Rather as Jesus said elsewhere:

Judas betrays Jesus for money
^{_{Lippo Memmi, PD-US-expired, via Wikimedia Commons}}

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Matthew 6:24

We usually think that money serves us, but our nature is such that instead we easily end up serving money. Then it becomes impossible to value assets, life and our souls (psyche) in the time horizon of eternity.

Jesus held a unique financial perspective regarding the Kingdom of God. Therefore, right after talking to Zacchaeus, Jesus taught this financial lesson.

The Story of the Ten Minas

¹¹While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.¹²He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.¹³So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’

¹⁴“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’

¹⁵“He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.

¹⁶“The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’

¹⁷“‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’

¹⁸“The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’

¹⁹“His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’

²⁰“Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth.²¹I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’

²²“His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow?²³Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’

²⁴“Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’

²⁵“‘Sir,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’

²⁶“He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
Luke 19:11-26

Owners? Or simply Managers?

^{_{Royman Walski, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}}

Without extracting all the meaning from this story a few observations are instructive:

The minas, through the whole story, always belong to the nobleman. He loaned them to the servants, looking for a return on his investment. The servants managed the minas but never owned them.
Jesus represents himself as the nobleman in this story. He places us as the servants. We have been entrusted with ‘minas’, representing assets, value, opportunities and our natural talents. He expected the servants to produce a good return as any financial manager would for his investment clients.

Ultimately we do not own anything

We go through life thinking that our natural talents and opportunities are ours, but in reality, they are not ours, they have been loaned to us. Jesus shrewdly uses this story to remind us that we do not own our lives, health, opportunities, and even our future. We have to admit that this is true because we cannot retain them. Eventually, we have to give them all up. Jesus reminds us that these have been loaned to us temporarily.

Finally, as any good investor, Jesus explains that those who have produced a return on their investment will have it all returned to them with opportunities for further investment. His Kingdom will give them more than they could have imagined.

We generally do not associate Jesus with shrewd financial thinking, as we do with his Jewish brethren, but he kept single-minded attention on investing. He invites us to co-invest in his investment, which cannot be lost, stolen, or destroyed. It is just that, like other Jewish financial visionaries, he saw further than we can. He looked as far as the establishment of His Kingdom. In that sense, he showed himself to not be a herd investor (looking to others to see what to invest in), but a shrewd contrarian investor who saw attainable value that others could not see.

Jesus’ Investment Price

We might think of His Kingdom as ethereal, intangible or unreal. But convinced of the reality of this investment return, he passed over all other investments. He put all his equity into it. Nathan Rothschild said about his investment philosophy:

“the time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.”

Rothschild meant that we should invest when others are panic selling. Then we will get our investment at a good price. We see how Jesus invested into The Kingdom with this maxim when his good friend dies.

March 16, 2022

Living Water by the Dead Sea

The Biblical land of Israel straddles the world’s largest mirage, giving an illusion of life where there is none. This has forced her inhabitants to lead out in the human quest for that indispensable and life-giving substance – water. It also provides an enlightening backdrop for some of the wisdom, wildest hopes, and extravagant promises in the Bible. These promises extend to you and, offer a life lived with satisfaction. But to glimpse this we need to see what those living there have had to learn to do because of it.

The Unique Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is the most prominent geographical feature in the land of Israel. It is located at the lowest elevation on earth, 431 m below sea level in the middle of a desert. To have such a beautiful and large body of water in the middle of a parched land would seem to be most fortunate for the surrounding inhabitants. However, at 35% salt content it is the largest permanent hypersaline lake in the world. Therefore it supports no life – hence the name Dead Sea. You cannot drink this water. Even getting some in your eyes and on any open sores causes extreme irritation.

The Bible first mentions the Dead Sea in accounts of Abraham some 4000 years ago. The Dead Sea has provided the backdrop to all subsequent writers, kings, and prophets through Biblical history, just a few miles from Jerusalem. These writers used water, a life-or-death necessity in that region, to illustrate truths about ourselves. They used water as a theme to extend promises to us.

Jeremiah Diagnoses our Thirst

Jeremiah lived at the close of the period of Kings (600 BCE), when corruption and evil extended through Israelite society. He denounced their evils, the same ones also common today in our societies. But Jeremiah began his message with this.

