Life
of Christ 17
Thus
far we have been looking at the earthly origins of Jesus Christ. We shift now
to the next chronological event, which is the ministry of John the Baptist.
Before I discuss that ministry, and how it prepared for and intersected with
Jesus I want to explain what kind of a world awaited the fiery preaching of
John.
The be
all and end all of everything was Rome. They were the single largest influence
politically, militarily, and economically. Even in a country and culture that
so stridently maintained its separate identity, such as Israel, we find Rome
intruding into daily life a tremendous amount. And that Rome was morally and
culturally sick.
The
people of Rome embraced two basic philosophies. The first was epicureanism, which proposed that
personal pleasure is the chief aim of life. I think you can already imagine
where that would take a society. As extremes typically give rise to opposite
extremes, unsurprisingly, the second was stoicism,
which proposed to remove desire and live completely on reason, virtue, and
will. Coincidentally (or not), both of these necessarily always end up at
despair, albeit by two totally separate routes.
Religiously,
the Roman pantheon was a collection of Latinized Greek gods with the addition
of a bunch of Roman emperors, etc. Being religious had much more to do with
observing certain rites and rituals than it did with having faith in the gods or
believing a certain set of doctrinal precepts. These rites, including animal
and human sacrifice, astrology, reading the entrails of dead animals, etc.
could give zero comfort or hope.
Culturally,
slavery was rampant, and respect for human life was nil. Suicide was honorable.
Marriage was a facade, still maintained by many for appearance sake but in
reality consisting of a fictitious, if legal, binding. Homosexuality,
pedophilia, and temple worship prostitution were common. I have an horribly
fascinating book in my office that walks you through the lives of each of the
Roman emperors, and the absolute debauchery that characterized most of their
lives is unspeakable.
Politically,
Mao Zedong, who famously said that power comes out of the barrel of a gun,
would have been right at home. Political disagreements often resulted in
poisonings, assassinations, and even civil wars. There was very little
stability, internally, especially when a transfer of power took place. The
Senate, long the guardian of the Roman Republic, had become an empty shell of
itself, with little power to halt the excesses of the emperors, and even less
desire to do so.
Economically,
the wealth of the known world flowed to Rome, but realistically it flowed to
the Roman rich. The palatial extravagant excesses of the French Bourbons had nothing
on the gilded lilies of Rome. At the same time, the common people flocked to
Rome from the provinces in order to partake of the generous welfare benefits
and the free entertainment gratuitously filled with violence. Bread and
circuses indeed. How else do you keep a populace satiated while you are treating
the empire like your personal fiefdom?
Closer
to home, in Palestine, Rome covered its iron fist with the velvet glove of
regional autonomy, but make no mistake, it was an iron glove underneath. Four
times, in Jesus' day, the Romans changed the high priest, in spite of the fact
that it was supposed to be a lifetime appointment. It is almost certain that
the office was purchased, and run as a business. The Roman administration
freely trampled the most basic human rights, insulting, offending, demanding,
stealing, and murdering whom it would.
The
predominant religious influence of the day in Palestine was the Pharisees, and
their external and legalistic religion had no heart to it at all. Their rulings
bound the people to a dead traditionalism accompanied by a long list of infinitesimally
detailed and highly burdensome regulations. The Sadducees, politically and
financially connected, were doctrinally lethargic and heretical. The Herodians
embraced the Roman leadership while at the same time the Zealots sought a
violent revolution against the might of the entire empire. Each of these groups
sought its own advancement at the expense of what was best for the people as a
whole.
To
quote Edersheim:
And so the only escape which remained for the
philosopher, the satiated, or the miserable, seemed the power of
self-destruction! What is worse, the noblest spirits of the time felt, that the
state of things was utterly hopeless. Society could not reform itself;
philosophy and religion had nothing to offer: they had been tried and found
wanting. Seneca longed for some hand from without to life up from the mire of
despair; Cicero pictured the enthusiasm which would greet the embodiment of
true virtue, should it ever appear on earth, Tacitus declared human life one
great farce, and expressed his conviction that the Roman world lay under some
terrible curse. All around, despair, conscious need, and unconscious longing.
Into
this sin sick world God launched the uniquely fiery life and message of John the
Baptist. Clearly, his world needed exactly that.
I am an American. Before my eyes, I am watching the political, economic, and cultural decay of the greatest empire the world has known since Rome. Would to God He would send another John the Baptist.
I am an American. Before my eyes, I am watching the political, economic, and cultural decay of the greatest empire the world has known since Rome. Would to God He would send another John the Baptist.
Or,
better yet, just send Jesus.
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