Spiritual Hiccups - As It Is Written

"As it is written" is a common phrase in the New Testament (along with several variations meaning the same thing).  It's there in today's gospel reading about "Palm Sunday."  This is an effort by the writers to make clear how Jesus is in perfect continuity with what God has been doing all along through the people of Israel.  In fact, the first several generations of Christians were quite content to have what we call the Old Testament as their only Scripture.  When 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness..." the scripture being referred to is, of course, our Old Testament.

Given the great lengths the New Testament writers go to connect Jesus to Judaism, it is remarkable how disconnected Christianity has become from it.  Many Christians seem to think Jesus rejected the faith of his childhood and started a new one.  And this divorcing of Christian faith from its Jewish roots has made it much easier to distort Jesus into someone who came to punch our tickets to heaven, rather than someone who stood firmly in the prophetic tradition of a coming Messianic age when all creation would be drawn back into right relationship with God and each other.  Even though the prayer Jesus gives us broadcasts this clearly, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." People still think of Jesus saving them from earth for heaven.

It is an obvious fact, but many seem not to know it.  Jesus was never a Christian.  For his entire life, he was a Jew.  And most of his followers considered themselves Jews for generations afterward. There is no reversing history, so I won't advocate calling our churches synagogues and such.  But we Christians would do well always to remember that we follow a Jewish Messiah.

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