13 “My people have sinned twice.
They have deserted me,
even though I am the spring of water that gives life.
And they have dug their own wells.
But those wells are broken.
They can’t hold any water.
Jeremiah 2: 13

Jeremiah used water as a metaphor to help them understand sin better. He declared that they were like thirsty people searching for water. There was nothing wrong with being thirsty. But they needed to drink good water. God himself was the good Living Water that could quench their thirst. However, instead of coming to Him to quench their thirst, the Israelites relied on other sources, leaking ones, to drink from. But their broken cisterns would not hold water long-term and would thus leave them even thirstier.

In other words, their sin, in all its many forms, could be summed up as turning to other things apart from God to satisfy their thirst. But these other things would not be able to quench their thirst just as a leaky glass cannot be relied on to provide ongoing refreshment. In the, after all, their empty pursuits, the Israelites remained thirsty. They were left holding only their broken cisterns – i.e. all the problems and difficulties caused by their sins. Solomon, the richest and most successful person in all history, detailed, in masterful ways, the pursuit he undertook to quench his thirst.

Thirsty People in a Sea of bad water sources

This aptly also applies to us today in our age of wealth, entertainment, self-fulfillment and pleasure. Modern society is by far the wealthiest, best educated, most-travelled, entertained, happiness-driven, and technologically advanced out of any age. We easily turn to these, and other things of our age: pornography, illicit relationships, drugs, alcohol, greed, money, anger, jealousy. We hope that perhaps these will satisfy our thirst. But as the Dead Sea is a mirage, holding only sterile death even while appearing like fresh water from afar, these are also mirages. They cannot quench thirst in a lasting way and will only result in death.

Jeremiah’s warning and Solomon’s chronicles should provoke us to ask some honest questions ourselves.

Why in our modern age with so much, do we struggle with depression, suicide, obesity, divorce, jealousy, envy, hatred, and pornography,?
What ‘cisterns’ do you use to satisfy your thirst? Do they hold ‘water’?
Do you think you will ever get enough to satisfy your thirst? If Solomon’s thirst could not be quenched with all he obtained, how will you?

Jesus taught on these same questions, promising to quench our thirst. He did so claiming to represent Israel, with our conclusion here. His promise regarding water stands out particularly as we note that the nation Israel leads the world in water technology. The two Israels offer water, albeit of different kinds, to a thirsty world.

Israel offers great water to the world

Because of their arid conditions, Israelis have had to become world leaders in water technology, vital to their national survival. They have developed and built industrial-scale and world-leading, reverse osmosis water desalination plants that convert seawater to drinking water. This technology is energy efficient and less expensive than other desalination methods, which evaporate water. Israel has five such desalination plants giving it so much drinking water that it can now replenish the Sea of Galilee with drinking water. Countries across the Middle East are signing agreements with Israel so that this water technology can be developed for them.

Another Israeli technology can generate drinking water from moisture in the air. Begun by helping militaries to supply drinking water to troops, the technology has been expanded to quench the ‘global thirst’. Automaker Ford has recently added this technology to some of their so that you can take a drink ‘while you drive. SodaStream, which sells C02 cartridges with kits to carbonize your drinking water, has a global distribution allowing you to ‘fizz your way to sparkling water’.

Truly this arid land with its Dead Sea has become the world’s foremost leader in quenching the thirst of the world.

Israel offers Living Water to the world

It is fascinating then that the other Israel, Jesus, also offers water – Living Water – to the world. With the backdrop of Jeremiah’s diagnosis of our thirst, consider this conversation recorded in the Gospel.

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard about him. They had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. 2 But in fact Jesus was not baptizing. His disciples were. 3 So Jesus left Judea and went back again to Galilee.

4 Jesus had to go through Samaria. 5 He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. It was near the piece of land Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from the journey. So he sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 A woman from Samaria came to get some water. Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew. I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” She said this because Jews don’t have anything to do with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered her, “You do not know what God’s gift is. And you do not know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would have asked him. He would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you don’t have anything to get water with. The well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Our father Jacob gave us the well. He drank from it himself. So did his sons and his livestock. Are you more important than he is?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 14 But anyone who drinks the water I give them will never be thirsty. In fact, the water I give them will become a spring of water in them. It will flow up into eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water. Then I will never be thirsty. And I won’t have to keep coming here to get water.”

