David Bahn – Reflections

I have enjoyed watching The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins’ creative and imaginative accounting of Jesus’ ministry as told through the supposed experiences and thoughts of his disciples. It is especially moving to imagine the relief of Peter when Jesus provides for him to catch the miraculous haul of fish. I love how “Little James” asks Jesus why he had not healed him and hear Jesus’ kind and imagined answer. And when I see the drama of water turned to wine—it moves me.

Attempts (since the Enlightenment) to reconstruct what can be known about Jesus of Nazareth apart from faith confessions, miracles, or theological claims fall flat and end up obscuring much of what the Bible tells us about Jesus—including his miracles, the confessions of faith, and the real-life struggles of Jesus’ followers.

John 21:25 tells us that Jesus did have a life outside of the accounts recorded in Scripture. If permission is needed for Jenkins’ efforts, that certainly opens the door to such imaginative storytelling. It does not, however, open the door to stripping Jesus of his miracles, the confessions of faith (think Thomas!), or the theological truths Jesus teaches and embodies.

Those realities are the sum and substance of what we know of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The question is not only whether Jesus did these and other great miracles, but do we believe in him? Do we see Jesus as merely a good teacher, or a religious prophet, or do we see him as the Son of God—the one who gives life through faith in him?

John tells us that by believing we may have life in Jesus’ name. That’s not a mere possibility. It is a gift as certain as Jesus’ life, teaching, suffering, death, and resurrection. It is as sure as Thomas’ declaration upon seeing Jesus’ scars and putting his hand into Jesus’ side: “My Lord and my God!” No dramatization or scholarly reconstruction can add to or improve on that confession—it is the heart of Christian faith and the foundation of the promise of eternal life.

I’ve loved Daniel 10 ever since I read it in connection with John Eldridge’s Waking the Dead book and companion devotional study. I’ve used it in teaching confirmation, delighting to describe the “man clothed in linen” as being an 11 on the 10-point weirdometer scale. This vivid imagery captures the awe-inspiring nature of God’s messengers. Even when God dispatches angels in answer to our prayers the answers don’t come instantly.

There is a spiritual dimension that inhabits every corner of life. We live in a world of desks and chairs, cars and highways, houses and playgrounds. But sometimes all we can see are the cars and playgrounds. We too easily miss the spiritual realities that lie behind all these things.

Daniel 10 makes that point clearly. We pray. We may pray earnestly, fervently, intently, faithfully. But the answers don’t come quickly. We chalk it up to God’s timing – and rightly so. But spiritual forces, battles, and delays in the unseen realm also impinge upon our experiences of God’s answers.

Why was Jesus in the tomb for 3 days? Why did he have to wait until Sunday to rise? Some of that may have had to do with the necessity of “preaching to the spirits in prison” (cf. 1 Peter 3:19), or “binding the strong man” in order to plunder his house (cf. Matthew 12:29). We don’t really know, but we do know that the moment Jesus died and was laid in the tomb our sins were completely and totally forgiven.

Beyond the point of proving that Jesus had actually died, his three-day rest in the tomb may teach us something about the way God works. He is neither on a time clock nor interested in merely quick fix solutions. We are not isolated islands in a sea of independent needs and desires. Sometimes even the heavenly realms must align properly before God’s answers become evident.

But be assured that, just as Jesus was raised from the dead and the man clothed in linen appeared, God hears our prayers. His answers surpass our imagination, and the worship he desires is neither empty ritual nor hurried prayers. Even when God’s answers don’t come immediately and doubts creep in, we can find comfort and strength in worshiping the One who has conquered death and remains with us to the end of the age (cf. Matthew 28:20).

The New Testament writers frequently draw from Zechariah when pointing to Jesus as the promised Messiah. Passages such as Zechariah 9:9 (fulfilled in Jesus’ triumphal entry, Matt. 21:5; John 12:15), Zechariah 11:12–13 (thirty pieces of silver, Matt. 27:9–10), Zechariah 12:10 (pierced one, John 19:37), and Zechariah 13:7 (striking the shepherd, Matt. 26:31; Mark 14:27) all find their fulfillment in Christ. In fact, one estimate counts over fifty echoes of Zechariah throughout the New Testament, with Revelation drawing on it most extensively.

I had forgotten just how much of Zechariah points to Jesus until I reread chapter 12 and was arrested by the phrase, “they shall look on me, on him whom they have pierced.” God himself is speaking. He declares that He will be pierced!

