A Story of Jesus the Man

Introduction

About 4 BCE, in a Galilean village not on any map, a boy was born whose death thirty-one years later would help define the western world for the next two thousand years. Jesus of Nazareth grew to lead a ragtag band of disciples on a quest to establish a kingdom of God on earth and got himself executed for the trouble. This was not anything new, for Jesus was one of many Jews who collected followers while proclaiming the time had come for holy deliverance from oppression and suffering. At the time Jesus was born, for example, Athronges—a lowly, unknown Jewish shepherd—raised an army who called him king, or messiah, in the failed rebellion he led against the Roman occupiers. Soon after, Judas the Galilean, who also saw himself as the expected messiah to return God’s land to the Jews in the tradition of King David, led a rebellion that gave rise to over two thousand Jews being crucified while Jesus was yet a young lad. No, it was not the revolt Jesus led that was new. What was new with Jesus of Nazareth came after his execution as his believers continued growing in number, declaring him to have arisen from the dead as God’s only son who was nailed to a cross to die for their salvation.

Unlike the many other insurgents executed for leading movements against Rome’s profane subjugation of God’s chosen people, Jesus of Nazareth transcended death in the eyes of his followers to become the living Christ who shed his blood to cleanse them of sin and reconcile them with God. The faith behind his resurrection from a horrific death by Roman crucifixion gave footing to Western civilization and the rise of Christianity.

But who was Jesus the man? What account can be given of his corporal life? He certainly was a Galilean Jew of the early first century who was crucified for subverting Roman and temple authority. Beyond that, his story is entwined with the additions of divinity and doctrine that developed over centuries as the nascent Jesus movement grew into the Christian religion.

For several decades now, scholars of antiquity and Christian theology have searched diligently for the historical Jesus in the haystacks of original sources and other material written about Jesus and his times. In 1991, for example, John Dominic Crossan, a noted New Testament scholar, published his comprehensive work The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. His friend and colleague, the late Marcus Borg, wrote several noteworthy books on Jesus including Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, published in 2006. Together, these two prominent Jesus scholars wrote The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’ Final Week in Jerusalem. I used these studies, plus The Gospel of Jesus: According to the Jesus Seminar by Robert Funk and A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by the distinguished commentator on comparative religion, Karen Armstrong, to cobble together the following story of Jesus the man as a speculation on his life. This is a fictitious story, which has some historical accuracy, a few biblical allusions, and bits of fabrication, but I believe it is representative of what some scholars say of the historical Jesus.

A story of Jesus the man: a look at the life and death of Yeshua, a Jewish rebel

Two thousand years ago a child was born in Galilee, whose name was Yeshua, or Jesus as we know him now. He grew up in the tiny, impoverished village of Nazareth, a cluster of mud and stone hovels not even on the map. He died outside the great temple city of Jerusalem in Judea, nailed to a wooden cross by Roman executioners for subversive teachings and sedition. He was thirty-one at the time.

Life in the village was hard, made harder by the Roman Empire’s suppression of Galilee. Jesus’ father, Joseph, worked as a carpenter in the local farming villages, bartering the wooden yokes and plows he made for the food his large family desperately needed. He even made a chest or table occasionally for those who could pay him more. But he did better in the larger, nearby city of Sepphoris, where wealthy Roman occupiers were building houses as tributes to themselves as they expanded their economic and political realm into the region. Joseph’s reputation as an honorable man with skilled hands brought him steady work, producing sturdy frames and doors for the grand homes of those who had taken over his country. He loathed these invaders, but he could not cheat his family’s survival by refusing to do their bidding.

Jesus and his brothers learned their father’s trade while laboring beside him. His sisters toiled at home under the watchful eye of their mother, Mary—caring for the family, tending to their animals and a meager garden, and cooking meals with very little for the pot. Despite Joseph’s steady work and the family’s long, grueling hours, beggary knocked constantly. They barred it with strong backs, busy hands, and the hope that God would one day send another messiah like Moses, who had rescued them from Egypt or the beloved King David, who was their leader when they were free on this land.

