Monday, December 20, 2010

Letter To Laodicea (part 56)

Continuing to make applications along Christological lines, as the parable of the banquet does so much to summarize and encapsulate the mission of Jesus and its implications for His church, and at the risk of being repetitive, it can be justly declared that the invitation that is symbolized by the parable illustrates and illuminates the free invitation that is being extended by God for all to participate in His coming kingdom feast (messianic banquet) that marks His rule on earth.  In that light, what stands as a unique feature of the model of the kingdom that was being shown forth by Jesus, is its subversion of what was deemed to be and held to as the normal modes of repentance. 

Instead of the normal modes of repentance, and its prescriptions, which would be repentance, a determination not to repeat, and an appropriate reparation (as detailed in the Mosaic law, as promulgated by the prophets, and as heavily enforced within the traditions, Temple and sacrificial system of Jesus’ day), Jesus sets forth something different.  Though He does not countermand the law or the prophets, but rather, by embodying the fullness of the law’s intentions, He offers up a historically-rooted reminder to His people that demonstrates that which has apparently fallen from memory.  Yes, Israel was God’s special and chosen people, and yes, they had been elected by God as the vehicle by which He would reveal and accomplish His redemptive plan for His image-bearers and the creation over which they had been given dominion.  They, however, had forgotten that at one point, they had been counted among the rest of humanity that stood outside of God’s covenant plans. 

Before Abraham was called, and before he was provided with a covenant responsibility, he had been an idolater.  There was nothing special about him, and like anyone else, he had to be compelled to turn from idols to serve the living God.  When Israel is freed from Egypt, God has to remind them that there was nothing special about them that marked them out for the calling and the covenant, but that they had been called in order to operate within God’s purposes---redeemed for redemption, as it were.  As things stood in Jesus’ day, Abraham would have been looked upon, by those who counted themselves as keepers of the boundaries of the covenant, as one of those wicked sinners that stood under the judgment of God.  Abraham, ironically enough, would have been one of the very individuals that would have experienced the messianic banquet as the divine trap that was meant to ensnare and bring the destructive judgment of God. 

So when Jesus goes about embodying the kingdom and the covenant, there is an underlying symbolism at work, in that He is repeatedly acting out God’s movement to the one that was looked to as the “founder” of God’s people.  Jesus is seeking out those that would be defined as “wicked,” and He is extending the kingdom of God to them first, which is exactly what God had done with Abraham, and is what can be understood as something of a regular feature of Israel’s history as outlined in the Scriptures.  Taking this point to a brief aside, it is valuable to briefly consider the history of all of the callings to participate as a representative of God, whether as a prophet, priest, or king.  We never see or hear anybody’s credentials, and thereby are provided with an understandable foundation for the call.  On the contrary, we simply see or hear the call, and then find the called one engaged as a representative of the Creator God. 

For Jesus then, it can now be said (as was always actually the case) that true repentance, which is found in a sincere desire to rightly bear the divine image and therefore function as the ambassadorial representative that God had always intended humans to be, which begins with an acknowledgment of the rule of God through His Christ, is the acceptance of being found.  This is part of the subversion in which Jesus positions Himself as the new and true Temple, which makes perfect sense if He is in fact the place where Israel’s God has taken up residence.  This helps explain why it is that His consistent actions and speech were so incredibly shocking and offensive to the sensibilities of those that were part of the power structures of the day.  Jesus, while presenting Himself as Messiah, seemed to be countermanding that which provided identity to the people of God (Temple, Torah, tradition, and covenant boundaries), rather than taking steps to see these things come into their places of rightful supremacy.  Jesus, of course, was doing no such thing.  He was providing ample demonstration of the way that Israel was intended, through all which was held in high esteem, to be a light to the nations, thereby bringing glory to their God as the ends, rather than to their nation, which was only to be the means to the achieving of God’s glorification.  

No comments:

Post a Comment