The chapter begins with God’s promise to defend His people against their enemies. Yet victory would come at a terrible cost: the piercing of the Son of God, nailed to the cross. And what is the result? Deep mourning and repentance among God’s people as the Spirit works contrition and faith in hearts pierced by the awareness of sin and awakened to the wonder of God’s mercy.

God’s people in Zechariah’s day were much like us. Their spiritual renewal was fragile, their faith easily stalled. They needed God’s intervention. They needed the Spirit to draw them to repentance and trust. So do we. And God gives it — not by our grasping, but by His gift.

That is what God has done for all people in Jesus, the One pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. In Him, sorrow is met with comfort, guilt is covered by grace, and death itself is overcome. When we look upon the One who was pierced, we see not only the cost of our sin but also the depth of God’s love.

Jesus. Peter. Judas. Malchus. Caiaphas. Annas. Pilate. Each of these names evoke different feelings as I read this account of Jesus’ arrest, and the rest of John 18.

The Good: Jesus. He alone is good, as he himself attests. He says to the young man, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). But Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the Good Shepherd. He is good and his mercy endures forever. No one else should claim that attribute.

The Bad: Line them up: Was Judas the worst? Or Caiaphas and Annas, scheming behind the scenes? What about Pilate, who caved under pressure, condemning Jesus whom he knew to be innocent? And what of Malchus – stuck in the middle. He was only doing his job and gets his ear cut off! Does he belong on the list of the bad?

And then there is Peter, struggling between good intentions and tragic failure. Poor Peter. You hate to call him bad, for he was so devoted to Jesus. He made plenty of mistakes. He will deny Jesus tonight as Jesus’ trial unfolds – cowered by a slave girl. Peter has plenty of flaws. But he knows it. When he encounters Jesus after the miraculous catch of fish, he falls before him saying, “Depart from me. I am a sinner” (Luke 5:8).

There is one more: Barabbas. He had been thrown into prison for murder and insurrection, but he was released, and Jesus took his place. Where does he fit in this list of the good, the bad, and the sinner? We don’t really know what happened to Barabbas after his release. But theologically, the Gospels preserve his story as a striking illustration of Jesus taking the place of the guilty. We might see him as representing all humanity: the guilty one set free while the innocent One (Jesus) is condemned.

At the end of the day, every name in this account – whether betrayer, coward, conspirator, soldier, or criminal – points us back to Jesus. He alone is good. He alone takes the place of the guilty. Whether it’s Judas, Peter, Barabbas, or you and me, Jesus is the One who bears our sin and gives us his righteousness. That is the heart of the Gospel: the innocent condemned so that the guilty may go free.

I was not the culprit, but I am to blame for leaving Diane’s iPad in a place where the true culprit could steal it. And steal it he did. We tracked it down to a place in Peru, apparently known for being a hotspot for stolen electronic devices. As far as we are able to tell, we managed to erase the contents and secure our identity and passwords. But who knows! How secure can you be?

Recently we had a very strange thing happen with my passwords, stored on my iPhone and in the iCloud. They suddenly showed up on our son’s phone! Apple security is supposed to be the best, but we’re not entirely sure how it happened. Secure. Yeah. Sure.

I think of those two incidents when I read here of Pilate’s words to the chief priests and the Pharisees, “Go, make [the tomb] as secure as you can.” I think also of a YouTuber known as the Lockpick Lawyer who manages to pick every lock he encounters. 

Human security is a self-deceiving illusion at worst, and a deterrent to honest people at best. Like they say, Locked doors keep out the honest people. If a thief wants to break in to your house, he’ll find a way to do it. 

But the security of the tomb of Jesus is proven to be ineffectual not because of honest people or thieves. It will be shown to be ineffective from inside the tomb – although perhaps it was the angels’ who first breached that supposedly-secure location. These Jewish religious leaders undertook a futile effort when they made the tomb as secure as they could.

We can be secure, however, in the love of God and his gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ his Son. We can be secure in knowing that God desires that we and all people would be saved and come to the knowledge of his Son. He has sent the Holy Spirit for that reason – and to propel us toward witness, service, love, and good works.

We can be secure because Pilate, the Jewish religious leaders, and Satan himself could not secure the tomb and prevent Jesus from bursting forth in glorious victory. He has won our salvation, and of that we can be sure.

