Beauty & the Beast

 

Beauty & the Beast

Beauty & the Beast - Audio/Visual 

Jesus was beaten with whips and handed over to the soldiers to be crucified. The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s palace, and they all gathered around him. They took off his clothes and put a red robe on him. Using thorny branches, they made a crown, put it on his head, and put a stick in his right hand. Then the soldiers bowed before Jesus and made fun of him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on Jesus. Then they took his stick and began to beat him on the head. After they finished, the soldiers took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified. (Matt. 27:26–31)

What would have happened to the Beast if the Beauty hadn’t appeared? Remember the story? There was a time when his face was handsome, and his palace was pleasant. But that was before the curse, before the shadows fell on the castle of the prince, and before the shadows fell on the heart of the prince. And when the darkness fell, he hid. Secluded in his castle, he was left with a glistening snout, curly tusks and a bad mood. But all that changed when the girl came. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened to the Beast if the Beauty hadn’t appeared. Better yet, what would have happened if she hadn’t cared? And who’d have blamed her if she hadn’t? He was a beast. Hairy. Drooling. Roaring. Defying. And she was such a beauty. Stunningly gorgeous. Contagiously kind. If ever two people lived up to their names, these two did it in spades. Who would’ve blamed her if she hadn’t cared? But she did. And because the Beauty loved the Beast, the Beast became more beautiful himself.

The story’s familiar to most, but not just because it’s a fairy tale. It’s familiar because it reminds us of ourselves – there’s a beast in each of us. It wasn’t always that way, of course. There was a time when humanity’s face was beautiful, and the palace was pleasant. But that was before the curse, before the shadow fell across the Garden of Eden, before the darkness fell across the heart of Adam. And ever since the curse, we’ve been different. Beastly. Ugly. Defiant. Angry. We do things we know we shouldn’t do and then we wonder why we did them.

The ugly part of me showed its beastly face one night when I was in college. I was driving on a two-lane road that was about to become a single lane. A woman in a car beside me was in the lane that continued, and I was in the lane that stopped. I needed to be ahead of her. My schedule was, no doubt, more important than hers. So, I floored it. She did, too. And when my lane ended, she was a fender ahead of me. I growled and slowed and let her go ahead. Over her shoulder she gave me a sweet little bye-bye wave. But then the sinister part of me said, “Hey, wait a minute. She can’t do that! Maybe you should shed a little light on the situation.” So, I put a little high beam in her rear view mirror. She retaliated by slowing down. To a crawl. This woman was mean.

She couldn’t have cared less if the whole city was late; she wasn’t going to go beyond fifteen miles per hour. And I wasn’t going to take my lights out of her rear view mirror. Like two stubborn mules, she kept it slow, and I kept it bright. But then, after a few more unkind thoughts, the road widened, and I started to make my pass. But wouldn’t you know, a red light left the two of us side by side at the intersection. What happened next was both good and bad. The good news is that she waved at me; the bad is that it was more like a one-finger salute.

Then conviction surfaced. “Why did I do that?” I’m usually a pretty calm guy, but for fifteen minutes I was a beast. And only two facts comforted me: I didn’t have an ichthys symbol on my truck, and the apostle Paul had similar struggles: “I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate.” (Rom. 7:15) Ever felt like saying those words? If so, you’re in good company because Paul isn’t the only person in the Bible who wrestled the beast within. In fact, it’s hard to find a page in Scripture where the animal doesn’t bare his teeth.

King Saul chasing young David with a spear. Shechem raping Dinah. Dinah’s brothers (the sons of Jacob) murdering Shechem and his friends. Lot selling out to Sodom and then getting out of Sodom. Herod murdering Bethlehem toddlers. Another Herod murdering Jesus’ cousin. If the Bible is called the Good Book, it’s not because its people are – blood runs as freely through the stories as the ink on the pages. But the evil of the beast was never so raw as on the day Christ died.

