Journey with Jesus #13

New Testament - Mountain 07/02/09

Here is the summary of last week's study aka Jesus and God and a big thing - Peace, Linda

Mountains are big, evident, and they fascinate people –we see a mountain and want to scale its heights. Edmund Hillary when asked why he climbed Everest famously replied “Because it’s there.” Mountains are supremely physical objects and the message of Jesus is deeply rooted in the world of things. Religion tends to be about getting out of here – leaving this world behind. The contemporary thought of “spirituality” has more of an intrinsic connection to the world. Jesus’ message is rather a “this-worldly spirituality” than a religion in this sense. The Bible— both in the preaching of the prophets and in Jesus – says that the world’s realm of life can achieve fullness in itself, instead of just redemption for an other-worldly soul. Endless, abundant life comes from overcoming violence, murder, destruction and death in all its forms.

Mountains are symbols of transcendence. In ancient mythologies gods lived on the mountain (for example Olympus). They are places that are easily defended, associated with superiority, power and authority. It was to a mountain top that Satan brought Jesus in the third temptation (Matthew)–offering him authority over all the nations if he would fall down and worship him. Mountains are the high ground, a place to look up to and close to heaven. This pre-modern world view still dominates religious thinking. In a scientific worldview space has no up and to say heaven is “up” is meaningless.

The Synoptic Gospels (Mathew, Mark and Luke) share a mountain story – the Transfiguration. In Mark’s account (Mk8:31-9:8) Jesus is transfigured so that his clothes became dazzling. In Matthew his face shines like the sun (17.2). This is noteworthy in that after his resurrection Jesus does not dazzle. In fact he is so undazzling that he is not even clearly recognized. So why at this point in his account does Mark describe such a scene? The answer lies in the context of the story. Jesus (at the height of his popularity) has just announced, for the first time, his decision to go to Jerusalem where he will be arrested, suffer and die. The gospel will repeat this announcement two more times. The transfiguration is a literary affirmation. Mark is “throwing a bone” to his readers to keep their attention and sense of assurance—that ultimately things are going to work out. The words of the Father “this is my Son, the Beloved” recall Jesus’ baptism and remind the reader that he has unique status before God. The literary function of the transfiguration does not mean that Jesus did not pray on a mountaintop, nor that he did not have ecstatic experience witnessed and even somehow shared by the apostles. What it does tell us is to beware of the default association of God with the vertical, the heavens etc. etc.

The journey back down the mountain underlines this by providing a powerful counterpoint to the mountaintop, foreshadowing the central meaning of the crucifixion to come. Jesus has a discussion about Elijah and the Elijah-figure of John the Baptist who was mistreated and killed—he is thereby the forerunner of Jesus’ own passion. There follows then in verse 14-29 a healing in which the crowd has a dramatic role as well as the scribes. The boy is healed of an evil spirit which convulses him and seeks “to destroy him.” Jesus is immersed in the same forces that will bring about his death. In this sense the mountaintop is immediately plunged into the abyss of violence.

In Mk 11:12-25, after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus retreats to Bethany. The next day he returns to the city and disrupts the business of the temple—he drives out the sellers and buyers of animals, overturns the money tables, and the seats of the dove-sellers, and stops all traffic of materials. Bracketing this account of Jesus’ attack on the temple’s sacrificial function is the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. It is not the season for figs and the tree does not have any fruit to feed his hunger, so Jesus curses the tree. On their return to Bethany the disciples see the withered tree and question Jesus about it. He replies:

“Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘be taken up and be thrown into the sea’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses”

The literary inclusion – the fig tree story – gives the meaning to its contents, to what lies within its brackets, i.e. the temple action. Like the fig tree the temple is out of season and does not bear fruit. It is not a house of prayer. Instead it has become a den of bandits/killers – the same word used for Barabbas, a person who engages in violent revolution (John 18:40, Lk: 23.19). The temple was not just the center of Jewish worship. Isaiah 2:2-3 describes the mountain of the Lord, Mount Zion, as the highest, the supreme point of the whole world. Mount Zion (Temple Mount) was a place of enormous political-religious significance. It was the one place where the Romans did not enter and so was the heart of Jewish resistance. Jesus understands that this violent mindset, this violent religion, is leading to an inevitable crisis of destruction. The Temple is going down. History shows us that within two score years of Jesus’ death, the Temple was completely destroyed by the Romans in reprisal for the Jewish uprising. The Temple was the last stand of the Jewish forces, and the Wailing Wall—part of the Temple’s foundations—is all that remains today.

In v.25 Jesus says that forgiveness, not sacrifice, is all that is needed to enter into a relationship with the Father. When he says “if you say to this mountain, ‘be taken up and be thrown into the sea’…it will be done for you,” he was not talking of some arbitrary act of supernatural power. Very likely he was looking at the actual Temple Mount, the focus of the Isaiah prophesy, when he said this. He says in effect if you have faith—i.e. relationship with him and his gospel—the temple mount can be thrown in to the sea – the place of chaos and primordial creation: a place of radical starting-over. Jesus points instead to forgiveness as the way to enter into relationship with the Father. He calls us to have the faith to surrender our temples, the institutional structures in which we place our security and our enduring violence, and receive the life we are searching for in prayer and in forgiveness.