The disciples did not understand what Jesus was talking about. I’m not sure why. It seems to me that what Jesus was saying was pretty straightforward.
He told them that he would be betrayed into human hands and that he would be killed, and that three days later he would rise again. He said this quite plainly.
This was even the second time he had told them this. The first time came immediately after Peter’s confession, when Jesus had asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”, and Peter replied, “You are the messiah, the Christ.” Peter had rebuked Jesus for talking about being killed, but Jesus had then, in turn, rebuked Peter, telling him that he was setting his mind not on divine things, but on human things.
This second time around, when Jesus talked about being killed, the disciples kept their mouths shut, even though they still did not understand what he was saying. They didn’t want another round of rebuking.
Some time later, Jesus would tell them yet a third time, and even then they would show no sign of understanding.
If the scripture had said that the disciples didn’t like what they were hearing, that would make sense. But that’s not what the scripture says. The scripture says that they didn’t understand.
What didn’t they understand?
Did they not understand that he was going to be killed? Given the things that Jesus had been saying, not only about his death, but about things like the kingdom of God—and given what had been said about Jesus, about him being the Christ and the son of God—it should not have been surprising to hear that Jesus was going to be killed.
Did they not understand what Jesus meant when he said that “they” were going to kill him? Who’s he referring to when he said that “they” were going to kill him?
Well, the cross on which he would die is a Roman instrument of capital punishment, reserved for those convicted as traitors to the empire. Maybe they thought he was talking about the Jews, since a lot of the Jewish leaders were upset by Jesus, but it wasn’t the Jews who killed Jesus. Did the disciples not understand how Jesus could have been seen as a threat to Rome?
Surely, they must have. Peter himself had referred to Jesus as the “Christ.” I mentioned last week how that term, and the term “Son of God,” were loaded terms to use, and dangerous. In ancient Rome, it was Caesar who was known as “Christ.” It was Caesar who was referred to as the “Son of God.”
This coin shows this. The writing on it says: “Caesar Augustus, son of God, father of the fatherland.” Anyone who claims these (or similar) titles for himself or for anyone other than Caesar would certainly become a likely candidate for death by crucifixion. And since the use of these titles for Caesar were as common and present as the coins people carried around with them, then the disciples surely would have known that the one they followed was a wanted man, or soon would be. To refer to Jesus as “Christ” was a slap in the face to Caesar, and an invitation for trouble.
And yet, the scripture says, the disciples did not understand.
Perhaps what they didn’t understand was how God could allow this to happen. If Jesus truly was God’s son (and not Caesar), then how could God allow Jesus to die and Caesar to live?
It’s been said that Jesus had to die. Some say that Jesus died “in our place,” that someone had to die in order to appease an angry God, a God who demands that some sort of payment be made for our sins. The term for this theological understanding is “substitutionary atonement.” It is the prevailing theological understanding today, and has been for the past 1,000 years. All the time, you hear people say: “Jesus died for our sins;” and usually, what they mean when they say this is that Jesus died in our place, because someone had to die. That’s substitutionary atonement.
So it may surprise you that this theological understanding was not the prevailing understanding for the first 1,000 years of Christianity. Then again, maybe you are one of a growing number of people today who have a hard time understanding God as one who demands blood for our sins. Maybe it comes as a relief to learn that this was not how Jesus’ death was thought of in ancient times.
In the decades and centuries following Jesus’ crucifixion, his death was seen differently. The earliest Christians, like the apostle Paul, believed that Jesus had to die not to repay a debt that had been caused by humanity’s sinfulness, but because, quite simply, Jesus was not of this world. Everything about him—everything he said, everything he did—was contrary to the way of this world, the world in which Caesar was the Son of God.
Because Jesus was at odds with the kingdom of Caesar, he died. His death was the world’s rejection of Jesus, and it was also Jesus’ rejection of the world. But three days later, Jesus rose again. This was God’s acceptance of Jesus. God chose the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus over the kingdom proclaimed by Caesar. Which makes sense, since it is, after all, God’s own kingdom.