The disciples were first fast asleep, then fast afoot. Herod wanted a show. Pilate wanted out. And the soldiers wanted blood. So, they scourged Jesus. The legionnaire’s whip consisted of leather straps with little jagged metal pieces on each end. His goal was singular: beat the accused within an inch of his death and then stop. Thirty-nine lashes were allowed but seldom needed. A centurion monitored the prisoner’s status. No doubt Jesus was near death when his hands were untied, and he slumped to the ground. The whipping was the first deed of the soldiers. The crucifixion was the third. (I’ll get to the second in a moment) Though his back was ribboned with wounds, the soldiers loaded the crossbeam on Jesus’ shoulders and marched him to the Place of the Skull and executed him. And we really don’t fault the soldiers for these two actions. After all, they were just following orders. But what’s hard to understand is what they did in between. Here’s Matthew’s description:

Jesus was beaten with whips and handed over to the soldiers to be crucified. The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s palace, and they all gathered around him. They took off his clothes and put a red robe on him. Using thorny branches, they made a crown, put it on his head, and put a stick in his right hand. Then the soldiers bowed before Jesus and made fun of him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on Jesus. Then they took his stick and began to beat him on the head. After they finished, the soldiers took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified. (Matt. 27:26–31)

The soldiers’ assignment was simple: take the Nazarene to the hill and kill him. But they had another idea. They wanted to have some fun first. So, these strong, rested, armed soldiers encircled an exhausted, nearly dead, Galilean carpenter and beat up on him. The scourging was commanded. The crucifixion was ordered. But who would draw pleasure out of spitting on a half-dead man? Spitting isn’t intended to hurt the body — it can’t. Spitting is intended to degrade the soul, and it does. So, what were the soldiers doing? Weren’t they elevating themselves at the expense of another? In other words, they felt big by making Christ look small.

Have you ever done that? Oh, maybe you’ve never spit on anyone, but have you ever gossiped? Slandered? Have you ever raised your hand in anger, or rolled your eyes in arrogance? Have you ever blasted your high beams in someone’s rear view mirror? Ever made someone feel bad so you would feel good? That’s what the soldiers did to Jesus. And when you and I do the same, we do it to Jesus, too. “I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.” (Matt. 25:40) In other words, how we treat others is how we treat Jesus. And although tough to hear, we’ve got to face the fact that there’s something beastly within each and every one of us. Something beastly that makes us do things that surprise even us. Haven’t you surprised yourself? Haven’t you reflected on an act and wondered, “What got into me?” The Bible has a three-letter answer for that question: S-I-N. There is something bad — beastly — within each of us. As the Apostle Paul so plainly put, we are “by nature children of wrath.” (Eph. 2:3)

It’s not that we can’t do good. We do. It’s just that we can’t keep from doing bad. In theological terms, we’re “totally depraved.” Though made in God’s image, we’ve fallen. We’re corrupt at the core. The very center of our being is selfish and perverse. David said, “I was born a sinner — yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.” (Ps. 51:5) Could any of us say any less? Each one of us was born with a tendency to sin.

And this depravity is a universal condition. Scripture says it plainly: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way. (Isa. 53:6) The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9) There is none righteous, no, not one .… All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:10, 23) Of course, some would disagree. They look around and say, “You know, compared to everyone else, I’m a pretty decent person.” But a pig might say something similar. He might look at his trough partners and announce, “I’m just as clean as everyone else.” Compared to humans, of course, that pig needs help. And compared to God, we humans need the same. The standard for sinlessness isn’t found at the pig trough, but at the throne of heaven. God, himself, is the standard.

Our deeds are ugly. Our actions are harsh. We don’t do what we want to do; we don’t like what we do. And what’s worse — yes, there’s something worse — we can’t change. We try. Oh, how we try. But “(c)an a leopard change his spots? In the same way, Jerusalem, you cannot change and do good, because you are accustomed to doing evil.” (Jer. 13:23) The apostle agreed with the prophet: “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law — indeed it cannot.” (Rom. 8:7)

Still disagree? Still think the assessment too harsh? If so, try this. For the next twenty-four hours lead a sinless life. Not a perfect decade, or year, or even a perfect month. Just one perfect day. Can you do it? Can you live without sin for one day? No? Well then, how ‘bout an hour? Could you promise that for the next sixty minutes you’ll have only pure thoughts and actions? Still too hard? Then how about the next five minutes? Five minutes of worry-free, anger-free, unselfish living — can you do it? Not likely, and that applies to both of us. So, we have a problem then: we are sinners, and “the wages of sin is death.” (Rom. 6:23) We have a problem: we are not holy, and “anyone whose life is not holy will never see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14) We have a problem: we are evil, and “evil people are paid with punishment.” (Prov. 10:16) With all these problems then, what can we do?

