During my first visit to the Land of the Holy One (as
Bishop Suheil Dawani of Jerusalem refers to it, focusing our attention to God
rather than real estate), I made a pilgrimage to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust
memorial and museum. I found it odd that
it had not been included in the itinerary to begin with and odder still that
the Christian institution where I was staying refused to give me directions.
While there I saw there a pen and ink drawing I will
never forget. It was of Jesus
crucified. In the background were SS
soldiers taking away a group of Jews.
One of the soldiers had come back to take Jesus off the cross and herd
him away with the others. It is well for
us Christians to remember that image.
It is something we so easily forget, if indeed we are
ever taught it to begin with. It does
not fit with reality as we imagine it.
It is more than a little disquieting, and it ought to give us pause. It is this.
Jesus was a Jew.
The separation of Jesus from Judaism is a great
heresy. In fact, it is worse than
heresy. It is the Old Testament sin of
idolatry in that any image of Jesus other than a Jewish one remakes God into
our image rather than accepting God as God actually has chosen to reveal
Godself. And the revelation is of a
thoroughly Jewish savior.
Not only was Jesus Jewish, but during his lifetime, and
beyond, Jesus demonstrated extraordinary devotion to his people and the Jewish
faith of his day. It is crucial for us
to realize that, far from being antithetical or even overly critical of
Judaism, the life and teaching of Jesus were well within the boundaries of his
own faith tradition. Certainly he did
not intend to found a new religion but assert the meaning of his own in his
day.
It is also well for Christians to keep in mind that Jesus
loved his own people more than, or at least prior to, Gentiles. (Lk. 13:34.)
The ministry of Jesus was itself almost entirely confined to Jews. He showed, at best, only minor interest in
Gentiles to whom he was not particularly receptive (Mt. 15:26). It was the Gospel reading of only two Sundays
ago in which Jesus is shown as a bit harsh and dismissive of Gentiles. Speaking to a Gentile woman seeking healing
for her daughter, he referred to non-Jews as dogs (Mk. 7:27). We tend to overlook it. In Matthew’s version of the same story, Jesus
is quite explicit. “I was sent only to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 15:24).
Elsewhere Jesus sends the twelve to proclaim good news,
cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. The apostolic mission, however, has a
specific exclusion. “Go nowhere among
the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 10:5-6).
In the thinking of Jesus, at least prior to the resurrection, the
salvation he represented seems to have been only for Israel (Mt. 19:28; Lk.
22:28-30). After the resurrection is not
all that different. All the resurrection
appearances, after all, were to Jews.
Jesus shows a much more favorable inclination to the universality of his
teaching, commanding his disciples to teach and baptize all nations (Mt. 28:19)
and suggesting something similar in saying, “I have other sheep that do not
belong to this fold. I must bring them
also” (Jn. 10:16). Still, the priority
for Jesus is on the Jews. Everything
begins in Jerusalem. (Lk. 24:47.)
The relationship between Judaism and Christianity has
puzzled scholars for centuries. For
Paul, there was little more to be said than that it was a mystery. If we Christians take Jesus seriously,
though, there is no doubt we must take Jews seriously, and much more than
seriously. We must take them
respectfully, lovingly, admiringly, and gratefully. Salvation, after all, according to Jesus,
comes to us from the Jews. (Jn.
4:22.) Without Judaism and the
Jewishness of Jesus, the cross is left empty from the start.
So, on this the observance of Rosh Hashanah, let us
remember that our own roots are firmly set in Judaism and that we are
inheritors of God’s kingdom not by right of birth but by grace, which I’m quite
sure is how Jesus sees it. Happy New
Year. Shabbat Shalom.
Peace,
+Stacy
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