Is this what the disciples had a hard time understanding? It’s a thought worth pondering. After all, even many people today have a hard time understanding it. For a long time, people have, in one way or another, been trying to associate the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus with the kingdoms of this world. Once you do that, it becomes very difficult to understand Jesus’ crucifixion as his dying to this world and all that it stands for.
For example, in this world, people are classified into categories. There is, even in the most egalitarian of societies, a pyramid of hierarchy. The rich and the powerful are at the top; the poor and the downtrodden are at the bottom. Honor is bestowed upon those who are great, and ridicule is bestowed upon those who are meek. This is true on the elementary school playground as well as in the corporate boardroom. In the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, the poor are lifted up; the meek are given honor; the humble and lowly are exalted.
Perhaps Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand how someone as great as him could be killed because they didn’t understand how different his world was from the world in which they lived. It just so happened that after Jesus told them the second time about his death, the disciples started arguing among themselves about which of them was the greatest.
To be arguing about such a thing shows that they were still living in this world. They were still thinking in terms of a world in which the way of Caesar was the only way that existed. No wonder they didn’t understand Jesus’ insistence that he would soon die to this world, and rise again.
In this world, the world that Jesus was preparing to leave, people fight over who’s the greatest. They fight over honor. But in the world he proclaims, the first must be last, and the last, first. At banquets, many would fight over who would get the seat of honor, next to the distinguished guest. Many eagerly anticipated the opportunity to welcome someone important, someone powerful, into their midst. But Jesus says that, in the world he proclaims, it’s important to welcome those who are not important or powerful. It’s important, for example, to welcome the little child.
It’s not often that a little child is welcomed into the centers of power in our world, let alone in the ancient world. It is usually not appropriate, for example, for a little child to be wandering around the podium when the president addresses Congress; but for followers of the way of Jesus, those who are humble and lowly are given the place of honor.
So whenever you say that Jesus is the Christ, you are aligning your life with the way of Jesus, a way that is very different from the way of Caesar, the way of this world. In aligning yourself with the way of Jesus, you are aligning yourself with one who, literally, could not live according to the way of the world. He could not live according to the way of the larger society, and so, he had to die.
It took the disciples a long time to fully understand this. The way of this world, the way of the culture, the society in which they were immersed, was all they had ever known. Everything they knew about how to live came from growing up in their world.
Now, Jesus was calling them to see a whole new world—and that’s not easy. It’s not easy to think of the world as round when your teachers and even your own senses have always told you that it’s flat. It’s not easy for a person who’s been blind since birth to gain the ability to see; the eye sees colors and images, but the brain can’t make sense of them.
It’s not easy to imagine a world that operates very differently from the only world we’ve ever known. When I say “world,” I’m not talking about a whole different plant, a different earth; I’m talking about a whole new life, a whole new way of living. It’s a whole different world that Jesus lived in. That’s not easy to understand, but for those who do understand it, it’s no surprise that he had to die to this world.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to live in that different world, that different kingdom, but this, too, is not easy. I know that in the world proclaimed by Jesus, there is great joy, contentment, and satisfaction. I know that happiness comes from following the way of Jesus. I know this! And yet I still long for and even live for the things of this world.
It’s a difficult thing to understand, but I think some of you know what I’m talking about.
I still seek honor for myself. I still seek the accumulation of the things this world tells me I need in order to be happy. I still seek all the accoutrements of life that make me “respectable” in this society, all the wealth and possessions that give me status in this world.
As a follower of Jesus, as one who has been baptized into Christ’s death (as Paul says), I know that I have been called to die, to stop living, according to the way of the world. As one who has come up out of the waters of baptism, I know that I have been called to embrace a new life, a new way of living: the way of Jesus.
This is not easy to understand, and even harder to live. But I do my best. I do my best, because I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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