Allow the spit of the soldiers to symbolize the filth in our hearts. And then observe what Jesus does with that filth. He carries it to the cross. Through the prophet he said, “I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” (Isa. 50:6) Mingled with his blood and sweat was the essence of our sin. God could have deemed otherwise. In God’s plan, Jesus was offered wine for his thirst, so why not a towel for his face? Simon carried the cross of Jesus, but he didn’t mop the cheek of Jesus. And legions of angels were only a prayer away. Couldn’t they have taken the spittle away? They could have, but Jesus never commanded them to. For some reason, Jesus chose the saliva. Along with the spear and the sponge, he bore the spit of man. Why? Maybe he saw the beauty within the beast. But that’s where the correlation with Beauty and the Beast ends because in the fable, the beauty kisses the beast. In the Bible, the Beauty does much more. He becomes the beast so the beast can become the beauty. Jesus changes places with us. We, like Adam, were under a curse, but Jesus “changed places with us and put himself under that curse.” (Gal. 3:13)

What if the Beauty had not come? What if the Beauty had not cared? Then we would have remained a beast. But the Beauty did come, and the Beauty did care. The sinless one took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint.

Grace,

Randy

Leave It

 

Leave It

Leave It - Audio/Visual 

                Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:7)

The hill is quiet now. Not still, just quiet because for the first time all day there is no noise. The noise began to subside when that weird midday darkness fell, and the darkness seemed to douse the ridicule as there were no more taunts, no more jokes and no more jesting and, in time, no more mockers. One by one the onlookers turned and began their descent. All the onlookers, that is, except me and you. We didn’t leave; we came to learn. And so we’ve lingered in the semidarkness and listened. We’ve listened to the soldiers cursing, the passersby questioning and the women weeping. But most of all we’ve listened to the trio of dying men groaning their hoarse, guttural, thirsty groans. They groaned with each roll of the head and pivot of the legs. But as the minutes became hours, their groans diminished, too. The three seemed as if they were dead. And if it weren’t for their belabored breathing, you’d have thought they were.

Then he screamed. As if someone had yanked his hair, the back of his head slammed against the sign that bore his name and he screamed. And his scream cut the dark. Standing as straight as the nails would permit, he cried as one calling for a lost friend, “Eloi!” His voice was raspy, scratchy. “My God!” Ignoring the volcano of erupting pain, he pushed upward until his shoulders were higher than his nailed hands. “Why have you forsaken me?” And the soldiers stared. The weeping of the women ceased. One of the Pharisees sneered sarcastically, “He’s calling Elijah.” But no one laughed. He’d shouted a question to the heavens and you half expected heaven to shout back in return. And apparently it did. Because the face of Jesus softened, and an afternoon dawn broke as he spoke for a final time: “It is finished. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (John 19:30; Luke 23:46)

And as suddenly as the silence was broken, the silence returned. Now all is quiet. The mocking has ceased because there’s no one to mock. The soldiers are busy with the business of cleaning up the dead. Two men have come, dressed well and with good intentions, and they are given the body of Jesus and we are left with the relics of his death: three nails; three cross-shaped shadows; and a braided crown with scarlet tips. Bizarre, isn’t it? The thought that this blood is not man’s blood but God’s son? That’s crazy. To think that these nails held your sins and mine to a cross? Absurd. Is it more amazing that a scoundrel’s prayer was offered and answered, or more preposterous that another scoundrel offered no prayer at all? Absurdities and ironies. The hill of Calvary is nothing if not both.

We would have scripted the moment differently. Asked how God should have redeem his world, we’d have scripted white horses, flashing swords and evil laying flat on its back. God on his throne. But God on a cross? A split-lipped, puffy-eyed, blood-masked God on a cross? Sponge thrust in his face? Spear plunged in his side? Dice tossed at his feet? No, we wouldn’t have written the drama of redemption that way. But then again, we weren’t asked. The players and props were heaven-picked and God-ordained. We weren’t asked to design the hour. But we have been asked to respond to it because in order for the cross of Christ to be the cross of our life, we need to bring something to the hill.

