This Article: (5 Pages)
1) About the Crucifixion
We saw someone sky write “+ = love” as an Easter message. But it was troubling. It is never wise to simplify events in history, as in fact on investigation the resurrection is the act of love. That crucifixion was about leading personalities, hatred and it was highly political.
Instead of reading doctrine into human doctrine and finding fuzzy feel-good simplifications, let us examine what really happened according to the eye witnesses we have available.
The whole has a history. It didn't happen in a day.
What Jesus said that upset his home town
John the Baptist had introduced Jesus (Iesous Yesous, Y'shua) to the people as the one revealed to him as the son of God. Some began to follow him and for a while he teaches near the Jordan John notes they went on occasion to Galilee. According to Luke he then moves into Galilee and does miracles. Matthew and Mark say that he went into Galilee after John the Baptist was put in prison. Luke then tells us that after he becomes famous in Galilee he comes to his home town of Nazareth. He reads Isaiah where he is 'anointed to preach the gospel to the poor' and says he fulfils it. The next event is an eye opener,
And he said unto them, “Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.”
And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. (Luke 4:23-29)
It seems no one tried to stop this. Somehow he escaped them and walked back though the crowd. Why did he explain to the people of Nazareth what they would do? Did he seek to upset those who knew him so well? The outcome is that there was so much anger the people who knew him well sought to kill him. There can be no reason to doubt this did happen, as it forms the beginning of a pattern that could not possibly have been imagined.
Let us see clearly, not a false picture. This man gained rapidly a lot of enemies. Unless each of us look into our hearts we might also reject what is a very unpopular message.
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