Tag Archives: Christ crucified

The Death of Jesus in Context

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As we move through the story of Jesus’s death and on to resurrection, we return to the primary themes of this Lenten blog series on “Creation, Cross, and the Powers.”

This story is often told as if it all took place removed from the context of both creation and the powers. It is treated not as a story that we can relate to in terms of what is going on in the world today, but as a required dogma to keep us from being consigned to hell.  Jesus’s suffering and death is portrayed as if it was simply a transaction between God and humanity, a payment that God made to save sinners from eternal damnation. These transactional views turn Jesus into a passive and compliant victim and ignore his human agency and choice. His teachings and actions don’t enter this equation because what counts is his death.  They focus on death, not resurrection—not on his vindication by God despite the powers, or on his risen and ongoing presence among us.

But in the Gospels, this story is not told in the abstract, but in the context of both creation and the powers. Notice that creation is the context of both Jesus’s prayer and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane and of his resurrection encounter with Mary in the garden on Easter morning.  And the story of his final confrontation with the authorities leading up to his arrest, trial, and crucifixion is one of the most political stories in the Bible (along with the Exodus story).

In these last days of Holy Week, we are invited to immerse ourselves in this story and to recognize with mind and heart what Jesus and his followers experienced during this final confrontation with the governing authorities of occupied Jerusalem. After his “triumphal entry into Jerusalem,” they went directly to the Temple. Jesus’s action of overturning the tables of the moneychangers there directly threatened the economic status quo (tribute and taxes to Rome/temple taxes to keep the system going). According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), that was the last straw.

When Jesus and his followers “occupied” the Temple, the elite religious leaders couldn’t arrest him because “they feared the people” (Luke 20:19, 22:2). They couldn’t disperse the people who had gathered to hear Jesus because “the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching” (Mark 11:18). “People power” at work.

For this reason, the religious authorities had to arrest Jesus by stealth in the Garden of Gethsemane. Their problem was that the Jewish nation was under the jurisdiction of Rome—including the religious leaders, Jesus, and his followers. Only a representative of Rome could sentence Jesus to death.  That’s where Pilate came in.  Things moved on from there.

If this story is told out of context, it doesn’t make sense unless you consent to a particular dogma. But if you read it with an open mind, you can see that the words of Paul are true: “None of the rulers of this age understood [the wisdom that comes from God]. If they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.” (1 Corinthians 2:6-8). God triumphs through Jesus despite the powers, bringing light out of darkness and light out of death.

(For a fuller portrayal of the story of the events that led to Jesus’s death, see this excerpt from Chapter 5, “Jesus and the Powers,” from The Cross in the Midst of Creation.

This is the eighth post in a Lenten Series, “Creation, Cross, and The Powers.” The other posts are as folows: 

  1. Creation, Cross, and The Powers. 
  2. Extraordinary Temptations
  3. The Spirituality of an Epoch
  4. Creation: Moving from Awe to Lament to Resistance
  5. Banking on Our Future as Demythologized Exorcism
  6. Don’t Look Up
  7. Care Enough to Weep
  8. The Death of Jesus in Context
  9. Resurrection and New Creation

 

Follow Sharon’s blog post by signing up at the “Follow” link to the right. Share with the Social Media buttons below. See also a previous Lenten series: A Lenten Call to Resist. Check out Sharon’s books.  Contact Sharon to request a complimentary digital chapter of one of her books, to request a presentation, or to order discounted bulk copies of her books. 

Extraordinary Temptations

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Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4: 1-13, Mark 1:9-15

The suggested Bible readings for the first Sunday in Lent are always about Jesus encountering the devil in the wilderness. This is the perfect theme for this second post of my Lenten series, “Creation, Cross, and The Powers.”

Jesus has just been baptized. He has received an extraordinary experience of the Holy Spirit and a profound blessing and calling by God. Now Jesus has retreated into the wilderness to fast and pray. Creation is the context in which the devil appears to Jesus, who is faced with temptations. These are not just what we might consider “ordinary” temptations, but vocational temptations that force Jesus (or anyone who follows him) to deeply consider what it means to be a beloved child of God.