We’ve seen what Jesus brought. With scarred hands he offered forgiveness. Through torn skin he promised acceptance. He took the path to take us home. He wore our garment to give us his own. We’ve seen the gifts he brought. Now we ask, what will we bring? We aren’t asked to paint the sign, or carry the nails. We aren’t asked to wear the spit, or bear the crown. But we are asked to walk the path and leave something at the cross. We don’t have to, of course. Many don’t. Many have done what we’ve done before. More minds than ours have read about the cross; better minds than ours have written about it. Many have pondered what Christ left; fewer have pondered what we must leave.

We can observe and analyze the cross. We can read about it, even pray to it. But until we leave something there, we really haven’t embraced the cross. We’ve seen what Christ left. Shouldn’t we as well? How about starting with our bad moments, or those bad habits. Leave them at the cross. Our selfish moods and white lies? Give them to God. Our binges and bigotries? God wants them all – every flop; every failure. He wants every single one. Why? Because he knows we can’t live with them.

Many summer afternoons were spent at my grandmother’s playing football with my cousin in the empty field next to her house. Those afternoons were spent imitating Roger Staubach and Bart Starr. But that empty field had burweed whose stickers really hurt. You can’t play football without falling, and you couldn’t fall in my grandmother’s field without getting stuck. A few times I pulled myself out of the burweed so hopelessly covered that I had to have help. Now, kids don’t rely on other kids to pull out stickers because you need someone with skill. So, I’d call time out and limp to the house so my grandmother could extract the stickers — one by painful one. I wasn’t too bright, but I knew this: if I wanted to get back in the game, I needed to get rid of those stickers. And every mistake in life is like a burweed. You can’t live without falling, and you can’t fall without getting stuck. Unfortunately, we aren’t always as smart as a couple of young football stars. We sometimes try to get back into the game without dealing with the stickers. It’s as if we don’t want anyone to know we fell, so we pretend we never did. Consequently, we live in pain. We can’t walk well, sleep well or even rest very well; we’re kind of touchy that way.

Does God want us to live like that? No. Listen to his promise: “This is my commitment to my people: removal of their sins.” (Rom. 11:27) God does more than forgive our mistakes; he removes them. We simply have to take them to him. He not only wants the mistakes we’ve made, but he wants the ones we’re making. Are you cheating at work or cheating in your marriage? Are you mismanaging money? Are you mismanaging life? If so, don’t pretend nothing’s wrong. Don’t pretend you don’t fall. Don’t try to get back into the game without first going to God. The first step after a stumble has to be in the direction of the cross. “If we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.” (1 John 1:9) So, what can you leave at the cross? How about starting with your bad moments. And while you’re there, give God your mad moments, too.

Did you hear the story about the man who was bitten by the dog? When he learned the dog had rabies, he began making a list. The doctor told him there was no need to make a Last Will and Testament because the rabies could be cured. “Oh, I’m not making a Will,” he replied. “I’m making a list of all the people I want to bite.” Ever made one of those lists? We know that we tend to fight back; to bite back. To keep lists, snarl lips and growl at people we don’t like.

God wants that list. He inspired one servant to write, “Love does not keep a record of wrongs.” (1 Cor. 13:5) He wants us to leave the list at the cross. Granted, that’s not easy. “Just look what they did to me!” as we point to our hurts. “Just look what I did for you,” he reminds us and points to the cross. Paul said it this way: “If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you.” (Col. 3:13) We’re commanded — not urged, but commanded — to keep no list of wrongs. Besides, do we really want to keep that list? Do we really want to catalog all of our mistreatments? Do we really want to growl and snap our way through life? God doesn’t want us to either. We need to give up our sins before they infect us, and our bitterness before it incites us, and give God our anxieties before they inhibit us. And, since we’re there, let’s give God our anxious moments, too.

A man told his psychologist that his anxieties were disturbing his dreams. Some nights he dreamed he was a pup tent; other nights he dreamed he was a tepee. The doctor quickly analyzed the situation and replied, “I know your problem. You’re too tense.” Sorry. But most of us are. So next time, try taking those anxieties to the cross. Next time you’re worried about your health or house or finances or flights, take a mental trip up the hill. Spend a few moments looking again at the pieces of the passion. Run your thumb over the tip of the spear. Balance a spike in the palm of your hand. Read the wooden sign written in your own language. He did all of that for me and you. And knowing that, knowing all he did for us there, don’t you think he’ll look out for us here? Or as Paul wrote, “God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. If God did this, won’t he freely give us everything else?” (Rom. 8:32) We would do ourselves a favor by taking our anxious moments to the cross. Leave them there with your bad moments, your mad moments and your anxious moments. Oh, and your final moment.