16 He told her, “Go. Get your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands. And the man you live with now is not your husband. What you have just said is very true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our people have always worshiped on this mountain. But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus said, “Woman, believe me. A time is coming when you will not worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know. Salvation comes from the Jews. 23 But a new time is coming. In fact, it is already here. True worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth. They are the kind of worshipers the Father is looking for. 24 God is spirit. His worshipers must worship him in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming.” Messiah means Christ. “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus said, “The one you’re talking about is the one speaking to you. I am he.”

The Disciples Join Jesus Again

27 Just then Jesus’ disciples returned. They were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want from her?” No one asked, “Why are you talking with her?”

28 The woman left her water jar and went back to the town. She said to the people, 29 “Come. See a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 The people came out of the town and made their way toward Jesus.

31 His disciples were saying to him, “Rabbi, eat something!”

32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33 Then his disciples asked each other, “Did someone bring him food?”

34 Jesus said, “My food is to do what my Father sent me to do. My food is to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying? You say, ‘It’s still four months until harvest time.’ But I tell you, open your eyes! Look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest right now. 36 Even now the one who gathers the crop is getting paid. They are already harvesting the crop for eternal life. So the one who plants and the one who gathers can now be glad together. 37 Here is a true saying. ‘One plants and another gathers.’ 38 I sent you to gather what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work. You have gathered the benefits of their work.”

Many Samaritans Believe in Jesus

39 Many of the Samaritans from the town of Sychar believed in Jesus. They believed because of what the woman had said about him. She said, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” 40 Then the Samaritans came to him and tried to get him to stay with them. So he stayed two days. 41 Because of what he said, many more people became believers.

42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said. We have now heard for ourselves. We know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
John 4: 1-42

Jesus asked her for a drink for two reasons. First, he was thirsty. But he also knew that she was thirsty as per Jeremiah’s diagnosis. She thought she could satisfy this thirst through relationships with men. So she had had several husbands and was with a man her husband. Thus her neighbors viewed her as immoral. This explains why she had gone alone to get water at noon. The village women did not want her along when they went to the well in the cool of the morning had alienated themselves from the other village women.

Following Jeremiah’s lead, Jesus used thirst as a theme so she could realize that she had a deep thirst in her life – a thirst that is quenched. He declared to her (and us) that only he could ultimately quench her inner thirst.

To Believe – Confessing in truth

But Jesus’ offer of ‘living water’ threw her into a crisis. When Jesus told her to get her husband, he was purposefully provoking her to recognize and admit her broken cistern. He pushed her to confess it. We avoid this at all costs! We prefer to hide our sins, hoping no one will see. Or we rationalize, making excuses for our sins, but if we want to experience the living water’ then we must be honest and admit our ‘broken cisterns’ because the Gospel promises that:

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
Acts 3:19

For this reason Jesus told the Samaritan woman that:

God is spirit. His worshipers must worship him in the Spirit and in truth.”
John 4:24

By ‘truth’ he meant being truthful about ourselves, not trying to hide or excuse our wrong. The wonderful news is that God ‘seeks’ and will not turn away anyone who comes with this open honesty – no matter what they have drunk.

The Distraction of Religious Arguments

But this requires an honest vulnerability. Changing the subject from ourselves onto a religious dispute creates perfect cover to hide. The world always has many ongoing religious disputes. In that day there was a religious dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews regarding the proper place of worship. By turning the conversation to this religious dispute she was hoping to divert attention away from her leaking cistern. She could now hide her vulnerability behind religion.

How easily and naturally we do the same thing – especially if we have some religious affiliation. Then we can judge how others are wrong or how we are correct. We can ignore our need to be honest about our thirst.

Jesus did not follow into this dispute with her. He insisted that her honesty about herself in worship was what mattered. She could come before God anywhere (since He is Spirit). But she needed honest self-realization before she could receive his ‘living water’.

The Decision We all Must Make

So she had an important decision to make. She could continue hiding behind a religious dispute or perhaps just leave him. But she finally chose to admit her thirst – to confess. She did not hide anymore. In doing this she became a ‘believer’. She had performed religious ceremonies before, but now she – and those in her village – became ‘believers’.

To become a believer is not simply mentally agreeing with correct religious doctrine – important though that is. It is about believing that His promise of mercy can be trusted, and therefore you no longer should cover-up sin. This is what Abraham had modeled for us so long ago – he trusted a promise.