What is ultimately life-giving, and how will I share that with others? What does it mean to put my whole trust in God without recklessly taking God for granted? Is my loyalty to God strong enough to withstand the allurements offered by “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” (Matthew 4:8)? According to Luke, the devil put this last temptation to Jesus very aggressively. After showing him “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment in time,” he said, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority: for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please” (Luke 4:6).

After Jesus met these challenges with scripture, he began his public ministry. His initial struggle with the devil in the wilderness informed his future choices and set the stage for his crucifixion. The way he lived out his calling, fully committed to the reign of God, is what got him into trouble with the governing authorities of his day.

As followers of Jesus, these very questions, these temptations, also confront us. Creation is a good context for soul searching for us, too. It is harder now for us to find wilderness or to take off for forty days at a stretch. But perhaps we can carve out some time to at least step outside, to take a walk, to visit a park, to look up through a window at the moon and stars, or even to  enter imaginatively into creation in prayer. This enables us to get grounded in who we are as created beings. For yes, we are beloved children of God, but we are also part of God’s (beloved) interconnected community of life.  According to Mark, Jesus was not just alone in the wilderness, but “with the wild beasts.”

Those of us who live privileged lives in this technological society, many of us alienated from creation, are beset by “ordinary” temptations daily. Choices seem endless, but with the vast array of “tempting” choices, a sense of freedom can be elusive. Instead, many of us feel trapped. The larger vocations questions also confront us: Who are we as children of God (and children of the earth)? Where do we put our loyalty and trust, in the benefits offered to us by cultural accommodation to the institutional powers that dominate the world today (the kingdoms of the world and their splendor), or in God?  These questions are worth reflecting on during this season of Lent.

For other blog posts by Sharon on the story of Jesus in the Wilderness, see Jesus, Temptation, and Worldly Power and Resisting Cultural Possession.

This is the second post in a Lenten Series, “Creation, Cross, and The Powers.” The other posts in the series are as follows: 

1. Creation, Cross, and The Powers. 

2. Extraordinary Temptations

3. The Spirituality of an Epoch  

4.  Creation: Moving from Awe to Lament to Resistance

5. Banking on Our Future as Demythologized Exorcism

6. Don’t Look Up

7. Care Enough to Weep

8. The Death of Jesus in Context

9. Resurrection and New Creation

Follow Sharon’s blog post by signing up at the “Follow” link to the right. Share with the Social Media buttons below. Read other blog posts related to climate change here. Check out Sharon’s books.  Contact Sharon to request a complimentary digital chapter of one of her books, to request a presentation, or to order discounted bulk copies of her books. 

 

2. Two Crosses: A Divided Christianity

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Second Post in a Blog Series on the Christian Right

This series of posts on The Christian Right includes excerpts from my new book, The Cross in the Midst of Creation: Following Jesus, Engaging the Powers, Transforming the World. If you Contact me with the words “free chapter,” I will send you a free chapter of the book.

Two Crosses: A Divided Christianity

“At the beginning of Christianity there were two crosses. One was a real cross, the other was a symbol.” Jürgen Moltmann

What are the origins of Christian nationalism? It did not begin with the earliest followers of Jesus, who sought to follow his “Way” and were often persecuted by Rome.

For the first three centuries after Jesus’s death and resurrection, Christianity was widely understood as being anti- imperial. His followers remembered the “real cross” upon which Jesus and so many others had been executed by the Roman Empire. Following his example, many Christians were martyred for refusing to pledge allegiance to the Roman emperor or serve in the Roman army. When Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and made it the state religion in the fourth century, Rome began not only spreading but also enforcing this official religion under the icon of the cross. A theology that rationalized just war followed. Now soldiers were required to be baptized and to fight under the banner of a glorified cross to promote the spread of Christianity. The cross had become a symbol of the Holy Roman Empire.

During the past two thousand years, Christian understandings about the meaning of the cross have diverged. Dominant forms of Christianity have often been aligned with the State, as in the time of Constantine. This dynamic is at work today in US civil religion, which promotes American exceptionalism and celebrates the United States as a nation uniquely blessed by God. Christian nationalist groups have used the glorified cross of domination to symbolize racist, sexist, and antidemocratic movements that merge patriotic and religious symbols, as at the insurrection at the US Capitol.