Frankly, barring the return of Christ first, we’ll have one. A final moment. A final breath. A final widening of the eyes and beating of the heart. In a split second we’ll leave what we know and enter what we don’t. And that’s what bothers us – death is the great unknown. We’re always a little skittish about the unknown. God promises to come at an unexpected hour and take us from the gray world we know to a golden world we don’t. But since we don’t, we aren’t sure we want to go. We even get upset at the thought of his coming. For that reason God wants us to trust him. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” he urged. “I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am.” (John 14:1,3)

Troubled about your final moments? Leave them at the foot of the cross. Leave them there with your bad moments, mad moments and anxious moments. And about this time maybe you’re thinking, “You know, if I leave all those moments at the cross, I won’t have any moments left but good ones.”

No, I guess you won’t.

Grace,

Randy

Blue Collar (Part 2)

Blue Collar

(Part 2)

Blue Collar (Part 2) - Audio/Visual

Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us? (Mark 6:3)

Around the same time that the King James Version (“KJV”) translators went with “carpenter,” so too did every other major European language translation. And as translation followed translation, we made Jesus a carpenter in the European image, and translated him as such to the ends of the earth. However, where Jesus is concerned, it’s important to draw the most accurate portrait possible, replacing the notion of a man who merely planed tables for a living with images of a man who may have actually spent more time cutting stone with his father from quarries. But if we're only debating the kinds of materials with which Jesus worked, it probably doesn't make much difference. So, why quibble?

The answer is that Jesus' knowledge of building did not seem to stop at the materials themselves. He spoke constantly of financial practices and the management of both projects and people including payment, debt, wages, investment, hiring, firing and the relationships between management and staff. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish.’” (Luke 14:28-30) Stand Jesus' references to masonry next to his references to the business side of construction work and management and we begin to fill in some of the gaps of his personal history which then casts an entirely different light on his entire ministry.

It's an attractive image for many of us, for example, to envision Jesus working mostly alone as a freelance carpenter in his woodshop. In such a vision, and before he embarked on his public ministry, Jesus’ days would have been filled with a dedication to his craft, communing with the Father in a prayerful, almost monastic setting – like his portrayal in The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson. But what if, instead of working in silent reverie, Jesus worked with others? For instance, on some projects he would have likely worked under another’s authority, under an arch-tektōn for example. And as a more experienced tektōn, he may have had authority over others – the day laborers and less-experienced tektōns. If true, then our perception of Jesus' formative pre-ministry years begins to shift, especially for those of us where work has an outsized grip on our identities, or where work is our identity.

In all likelihood, Jesus had coworkers – probably diverse ones by that era's standards. King Herod's first-century public works projects generated an enormous demand for laborers from all across the region, and many scholars believe that Joseph and Jesus participated in many of the King’s building projects. In other words, Jesus worked at job sites with co-workers of differing worldviews. If true, then we shouldn’t shun workplaces with co-workers who have different points of view. Rather, we are called to be salt and light in those very same places. Further, those tradespeople were also common men – “undesirables,” even. Roman society generally divided artisans, or craftsmen, into “free,” such as painters and sculptors, and “lowly,” such as carpenters and metalsmiths. Thus, someone inventing a background for Jesus, one that elites as well as peasants and artisans would have appreciated, might have chosen an occupation like a scribe; they certainly would not have chosen a tektōn.

This would then change how we see Jesus' familiarity with “ruffians.” He didn't just dine with sinners when the Pharisees were watching, or when the Gospel writers were taking good notes. Jesus likely spent a good deal of his life among the “lowbrow.” In other words, Jesus was not an elite; his trade was not respected. In fact, early church leaders of an aristocratic bent found Jesus' trade to be an embarrassment and wanted desperately to distance Jesus from it, and for Jesus to find a new agent.

The first substantive polemic against Christianity attacked the respectability of Jesus on precisely that account. In the second century, the pagan philosopher, Celsus, disparaged Jesus as "only a tektōn." The late New Testament scholar, William Lane, noted in his Mark commentary that the question, "Is not this the tektōn?" along with calling Jesus the son of Mary (instead of the son of Joseph), were meant to disparage within that cultural setting, i.e., isn't this the manual laborer whose mother, well ... you know?