Vulnerable questions to ask oneself

Do you excuse or hide your thirst? Do you hide it with devout religious practice or religious dispute? Or do you confess? What stops you confessing before our Creator the broken cisterns causing guilt and shame?

The woman’s honest openness to her need led to her understanding of Jesus as the ‘Messiah’. After he had stayed for two days the villagers understood him as ‘the Saviour of the world‘. They realized that Jesus who gave them Living Water must also be the Lord God, because it had been written:

Lord, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.
Jeremiah 17:13

Postscript – Dead Sea will come to Life

Jesus promises to quench our internal thirst with Living Water today. So also the Bible promises that one day in the future the Dead Sea, that ever-present picture of our dead spiritual condition, will:

“This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea.
Ezekiel 47:8-10

This will happen when

8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter. 9 The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.
Zechariah 14: 8-9

The Bible foresees that Christ will return. When he does, in His Kingdom, he will transform the Dead Sea into one teeming with life. That image of sterile death will no longer be needed then. The Dead Sea will accurately picture the Living Water flowing from the two Israels, both the nation and its Messiah.

Next we see Jesus teaching about investing, and he does so with contrarian convictions.

March 15, 2022

Jesus speaks on His Meta-Verse: Restricted to the Meta-noied

Mark Zuckerberg (1984 – ), the founder of Facebook (re-named Meta), has been one of the handfuls of 21^st century tech entrepreneurs whose achievements have been so profound that they have not only changed the way all people live today compared to just 20 years ago but are even changing our understandi ng of reality.

As a Jew, whose great-grandparents immigrated to the USA from Germany, Austria, and Poland, Zuckerberg’s efforts continue a long-term Jewish contribution to mankind that can be traced all the way back to Moses; to chart a pathway improving society and the relations between its members. This emphasis on improving society is captured by ‘social’ in ‘social media’, commonly used to describe Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Zuckerberg’s products do not simply allow for a one-way information flow from select content creators to the mass of content consumers. Thus, they are not traditional ‘media’ like television, newspapers, and movies. Zuckerberg’s IT platforms enable a society where its members develop and share information with other members. Thus Facebook enables a complex and ever-changing network of social relationships. You know this because you experience it.

Problems in the Meta-Verse

Despite Zuckerberg’s vision of harnessing IT, his achievements have laid bare a barrier noted two thousand years ago. Another tremendously influential Jew focused on a mission to transform society, and laid his finger on it back then. You have also encountered this fundamental flaw in your social media experiences. As the technical prowess of social media grows you will experience it more and more.

The Social Quest

Moses birthed social laws about 1500 BCE

To understand what this means for you it helps to go back 3500 years ago to Moses. He transformed the Jews from an extended tribe descended from Abraham, into a nation governed by laws. About to conclude his brilliant career, Moses offered the following reasons why God, through him, had created these laws.

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. ⁶Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” ⁷What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? ⁸And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?
Deuteronomy 4: 5-8

Moses gave the Law to transform Israelite society into one of wisdom and understanding, characterized by righteousness. Then the surrounding peoples, who lived in ‘might-makes-right’ societies would take note and enter in.

But it did not work out that way. Instead of being a ‘light to the nations’, their society corrupted. So its social reformers, the Jewish prophets of the Old Testament, pronounced long-term destruction of that society. That nation would lie dormant until its Law-Giver would see fit to raise it again. That long-running social experiment revealed a deep problem.

The Insurmountable Social Obstacle

Jesus, the insightful social analyst of his day, pointed out the root problem like this.

But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ²⁰These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Matthew 15: 18-20

Jesus assessed that the roots of social problems come from flaws within her citizens, not primarily from inadequate social laws or protocols. Of course, unbalanced social protocols can magnify the problems. But fundamentally, we the citizens, have hearts that naturally tend to bring forth evil thoughts. We propagate these out into society, whether by hand and mouth, as in Jesus’ day, or through a keyboard, scanner, touchscreen, voice recorder, or ‘share’ button today.

Facebook in the News

Consider the general trend that Facebook’s news cycle has generated. After its mid-2000s launch, we heard a steady stream of positive news about the new social media platform. Its new technology dazzled us. World dignitaries sought out Zuckerberg, the whiz-kid entrepreneur, and listened to him on the global stage.

