When I read the gospels, something that stands out to me now (now that I've been working in the international business world for years) that didn't stand out the first couple times I read them (in college and shortly after) is the importance of paradigms. I've been to four other countries on three other continents for my employer and learned a lot about humanity in the last few years. I've learned that we're all the same, that we all have approximately the same hopes and dreams for reasonably prosperity and happiness, and we all have things we like and dislike about our government and our leaders. I've also learned that we're all very different, that there are some people on this planet who think very very differently than I do. Some of them live a world away, some only live down the street. Take this perspective into account the next time you read the Gospel of Jesus.
For example, for hundreds of years, even thousands, God had been foretelling the Jews that a messiah was coming. God had used tons of prophets to be His voice. Of all the prophecies over the years, when Jesus actually showed up the one that was the "prime directive" in many people's minds was Psalm 110:1, which says:
The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.” [NLT]
Never mind that this was basically the only prophesy that didn't warn us that the messiah would be ridiculed, mistreated, misunderstood, murdered, etc.* But remember that the Jews had glory days. They remembered when David and Solomon were king, and they ruled the whole area. But now, the Romans were in charge, and the Romans weren't the nicest bunch of dictators you could ask for. The Romans were the enemies of the Jews, and many Jews were unwilling to accept a Messiah who didn't live up to Psalm 110:1 and kick the Romans out. But think about that concept again, and what that really means, because Jesus was the Messiah (and still is). So let's say that another way then. Many Jews were unwilling to accept God's plan God's way and thought that either God should operate the way they expected Him to operate or He can just go to Hell. We see that over and over again through the Pharisees and other religious leaders' interactions with Jesus. It was never the fact that what Jesus did was inherently wrong or evil or malicious that absolutely infuriated them, it was that what He did constantly challenged and unnervingly quickly and effortlessly destroyed their paradigms of who God was, what God cared about, and more importantly, who they were and their place in the world. Jesus even called them on this in Matthew 22:41-46, which says:
Then, surrounded by the Pharisees, Jesus asked them a question: “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “He is the son of David.” Jesus responded, “Then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, call the Messiah ‘my Lord’? For David said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet.’ Since David called the Messiah ‘my Lord,’ how can the Messiah be his son?” No one could answer him. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. [NLT]
Today, the way we think (in our paradigm) it is a non-issue for a son to achieve more power than a father. Especially when the father is so old he's dead. But to them, under their paradigm, this was a huge theological problem. That's why no one could answer him. They wanted to claim the part of the prophesy (that we now know as Psalm 110:1) that would give them power (God making their enemies their footstool) but they really didn't want to deal with the part where a descendant, or heir, could be more important than their predecessor. Not because it mattered in an absolute sense, but because they had deviated from God's will so much and come to love the power and position they had gained over the years, that to admit not only that they weren't perfectly aligned with God but that God actually saw things completely differently than they did would stand a good chance of making them to look really stupid (since they were his ambassadors). And if they looked stupid on this one (big) issue then they might loose all their worldly power and position, and that was the most unacceptable thing they could imagine. One of them even came out and said it in John 11:46-48:
Some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.” [NLT]
Notice the comment about the Romans came second, and his first concern was actually for the people who looked up to him stopping and following Jesus instead. There are tons of examples of even the apostles struggling with the paradigm shifts that God was trying to introduce. One of my favorite examples is Peter. Remember him, he is the guy that Jesus praises so strongly in Matthew 16:13-19:
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.” [NLT]
Pretty cool, huh? The Catholics believe Peter was the first Pope. But then, in the next verse basically, Peter lets his paradigm get the best of him. He's just been given this wonderful compliment from Jesus because of his faith, so Peter is probably feeling pretty bold, like he can take on the world. Especially after that description of "whatever you forbid..." Let's read it in Matthew 16:21-23:
From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” [NLT]
Notice the comment "Heaven forbid"? Remember what Jesus had said just a few sentences prior, about the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus all but tells him he's got the wrong idea (paradigm). And then, a little while later, in Matthew 26, Peter was still hoping for his chance to be part of the beginning of the ultimate holy war where Jesus might forget all that peace junk he had been preaching for three years straight and go nuclear on both those annoying religious leaders and the Romans. Let's read it from John though instead of Matthew, first in John 18:10-11:
Then Simon Peter drew a sword and slashed off the right ear of Malchus, the high priest’s slave. But Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Shall I not drink from the cup of suffering the Father has given me?” [NLT]
...and less dramatically in John 6:15:
When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. [NLT]
My next favorite example is John the Baptist. John is put in prison and when he hears that Jesus is out and about doing lots of miracles, he begins to doubt because Jesus is taking too long to come, break down the door, and rescue him. So John sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus what's taking Him so long to launch the rescue campaign? The response is in Luke 7:20-23:
John’s two disciples found Jesus and said to him, “John the Baptist sent us to ask, ‘Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?’” At that very time, Jesus cured many people of their diseases, illnesses, and evil spirits, and he restored sight to many who were blind. Then he told John’s disciples, “Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, ‘God blesses those who do not turn away because of me.’” [NLT]
Jesus is saying God blesses those who do not turn away from God because He holds a different paradigm, or because He has different priorities, than we do. Blessed are us who are prepared to drop our own priorities and accept God's. Judas Iscariot was perhaps one of the best examples of this. Judas, too, expected a military messiah. You may remember Judas was the one who betrayed Jesus by selling him to the Jewish leaders for 30 pieces of silver. But is what we read in Matthew 27:1-5 the tone of a man who hated his teacher?