And some things, it seems, simply never change. While 19th-century English critics of John Everett Millais' painting had come to accept the KJV's assertion that Christ was a carpenter, they were disturbed by the artist's embrace of the low-class lifestyle that came with it, i.e., unswept floors and shirtless houseguests, including Joseph's rough hands and veined muscles that Millais had modeled after an actual carpenter. But Jesus was a laborer. He would have hammered, chiseled, broken, carried and laid stone for half his life which may explain, at least in part, his ability to carry his own cross up Golgotha after being nearly flogged to death. It’s almost a certainty that Jesus did not look like the emaciated Jesus of the medieval paintings.

It's easy to focus entirely on the salvific meaning of the Incarnation. Or when we read that Jesus took on the "nature of a servant, being made in human likeness," (See, Phil. 2:7) it's easy to think immediately of him washing the disciples' feet. But to go before us as high priest, Jesus assumed the place of a servant from his earliest years of manhood and in every aspect of his life. Thus, he can fully empathize with human weakness (Heb. 4:15) because he was made "fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people." (Heb. 2:17) In other words, a fully human experience was necessary for Jesus’ atoning role as our high priest who ever goes before us.

Jesus experienced the full range of human emotion, and a broad range of human circumstance – including how the fall of man impacts our workplaces. We cannot be certain, but Jesus surely experienced or witnessed at least some, if not all of our workplace suffering. At times, he may have felt exploited. He may have endured drudgery – for days, or perhaps even years. Despite these difficulties, however, Jesus pleased his Father in all that he said and did. In a culture that lauds creative-class jobs at the expense of trades and service workers, we would do well to linger on a deeper investigation of Jesus' vocation. The idea that Jesus, God incarnate, worked with his heart, head and hands in an ordinary, blue-collar job illustrates that there are no degrees of sacredness.

Therefor it's all the more reason for us to rejoice in the builder-craftsman rabbi. He was neither rich nor important; neither noble nor Harvard-educated. Like most of us, he was not powerful in the way of the world; that's not the kind of king he came to earth to be. A culture's concept of the ideal Messiah shifts over time. Second-century Greeks, like Celsus, and 19th-century English critics, like Dickens, preferred a Messiah who was more cultured, i.e., just like them. But whose image are we to see? If fashioned in our own image, then such a savior would be no savior at all since we cannot save ourselves.

First-century Jews, like some Americans today, wanted a savior with political and military influence, e.g., a new King David who would free them from Rome, even conquer it. Pilate interrogated Jesus with that very concern in mind, but Jesus told him that his kingdom was not of this world. That statement cost Jesus innumerable followers but earned at least some favor from the Roman governor. However, it wouldn’t be the last time Roman officials evaluated such an other-worldly claim.

The early church historian, Hegesippus, whose work was preserved through another historian by the name of Eusebius, recorded that generations later two Christian men were called to appear before the then-emperor, Domitian. (Circa 81 to 96 AD) These men were biological descendants of David and local leaders in the Christian church. The emperor informed the witnesses that he'd heard of the claim that a seed of David would conquer Rome. Thus, and with that claim as prelude, Domitian’s inquiry of these two men was understandable, perhaps even justifiable, i.e., what were the aims, or the intentions of these descendants of David?

Like Jesus, the two men reported that the kingdom was not of this world, and as proof they extended their hands showing their permanent, dirtied calluses – the hands of men who'd worked field and earth since the time they could walk. These were peasants' hands, not soldiers' hands. As a result, the emperor decided that the men posed no threat. Concluding that they were just laborers, Domitian let them go. Of course, these same farmers, fishermen and builders would later conquer Rome, but just not in the way, or during the time that the emperor had feared. Rome would become a majority Christian empire within just a few centuries, but that came later.

Upon returning from their interrogation, the two men surely must have connected their experience with the story of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, only half a century earlier. As leaders in their Christian churches, they would have known at least some of the Scripture. But it’s entirely possible that they may have heard the story directly from their grandfather who would have known it very well. His name was Jude. His brother? Jesus, son of Mary.

A builder by trade and our blue-collar Savior.

