Jesus (A Re-post - edited)

(This was one of my first contributions on Gather, and even though it was about 2 years ago, my perspective remains basically the same. Enjoy! ;-) )

I was born and brought up in an atheistic country, so I was first introduced to the Bible only as a student, during the years of Gorbachyov's "glasnost". It was then when I took my first Communion, but I must admit that this initial experience with the Russian Orthodox Church was a cheer disappointment, so I have never been in a church for years after that. But, nevertheless, I did feel myself deeply interested in early Christianity and proceeded to read every book on Jesus and early church's history I could spot. Not that there were too many of them in Russia – such were the consequences of 70-year Communist rule, when it was practically impossible to conduct any independent theological research, much less to publish it. I should mention two Russian authors whose works did make some influence on me -  "Jesus the Unknown" by a Russian philosopher and writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky and  "The Son of Man" by the Rev. Father Alexander Men - an unique Russian Orthodox priest who was tragically killed in 1990. Even though both of them remained within what one could call "mainstream Christianity", I was deeply impressed by many of their insights as well as their literary skills. But my special treat - and not only mine, I presume - was Mikhail Bulgakov's famous novel, "Master and Margarita". As it often happened in my country, a writer could tell us what a scholar or a priest couldn't or wouldn't dare - and Bulgakov's Jeshua who taught that all people were good (including his own executioners!) and that there was no such thing as "evil" people at all, was so close to our Russian mentality (and to my own perception of Christ), that the book did strike a resonant chord inside of me. Since then I've made up my mind to write my own novel on Jesus as I saw him - what was quite a challenge, for any good historical fiction requires a lot of research to make the whole picture meaningful and plausible, both historically and psychologically. The novel is still in progress, but it's already become obvious that this decision in itself has changed my life dramatically - once and forever. For the more I read, the more the figure of Jesus depicting in my mind differed from the one the traditional Christianity" could offer.

I saw a young, moving, courageous man, both gentle and strong, who did preach love, freedom and equality, breaking barriers between "pure" and "impure", men and women, Jews and non-Jews. Who taught us (using Bishop John Shelby Spong's favorite phrase) how to live fully, love wastefully and be all one can be. Who did see all our faults and failures but still believed that we could - and should - be as compassionate and caring as God was and therefore attain the highest level of humanity which we usually call "divinity". Who was misunderstood by practically everybody around - his opponents, his supporters, his neighbors, even his own family - and was finally betrayed and killed, but whose Resurrection story still remains a powerful symbol of his moral victory and vindication by God. Mary Magdalene meets her Beloved one who has been raised from the grave - Love finally triumphs over hatred and death - what a beautiful metaphor for all the centuries to come! (I have every reason to believe that it is the story's MEANING what really mattered for the Gospels' authors, and not its literal interpretation.) And, of course, I found nothing in this Jesus' life and teachings which would support the doctrine of atonement, prevailing now in most Christian churches. He never mentioned the so-called "original sin" at all - which in itself looks strange, for if only Jesus really knew that his God-prescribed mission was to sacrifice himself for fallen humanity, he would surely make much more impact on it. He sometimes criticized certain people for certain failures, but never told that ALL people were sinful or devoid of God's grace. He never even tried to thrive on the innate human feeling of unsecurity, but rather called those he encountered to the new wholeness and new life.

One could ask - if so, how we should understand passages like Mt. 26:28 and why Jesus was finally crucified, after all? Couldn't he escape from such a fate? I've tried to look at this question from a slightly different angle. Giving the historical situation as it was, did he have any chance to escape the Cross - WITHOUT BETRAYING HIS OWN SELF? (This last sentence is crucial, so I chose to capitalize it.) It sounds shockingly, but, in my opinion, the only possible answer is - none at all! The society in which he acted was by no means a clean slate. Every major Jewish sect of his times (not to mention Romans) had its own views on the prospective Messiah, but Jesus simply didn't fit into any of these groups' agenda. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots - they all had their own reasons to be displeased with him, politic, religious or both. As for Roman occupants, they would never let Judea slip from their hands - and it was all too easy to predict the fate of any messianic claimant who would ever dare to pose a threat to their power. After his last (and deliberately messianic) entry into Jerusalem, Jesus had only two possibilities open for him: either to try to gain popularity among the masses by leading an open anti-Roman revolt (and there is evidence that at least some of his followers insisted upon it, see, f.e., John 6:14-15), or to hide into obscurity, forgetting completely about his mission and leading the life of an ordinary man. (That's precisely what he did in "The Last Temptation of Christ" by Kazandzakis / Scorsese.)   But the first way would inevitably lead to massacre, bloodshed and finally to catastrophe like the one that did really take place in 66 - 70 ad. And to choose the second way would in fact mean that EVERYTHING what Jesus did and taught before - his preaching about the imminent Kingdom of God, his call to the people rejected by the religious elite, etc. – was no more than a bit of wishful thinking or even conscious self-delusion. It would also mean to abandon his disciples who left their families and homes and put all their trust into him. Who on the Earth would trust a common coward? And who knows which of these two ways would be worse?...

It seems very likely that Jesus did realize all these things, too. So he has chosen the third way - to be betrayed, but not to betray, to be killed, but not to kill, to suffer from hatred but not to become a hater. In short, to remain HIMSELF - i.e. Love incarnated. No doubt that even for him it was a hardest choice ever made (remember Gethsemane!). But, anyway, one could say that Jesus actually died not FOR our sins but BECAUSE of our sins - indifference, egoism, prejudices, lack of love and compassion so common in our world. And from this point of view, his death was indeed a kind of atonement - but only as a divine lesson we all still have to learn, to meditate upon and to follow in our real lives – for all the centuries to come!

"With This Love" from Moscow –

Sveta