Matthew pauses his account to remind us that even Judas’ betrayal and the priests’ hypocrisy were foretold by the prophets. He quotes Jeremiah by name, though the wording also reflects Zechariah. That puzzle has drawn much discussion, but the larger point should not be lost: all of this unfolds according to God’s plan, fulfilling the Scriptures.

The real focus is Judas and the leaders of Israel. Judas realizes the horror of what he has done. “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” he confesses.  We see his great remorse over his part in Jesus’ demise. But there is no indication of true repentance on his part. Only his rueful act of returning the blood money to the chief priests and elders. He walks away in despair instead of turning to the One who could have forgiven him. Judas’ sad act of regret is – as far as we know – too little too late.

The priests, for their part, reveal their own duplicity. They are so concerned about keeping their treasury ritually-clean that they cannot see the real stain of guilt on their hands. They reject Judas’ money but press on with the greater crime of condemning the Lord of glory. Outward proximity to the temple and its treasures is no substitute for faith.

Both Judas and the priests remind us how one can appear to be close to God’s ways, yet be far from Him in truth. The warning is sobering. We must never substitute close proximity to the things of God for true faithfulness to his will and ways. He desires our hearts and our hands and will always receive the humble believer but will see through the pitiful veil of mere outward piety.

But the good news is greater: Jesus willingly bore the guilt of all, including even betrayers and hypocrites. He shed His innocent blood for us all, so that in Him we might not be left in despair but receive full forgiveness and life.

One of the most challenging mysteries in scripture is what Lutheran theologians call the Crux Theologorum, which is Latin for the “Problem of Theology.” Simply put it is Why some and not others? God wants all people to be saved. But not all people are saved. Sad but true. Incomprehensible but true. A more thorough discussion of this is available here.

I’ve gotten over the idea that I ought to be able to understand this issue or answer the question, Why some and not others. I’m very comfortable with the Lutheran answer: I don’t know. But there is a trend among certain Christians that highlights the distinction the brokenness of the Christian Church on earth and the person and work of Jesus. This trend says that if people just knew Jesus, they would believe in him. Their idea is that the church and Christians get in the way of people knowing and believing in Jesus.

Perhaps an example of that is the He Gets Us ad campaign. Those ads highlight how Jesus has a heart for hurting, lonely, displaced, and marginalized people. Indeed he does. But Jesus took that step from a perspective against the mighty, powerful, self-righteous, and content people of his day. And that would be most all of us. And if you’re ready to say, “I’m not self-righteous,” you’ve proved my point.

Jesus’ message for us all is to repent and believe the Good News. And what is that Good News? Jesus came to earth to seek and save the lost. That took him to Pilate’s court, to Herod’s palace and back, and a cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem previously reserved for Barabbas – an insurrectionist and murderer.

Perhaps we need to answer a different question. Why would God do such a thing? He did it because he loves us and wants all people to be saved. Repent, therefore and believe the Good News of Jesus’ redemption.

A comment often attributed to C.S. Lewis is that whether prayer changes God’s mind or the course of events may not be certain. But one thing is certain: prayer changes us. Perhaps it makes us more humble, more aware of our dependence on God and his favor. Maybe it helps us appreciate the good things we have even as we pray. Certainly it lifts our spirits when we pray prayers of thanksgiving and praise to our God.

But looking at Jesus’ and Ezra’s prayers, it’s clear to me that sometimes our prayers change things. James says, “You have not because you ask not” (James 4:2). Jesus makes it clear, “In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23). Then of course there is Jesus’ admonition regarding casting out demons, “This kind comes out only by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). Without prayer we cripple our witness and our effectiveness as disciples of Jesus.

I once prayed for a couple I was counseling and the very next day saw a dramatic change in their relationship. Another time, I fasted and prayed for a good Christmas Eve turnout in the congregation I was serving. That evening, we had record attendance—far beyond what I had imagined.

Yet there is a great mystery in prayer. Sometimes we pray and nothing seems to happen—but we don’t know what might have happened had we not prayed. And when we do not know how to pray, we entrust our needs to the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.

I note here the quality of Jesus’ prayer: that God would be glorified through his coming suffering and death. I see how Ezra fasted and prayed for God’s hand of protection. How fully both of these prayers have been answered!

Prayer may remain a mystery, but God’s command to pray and his promise to hear are crystal clear. So I’ll keep praying—who knows what God might do!