Grace,

Randy

Blue Collar (Part 1)

 

Blue Collar

(Part 1)

Blue Collar (Part 1) - Audio/Visual

Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us? (Mark 6:3)

When John Everett Millais began the painting that would launch his career as one of 19th-century England's most prominent artists, he needed props. He envisioned a young Jesus surrounded by his parents, Joseph and Mary, in their working-class carpenter's shop. It would be a new kind of scene: serene and overindulged with religious symbolism yet done in a style that no one would be expecting.

But Millais had a problem. The 20-year-old was not a working-class man. His parents were old money and he lived in Bedford Square, one of the swankiest neighborhoods in central London. He couldn’t simply wander over to his father's garage and sketch what he saw. So, he set out into the nearby cobblestone streets for inspiration. A woodworker on Oxford Street let Millais recreate his shop on canvas in painstaking detail – work bench, wood shavings and all. A butcher gave the painter two sheep's heads that he replicated in fields visible through the holy family's doorway.

The resulting painting, Christ in the House of His Parents, was completed in 1851. It placed a red-headed Christ at the center of a poor family with shabby clothes and shoeless, dirty feet. And it shocked England. For some, the image was so realistically ordinary it bordered on blasphemy. Charles Dickens hated it. Queen Victoria heard such an uproar about the painting that she had it brought to Buckingham Palace so she could see it for herself. People objected to almost everything Millais painted in that carpenter's shop. The one thing no one questioned, however, was Millais’ assumption that Joseph ran a carpenter's shop in the first place.

Few would today, either. Even people who know little else of Jesus grasp the idea that he, like his father, was a carpenter. From "My boss is a Jewish carpenter" bumper stickers, to the names of woodworking businesses, to church signs, to best-selling apologetics books, Jesus-as-carpenter is ubiquitous; it’s everywhere. Johnny Cash wrote a song about it in 1970, imagining how well-built the Savior's furniture must have been, i.e., Jesus Was a Carpenter. Mel Gibson hinted that Jesus invented the modern table and chairs for a rich man in his film The Passion of the Christ. ("Tall table, tall chairs!") And there’s obvious poetry in the image of a carpenter, none of which has been lost on countless lyricists, i.e., a man begins his calling with lumber and nails, and ultimately fulfills it nailed to a cross.

Unfortunately, carpentry, as we think of it, was not Jesus' trade. It is a misperception born of the imprecision inherent in the Bible’s translation, and the ethnocentricity of 17th-century England. We have long known this, but a more accurate story has never permeated the cultural mainstream. and our understanding of the life of Christ has suffered for it. If you had to surmise Jesus' trade based solely on his teaching illustrations and vocabulary, you might make some informed guesses. He spoke constantly of agriculture: crops, weeds, farmers, fields, seeds and fruit. Working the land was the primary vocation in first-century Nazareth, and agricultural examples connected with nearly all audiences. But the biblical text, early church tradition and even apocryphal writings agree: Jesus was not a farmer.

Jesus also spoke of fishing. At least a third of his disciples were fishermen. It's not groundless then to imagine he had something to do with the fishing economy. But when Jesus told the fishermen to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, they tried not to scoff at his outsider's lack of knowledge of their profession. (Luke 5:4-5) Of course, the surprise would later be theirs. (v. 6) Curiously, one trade Jesus never spoke of was carpentry. He hardly mentioned wood at all.

In all four Gospels, Jesus only referred to wood as a material twice. In the first instance he asked, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Matt. 7:3) The second is a reference to a green or dry tree in Luke 23:31, but it's not especially relevant to woodcraft. So, for a supposed carpenter, we have only one mention of workable wood from Jesus.

Even so, that plank from the Sermon on the Mount is sometimes invoked in connection with Jesus and carpentry. However, it is not the kind of wood a furniture-builder or toolmaker would have used. In the Greek, as many hypocrisy-focused sermons have noted for emphasis, the kind of planks Jesus spoke of were thick timbers meant to support roofs in larger building projects. But it's not all that surprising that a Galilean didn't talk much about wood. Galilee had very few trees, and the trees it did have were small. Beams and timbers had to be imported from surrounding countries.

And only the biggest-budget projects – like temples and government buildings – could incorporate these kinds of planks. In 1 Kings 5, for example, Solomon went to extreme lengths to acquire timber for the construction of the temple. He negotiated with the Phoenician king of Tyre and Sidon, sending Israelite men by the tens of thousands to learn how to cut down trees and then to actually do the work of cutting because "we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians." (v. 6) The Israelites had to go abroad precisely because they did not have the trees locally. Suffice it to say, it's hard to be a carpenter in a place with so little wood.