But the tenor of the news started to change in the mid-2010s. When Cambridge Analytica took the social information of millions for advertising purposes without their consent, that was an important turning point. Questions continue to surface about lies and misinformation spread on Facebook, often by powerful interest groups. The constant drip-drip of cyberbullying, pornography, and revenge publishing of intimate photos also came out. People witnessed depression, despair, and suicide. Questions remain about how Facebook’s algorithms target children, and what role Facebook played in the January 2021 storming of the US Capitol. Former insiders now claim that Facebook undermines democracy.

With this backdrop, Zuckerberg announced in October 2021, that he was renaming Facebook to Meta since the overall aim of his IT company was now not simply social media but creating virtual realities where people could enter into and participate as avatars. In short, Meta is creating a new world, a Meta-Verse. This new world will operate under programmed rules. So, for example, if my avatar throws a ‘ball’ to your avatar in Meta, its trajectory in the virtual world would mimic that in our physical world because programming laws would be created controlling its trajectory (always subject to change for wild experiences). The vision is for all to be able to talk, live, work, and socialize in Meta.

Change the Meta World…

Despite the immense technical skills and huge investments made into the Meta world (and the meta-verses that other IT companies are creating), the problem that Jesus put his finger on 2000 years ago remains. Even in beta testing, Meta reports the ‘creepy behavior’ exhibited by some avatars towards another avatar ‘citizens’. Meta is placing rules limiting behavior in the Meta-verse. Likened as ‘sexual abuse’ by some, it re-focuses on that age-old problem. How to control behavior so that citizens treat each other respectfully and without exploitation?

Or change the Citizens

Jesus also focused on birthing a new world which he called the ‘Kingdom of God’. He assessed that this problem was so serious that it could not be solved by a simple re-boot of the Meta world. Nor would making some rules, either as rigorous as those of Moses, or more light-handed as with Meta. Rather it would require a fundamental re-boot of the prospective citizens who would inhabit his world. Without this fundamental re-boot, access to His world would be strictly denied. Here is how he put it in a discourse with a leading teacher of Moses’ Law in his day.

Jesus and Nicodemus

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ²He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

³Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

⁴“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

⁹“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

¹⁰“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹²I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

¹⁹This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
John 3: 1-21

Restrictions in all Alternate Worlds

The very fact that Facebook, Meta and all social media platforms face the problems that they do underscores the reality of this obstacle. They make Jesus’ declaration to include only those ‘born again’ into his Kingdom deserve some reflection. A perfect world inhabited by corrupt people will sooner or later crumble into the mess we experience today in our physical world. Tech companies will attempt to solve this problem with better technology; governments with better institutions and education. Jesus will do it with transformed people.

A Meta-Verse or Meta-noia

Many assume that since ‘God loves me’ then I will certainly be welcome into whatever ‘Kingdom’ He might be creating. The move of IT giants to limit access to their platforms or Meta worlds to only those meeting their policies; the moves of governments around the world today to guard their borders; their limiting of visas and citizenship should put that assumption to rest. All societies, whether government, Meta-Verse, or Divine have standards by which they screen prospective citizens.

Zuckerberg chose the new name ‘Meta’ because it means ‘beyond’, or ‘change’. Jesus agreed on the necessity of change or Meta but he focused the required change on the individual rather than the platform. In Greek, ‘Metanoia’ means ‘change of mind’, often translated today by the word ‘repent’. Jesus’ co-worker, John the Baptist, built his entire career around this necessity of Metanoia. As they repeatedly said

John the Baptist, baptizing in the River Jordan
^{_{Nicolas Poussin, PD-US-expired, via Wikimedia Commons}}

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent (Meta – noia), for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Matthew 4:17

When the Meta virtual world is ready we will have the option to enter in. Or we can remain outside in our current physical world. Jesus predicted a future when our physical universe will wear out, with the only one remaining being the Meta one he is now developing – The Kingdom of God. So, if our physical world terminates but we cannot enter His new world without a Meta (change) of our minds from his new birth then our options are limited. As he put it

I tell you, no! But unless you repent (Meta – noia), you too will all perish.
Luke 13:3

Delving deeper into his assessment

Of course, we may doubt his diagnosis of our condition. But his insights have had a way of standing up to the tests of time as many others have not. So it may be worth exploring his understanding of life. His dialogue with a woman about life, living water, and repentance against the backdrop of the Dead Sea provides a great entry point to do this.