Musings after church...

It's frustrating to me that so often, when we talk about things that happened back in 'biblical days', everything seems way too easy.

The general public is one large, amorphous mass that generally agrees on an obviously asinine concept (ie./ killing other Christians with differing belief systems during the reformation). The good guys are eloquent heros who stand on boxes declaring truth in the face of certain torture and death. The resultant death is followed sharply by an upturn in courage on the part of fellow believers, and a general understanding that the inspiring selflessness of the decision to die has resulted in a furthering of the cause.

What actually happened!? If a guy stood up in a hostile environment today, in another part of the world, and declared his truth, and was shot... would we call that martyrdom? Wisdom? Foolishness? Ridiculousness?

Would not our thoughts have less to do with the guy who was killed, and more to do with the people who killed him?

How about the crucifixion? What happened to the mob? What was their reality? On an individual level, what brought those people out that day? What made them so angry? Were they just simple, unintelligent people? Again... this image of a large, jeering, hostile crowd is unbelievable! Who are they? They're the 'biblical public'. It's fascinating that they're a part of the narrative of our faith for the sake of telling the story, but nothing more. When Christ was finally killed that day, did they shuffle off towards their homes for dinner? Did they suddenly recognize the error of their ways, en masse? Was it awkwardly quiet?

What about the family in the next town over, who were out taking their kid to soccer practice (or whatever the comparative norm of the day was..) and declined to follow the crowd as it made its obnoxious, over-energetic way down the road towards the hill? The husband said, 'you wanna go see what's up?' The wife said, 'you know, I really do have to get this washing done, and it's been a while since we spent an evening alone together anyway...'

I recognize that I'm skipping over culturally specific factors. The questions still drive me crazy.

Every time I see a video in church... something representative of that time, my thoughts go in the opposite of the intended direction.

Was Christ literally so entirely polarizing that the entire community hated him? This is the guy who kissed babies and gave a crap about the homeless? And if that was the case, and he was so completely hated that the entire general public would relish the opportunity to come out as one and witness his being put to an excruciatingly painful death, then what the heck was their deal!? Seriously.. guys.. chill the heck out! Let's talk! We're all human beings here! And if Christ really was that aggressively difficult to like.... well... then why would it be expected that anybody would ever be particularly on board with his message?

Sometimes I think that the whole thing would be far more convincing if it was a back room deal. He was smuggled out of his home in the middle of the night, and by the time the town woke up, everybody was asking where he'd up and gone to. And the community leaders spun some sort of clever little thread about how he had left suddenly, and somebody had seen him hightailing it out of the gate, making sure he wasn't followed. The whole thing would've left a seed of doubt, and people would've started asking what they had ever done to him, anyway? And why did he think he was so much better than us?

But that's not how it went down, because the Pharisees.. those guys weren't particularly intelligent. Just angry, grumpy, small-minded old men with a vendetta the size of texas.

Nah.. I don't believe that. I think the extra dimensions were all there.. just not recorded. We have the basics, I suppose.. the meat of the story. But man, more often than not I find myself wishing there were more bones...

JB