Jesus may not have spoken much of wood, but there is one material about which he could not stop talking: stone. This, Jesus and his contemporaries had in abundance, and they built with it. Jesus spoke of it constantly, particularly of its use in large building projects: towers, foundations, cornerstones, rocks, walls, millstones, temple stones and winepresses. When Jesus reached for a metaphor or symbol, stones and building projects filled his vocabulary toolbox. If those praising him were silent, even the stones would cry out. (Luke 19:40) The one who hears his words and does them is like the person who dug deep and laid their foundation on the rock. (Matt. 7:24) "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (v. 9; emphasis added)

His disciple’s, Simon, nickname was not Cedar or Timber, but Cephas in Aramaic, and Peter in Greek, which both mean “rock”: “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Matt. 16:18) And when Jesus chose to cite the Jewish Scriptures about his mission on earth, stone came to the foreground: "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." (Mark 12:10, from Psalm 118:22) Jesus' imagination was saturated with stones, rocks, building projects and foundations. It was nearly devoid of wood. It's an odd thing, then, that our translations call him a carpenter. So, did we get it wrong?

Well, sort of.

The New Testament records Jesus' vocation only once, in Mark 6:3: "Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" The word carpenter is translated from the Greek word tektōn, a word that lives on for us in English words like architect (literally, "chief builder"). Scholarly dictionaries identify tektōn as "one who uses various materials (wood, stone and metal) in building," and "one who makes, produces" and "one who constructs, i.e., builder, carpenter." So, from a cultural perspective, the vocation of Joseph and Jesus would have been understood as a “builder,” which would have included all aspects of building including materials such as stone, wood, mud thatch, plaster, tiles, nails, etc.

The term tektōn was never limited to woodworking; it simply designated a constructive craftsman. In other words, the carpenter interpretation has been overused and the most accurate term for Jesus' occupation would have been a "builder-craftsman." And as a rule, craftsmen – handymen, if you will – tended to use materials that worked, that were readily available and that were not prohibitively expensive. In Nazareth, that meant stone.

An early church tradition recorded by Justin Martyr has that Jesus made and repaired plows and yokes, which were made of both wood and metal. It certainly fell to the local tektōn to do this kind of work, but you couldn’t make a living at that, at least alone. In a small agrarian village with a few hundred inhabitants, there simply wouldn’t be enough need for those kinds of implements. The local tektōn made his living in bigger projects, supplemented by smaller side tasks, just as a building contractor would today. In fact, ancient translations recognized the broader use of this term as a "builder" who would be skilled with numerous materials. With one influential translation, however, that was all but forgotten.

In 1611, when the King James translators arrived at the word tektōn, they saw that the Greek term clearly meant something like a craftsman or builder. But they had two things working against them. For one, their knowledge of Greek was primarily classical Greek – the older Greek of Homer and Plato that developed in Greece. And Greece had trees. Mark, though, was not steeped in the Greek classics. His use of tektōn was likely colored by the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Old Testament – which is cited more often in the New Testament than the original Hebrew. In the Septuagint, tektōn is used broadly to stand in for the Hebrew and Aramaic word hārāš, a general term for a builder or craftsman. After all, when the townspeople in Mark 6:3 called Jesus a tektōn, they were actually speaking Aramaic which the Gospel writers later translated to Greek when they recorded their histories of Jesus. So, in Aramaic, they would have called Jesus an hārāš. And whether the builder was using stone or metal or wood, the Septuagint translated it as tektōn.

The second disadvantage for the early English translators was less technical. It was simply, well, England. A shortcoming of the KJV translation – as with most Western scholarship before the era of the passenger jet – was that most scholars never set foot in the biblical lands. They never saw how few trees grew in Galilee. In England, trees lined the entire country, and wood – not stone – was the readiest material for building. From Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to the rudest peasant hut, the English built with a lot of wood. So, given their material culture, English builders were mostly carpenters. Just as an Ethiopian painting of Jesus looks Ethiopian, and a 20th-century Swedish Jesus looks like he belongs on an Abba album cover, so different peoples imagine that Jesus' material culture resembled their own.

To be continued….