Galilean peasants like Joseph and Mary struggled to provide for themselves in tight communities. But poverty did not come from lack. Left alone, they would have thrived, for they lived on a high fertile plain, sloping from modest hills to a low inland sea that produced abundant fish to eat with hardy grains, fruits, and vegetables from their small farms. No, poverty did not come from any severity of the soil or seas. It came from the harshness of empire, the tyranny of far-off Rome whose armies controlled this eastern Mediterranean region. Calloused hands that labored to feed impoverished families labored on to feed Caesar’s tax-hungry treasury. And just in case the peasants forgot who wrote the rules, Herod Antipas, Rome’s brutal overseer of Galilee, stood ready with legions of soldiers to be certain that Caesar received his due.

Rome ruled Galilee and the southern state of Judea, including Jerusalem, which was the center of Judaism. From Galilee south along the western edge of the Jordan River to the dry grazing lands and arid deserts of Judea, stretched what were once the holy lands of the Israelites, the children of Abraham, a tribal caravan merchant, who had wandered here from Ur on the Euphrates River in the east over fifty generations ago. But his current descendants who lived in Galilee and Judea no longer controlled their destiny. Their lands and livelihoods were under the jurisdiction of Rome and their religion was tainted by their conquerors.

Joseph’s lineage included the Israelites: the twelve tribes that were said to have grown from the seed of Abraham’s grandson Jacob (or Israel as God called him) while enslaved in Egypt. The story goes that with faith in one God and under the leadership of his chosen one, Moses, the Israelites escaped from slavery. They resettled along the western shores of the Jordan, where they scattered in tribes for generations, raising sheep and growing a few crops, all the while trying to align themselves with the god, Yahweh, who Moses said had brought them out of Egypt.

Tradition says that generations later the tribes floundered as enemies overran them. Those who were left united as a new nation under a succession of kings. One early king, the beloved King David, who defeated many enemies to keep the Jews together and free, took it upon himself to establish a worthy capital. He chose Jerusalem, packing all the passion of his new monarchy and its faith in Yahweh into the old Judean city.

Amid Jerusalem’s newfound glory, a Holy Temple rose under kingly rule as the earthly home of Yahweh. It was Yahweh who had become God of the Israelites. It was Yahweh who had kept the Israelites on this land. It was Yahweh who had united Israel’s descendants under one king against their enemies. It was Yahweh who had struck a new covenant with this nation. The Temple, this beautifully inspiring, awesomely massive, powerful House of God, built for the whole world to see on the highest mount in Jerusalem, symbolized Yahweh’s covenant and anchored the new Jewish nation on his land, where he said they could stay forever if they obeyed his commandments.

Yahweh was the God of Moses, but El was the god who first spoke to Abraham of this land, then called Canaan. It was to be for all his descendants, as many as the stars in the sky, to live in peace and prosperity. El led Abraham and his tribal family out of the Euphrates valley into Canaan and made a covenant with him. It was a single promise: by grace alone, Abraham’s countless descendants would be free to prosper in Canaan land forever. The covenant was honored among the people by male circumcision, a mark of the flesh, a sign of El’s everlasting love and promise for all generations.

The familial relationship the benevolent El had with Abraham continued with Abraham’s son, Isaac, and grandson, Jacob, as they both became leaders of the Israelites, but it gave way in later generations. Then, under the leadership of Moses, while captive in Egypt, the Israelites submitted to the more fearful Yahweh as their one God. Yahweh, being less generous and more demanding than El, changed the covenant by putting conditions on it. He promised to care for the Israelites only if they obeyed his commandments. There was an uneasy relationship between the Israelites and their new god because his commandments were commonly broken. Human frailty often led to sin in Yahweh’s eyes.

Yahweh hated disloyalty. It was said that when his people disobeyed, he would rouse other nations to conquer, disperse, and enslave them as punishment. But after seething and showing his wrath, his fury would give way to anguish over what he had done, and he would free his people from tribulation. Now under the conquest of Rome, the Jews lived in one of those times when Yahweh’s covenant required deep, abiding faith in his promise. So, they obeyed his commandments with fierce ritual in hopes of regaining his favor and being released once more from bondage.

Yahweh lived in the temple, his holy place on earth, and access to him was through the temple priests. They accepted sacrificial offerings on his behalf and communicated his blessings to the Jewish people. They also oversaw the general affairs of the people. The rule of kings had ended several centuries earlier, when the Jews had been conquered by the Babylonians and carted off into exile. Empires came and went. The temple had been destroyed and rebuilt. Suppression continued under Roman rule. During these times without a king, the head priest assumed authority for all Jewish life: religious and civil.