Very early in the morning the leading priests and the elders of the people met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor. When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.” “What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem.” Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself. [NLT]
The subtext, in my opinion, is that Judas had a wrong paradigm which lead him to have unrealistic expectations for his messiah (Jesus) which caused him to sin. Judas had been with Jesus since before Matthew chapter 10. He was one of the original apostles (not just a disciple). He knew who Jesus was, and he didn't have any disdain for Jesus. What he had in mind when he sold Jesus was not too dissimilar from John the Baptist. I think Judas was saying to himself, "I know, I'll get the Jewish leaders to come after Jesus and force His hand so that He'll have to get the military campaign started, because I'm tired of waiting for it." Kind of like with Neo in The Matrix and Emit in The Lego Movie, where the main characters couldn't really fulfill their potential until they really believed in themselves, spurred on by one of the other main characters. Perhaps Judas thought Jesus just needed a push to build up the courage to get things in gear. All things being equal, this might have been alright. However, God didn't really appreciate a mere mortal trying to force His hand (John 17:12). Jesus knew what Judas was thinking and said in Matthew 26:23-24:
“One of you who has just eaten from this bowl with me will betray me. For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!” [NLT]
And lastly (for this blog post) we see all this paradigm stuff with the mock trial. Even when they were criticizing Jesus in the last hours, they were in their own way giving Him a chance to get so mad that He'd succumb to their expectations and go on a nuclear rampage and kill all the Romans. (That is, if He really was the messiah, then surely that's what He'd do. And if He wasn't the messiah, then as far as they were concerned he deserved to die a hundred deaths for wrecking havoc on their little kingdom.) We can see it in this modern dramatization of Matthew 26:59-68, from Mel Gibson's 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ. (The only version of this clip on YouTube has no subtitles, the movie of course has them.)
The trick is the people were not expecting a humble servant but a super hero. Contrast God's idea of a savior to man's idea of a savior in the following movie clip from Marvel's 2009 movie Iron Man. While you're watching this, remember that the Romans, while honestly not all bad, in many ways fit the bill (as Obiwan Kinobi said, "from a certain point of view") exactly for what we today call terrorists. Except they were in charge of most of the known world. As setup, this clip is showing you a scene from the movie where the hero, Tony Stark, is sitting in his basement fine tuning this new suit of armor he's made after using an earlier prototype to escape from these very same terrorists he's seeing on the TV. The suit he made is meant to be armor and the device on his hand was originally only intended to be used as a flight stabilizer. Once he realizes it has an alternate use, that is the catalyst of inspiration to go and be some people's savior.
(Note: the clip I originally picked here has been removed from YouTube, here's another that starts a minute later in the movie but contains the most important part of what I wanted to highlight. If at some point this video is also removed then this one was an authorized clip so shouldn't ever get pulled, but leaves out the terrorist's actions which leaves out some relevant emotional context.)
Obviously "iron man" is not what the Jews had in mind, specifically. But the power and vengeance that he demonstrated was more in line with what they were expecting their messiah to bring. Reminiscent of the judge Samson, or the Angel of Death in Moses's day.
Now of course, fast forward a couple thousand years. Are we any different? Do we accept God's plan as God's plan or do we tell Him that salvation and the rest of the universe needs to work the way we say it should work, otherwise He can take a hike? Never mind that He invented absolutely everything, even the energy you're using to power your brain as you read this. For example, take any of the numerous cultural hot topics, including abortion, marriage, sexuality, gun control, the 10 commandments, and biological evolution. God stated His opinions on these topics very clearly, long before you and I were born. Do we care? Are we willing to reset our paradigm to conform to His (as revealed in His word) or do we live our lives as if we expect God to conform to ours? If you're reading this at Christmas, remember why Jesus came to Earth 2000 years ago and think about what that can mean for how you live your life. If you're reading this at Easter, remember why Jesus suffered and died on the cross, and think about what that can mean for how you live your life.
(* Other prophecies the Jews surely hung to (because it emphasized the Messiah's glory, not His suffering) were Isaiah 11 and 55:3-5.)