The Beadle Bard…

Luke 4 describes Jesus spending time in the desert, out in a place where people and civilisation were absent.

Out in the desert under the blazing sun, Jesus is distilled & concentrated so that all that’s left is a focused and very determined Son of God who finds the heart of what his mission will be.

Scriptures says that Jesus returns from the desert filled with the Spirit of God, and the very next Sabbath he stands up in his hometown Synagogue and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

What is Jesus saying here ?

Jesus is boldly declaring what is called the Great Reversal. Essentially Jesus is saying that the Spirit of Almighty God is leading him to engage in concrete actions that will fundamentally reverse the status quo.

In other parts of the Gospels this movement to reverse the vast litany of injustice in the world is called the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God refers to a future time when all peoples will be united in all their diversity in a kingdom of justice and righteousness and mercy. There will be peace and equal prosperity and even harmony among men and women. Essentially the Kingdom of God is a future time when the reign of God will be universally recognized and established among people.

The message of Jesus was that this future is has made its beginning. It is breaking into the world right now in the person of Jesus.

What impresses me about Jesus is that he walks out from the Synagogue, through the middle of a murderous crowd & does exactly what he says he will do. And as he wanders about teaching his gentle message of freedom and justice and reconciliation, while he is healing people and working miracles - Jesus attracts a vast following of people from all walks of life. At the same time Jesus deeply offends other people… people of power and influence, people whose position is best maintained by keeping things exactly as they are.

Now the outcome of Jesus pursuing his mission was that the religious establishment conspired to killed him. And the outcome of that conspiracy ended with Jesus being killed off on the Cross.

What makes this Great Reversal so potent is that 3 days later Jesus began appearing again to his closest followers.

And you know what, Jesus’ message didn’t change after he was resurrected. Instead of saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…”, Jesus tells his followers, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon you because he has anointed you to bring good news to the poor. He has sent you to proclaim release to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

“Go on, go and share this teaching with all people. Go make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…”.

By the time the Apostle Paul begins writing to the early Christian communities, this broad sweep of Jesus’ teaching has been distilled and concentrated again into a potent confession that propels would be disciples on their way. It says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord & believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.”

Here we have it… People who follow after Jesus, people who say Jesus is the main thing are people who deeply, truly, profoundly believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. As a result they begin to re-orientating their lives around the teachings of Jesus. They become participators in the Great Reversal. They seek to embody God’s justice and mercy and goodness. They group their lives together and they become God’s alternative community and the Risen Jesus is their ‘living middle’.

When people associate their lives together, when this Risen Jesus becomes the living middle, then it is possible for community to arise among them and the Kingdom of God spreads like a wildfire !