Yet those who are called to follow Jesus are invited to remember the “real cross” upon which Jesus suffered and died. This means keeping alive the story of the nonviolent Jesus, his passion for the reign of God and his crucifixion at the hands of the powers, God’s vindication of his life and ministry in the resurrection, his ongoing presence among us, and life in the Spirit that enables us to follow him.

In this blog series on The Religious Right, which includes excerpts from my new book The Cross In the Midst of Creation, my goal is to bring clarity to this discussion. The blog posts in this series will be:

  1. Christian Nationalism
  2. Two Crosses: Divided Christianity (this post)
  3. US Civil Religion: Heretical and Blasphemous
  4. The Christian Right’s Authoritarian God
  5. The Anti-Imperial Wisdom of God

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Online Book Launch Event

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This online Launch Day Event celebrating the release of my new book, The Cross in the Midst of Creation, was hosted by Richenda Fairhurst on June 14 as part of the Multifaith Climate Cafe. This event focuses primarily on Chapter 4, “Creation Crucified: The Passion of the Earth.”  The host, Richenda Fairhurst, wrote an article and created video excerpts of our discussion, which begins as follows:

The Cross in the Midst of Creation is Rev. Delgado’s third book, following Shaking the Gates of Hell: Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization, now in a Second Edition, and Love in a Time of Climate Change: Honoring Creation, Establishing Justice. The books comprise a trilogy twenty years in the making. The first book rose from faith-based activism, the second expanded into an overview of climate change based on John Wesley’s (Methodism’s primary founder and theologian) teachings on Social Holiness. With this latest book, Rev. Delgado moves into the very core of Christianity, the theology of the cross.

The story of the cross is at the center this new book, and of Christian faith and belief. From the beginning, there were many Christianities, many claiming to be the ‘only’ true faith. These many traditions reflect a garden of thought, love, and faithful expression. But there are also times when interpretations gain hold in ways that are violent and destructive. Theologies of empire, starting with Emperor Constantine, have historically taken us on paths of destruction. And today, as we see life destroyed where it should be flourishing, Rev. Delgado wants to call us back to the cross to try again to understand the deep revelation rising for this moment.

Rev. Delgado spoke about her love for creation as an essential reason for writing this book. But she also writes with a sense of grief and urgency. “I think, the final thing that got me to write [The Cross in the Midst of Creation] was the way that [the theology of the cross] was being distorted—the way the story of the cross is being misused.” It is deeply troubling to Rev. Delgado that “it’s been used in that way to promote the very values that Jesus rejected, the values of status, wealth, and worldly power—the opposite values of Jesus.”

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My New Books Have Arrived!

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Hi Friends,

My new books are finally here: 100 copies of The Cross in the Midst of Creation. The official launch day is June 14, but I ordered these from Fortress, and they were delivered early.  Hooray!

Although I signed the contract for this book in May of 2020, it has been in the works for years. In 2017 I published a Lenten blog series, A Lenten Call to Resist, with posts that included summaries of several of its primary themes. From then on, even as I was publishing and giving presentations on my other books, I returned to this writing project as my spiritual focus and discipline each year during the season of Lent.

But my passion for the topics in this book go back much farther than that. The scriptural foundation for this work, the first two chapters of First Corinthians, is also the foundation of my spiritual journey and my life. These are the passages that triggered in me a spiritual experience that propelled me directly into preparations in the United Methodist Church for ordained ministry, with a specialized focus on peace, justice, and the healing of creation. These passages motivate me to continue seeking “God’s wisdom, secret and hidden” (1 Cor 2:7) and to challenge the “wisdom of this age” and “the rulers of this age” (1 Cor 2:6) as Jesus did in his day, although it led them to crucify him (1 Cor 2:8). If you read this book, you will see how these themes are integral to a participatory view of the gospel that leads to both personal and social transformation.

If you wonder whether you want to read this book, read a short summary here. Also, check out several initial endorsers here. They include climate activist Bill McKibben, theologians Catherine Keller and Ched Meyers, Sojourners Editor Rose Marie Berger, and many others. If you read it and think others would find the book valuable, please help me get the word out:

  1. Write a two or three sentence review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other online sites.
  2. Recommend it on your social media platforms.
  3. Request the book at your local library or local bookstore.
  4. Recommend the book to three people you know who would appreciate the message.

I will post info about upcoming book launch events. Thank you for your ongoing support.

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