From ancient times, power and politics held sway over the temple. Certain families felt chosen by Yahweh to rule his house and serve as his emissaries. These families held firmly to their authority and the wealth that came with it. But their power over the Jews held no candle to Caesar’s supremacy over God’s people. Rome’s authority reached into the Temple, holding out privileges for those who would do Caesar’s bidding. The priests who kowtowed kept their seats, meaning that the priests who currently controlled the temple and its access to God served at Rome’s pleasure. Like Caesar, they taxed the Jews to fill their coffers, and they did it with Caesar’s blessing. The house of God had become a den of thieves.

The power of Rome and temple kept the Jews in check, but they were not quiet. Revolt rumbled constantly below the surface of daily life, erupting occasionally into fighting, only to be repressed again by Rome’s legions. Just before Jesus was born, rebels in Sepphoris rose in a bloody, short-lived revolt. Roman soldiers crushed the uprising mercilessly, slaughtering thousands in the city and many hundreds in the nearby villages. Jesus’ boyhood played out on this tense stage of domination. He knew the stories of what had happened when the wrath of Rome fell on Sepphoris, spilling into Nazareth with death and destruction, and he knew firsthand of the injustice that lingered and the rage that seethed among those who wished to live free again.

Despite domination and hardship, the Jews stayed bound together in fear of Yahweh. His worship required treks to Jerusalem, a week’s hike from Nazareth, to celebrate his festivals and offer sacrifices for forgiveness. Jesus often would journey to the Holy City with his family and neighbors to celebrate Passover. He and his brothers would be at their father’s side as the family’s paschal lamb was slaughtered in the temple. He watched the priests catch the blood and prepare the fat and organs for presentation to Yahweh, praying along with the priests as they burned the offering upon the altar. Afterward, his mother and sisters roasted the lamb’s meat at the family’s quarters in the city, which they ate with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. This was done in memory of God’s ancient people struggling to escape from slavery in Egypt many generations ago.

Passover commemorated Yahweh protecting the infants of the Israelites as he killed the young of the Egyptians in his final and successful attempt to force Pharaoh to free his people. The story goes that Abraham’s children had made their way to Egypt in search of food during a famine. They became complacent, stayed too long, and found themselves enslaved. After several hundred years, Yahweh interceded to bring them out of Egypt and home to Canaan. But the Canaanites had become resistant to the Israelites’ resettlement. Yahweh, not being a god of mercy, slaughtered the Canaanites. They fell under the bloody swords of the Israelites as he guided his warriors’ blades in making way for his people to enter this promised land. It was now his land for his people under his covenant.

As a ritual of redemption honoring the freedom regained under Yahweh, Passover encouraged hope. Yet, as he grew older, Jesus participated in this religious feast with a heavier and heavier heart. It pained him that God’s people lived under Roman rule and not in the freedom they once knew in Canaan and later under their own kings. But it wasn’t just Rome’s domination that grieved him. While bumping along in the crowds, Jesus observed the injustices between the powerful and the weak as he witnessed the lame, the blind, and the diseased begging for pittance from the rich who flashed gold rings and wore flowing robes. It grew in him that things were not as they should be. His people were not enjoying God’s promise of peace and prosperity.

Jesus saw injustice take many forms. It seemed to him that power and tyranny went hand in hand, no matter whose grip held the shepherd’s crook as domination. Assyrians, Babylonians, Macedonians, and now Romans subjugated and scattered the Jews generation upon generation, until they no longer had their own nation to rule. But still, they were bound together throughout Galilee, Judea, and the whole of the diaspora by their fear of Yahweh and their adherence to the divine instruction of the Torah. The Torah had begun with God’s earliest commandments and grown into a tome of rules and regulations. It provided strict daily instructions in how to appease Yahweh so that he would not punish them. This instruction in daily living became a tradition of hope that God’s demands could be met and that he would one day send a savior again like Moses, or an anointed king like David, to lead them again into freedom.

Jesus lived this Jewish tradition. He was part of a nation without borders, bound together by temple and Torah. He astutely realized that empire could not undo the fearful power of Yahweh to keep his people together. God’s power was a catalyst of courage and faith among the descendants of Abraham. As Jesus witnessed the injustices among the Passover crowds and felt the suffering of oppression, rumblings of rebellion rose up within him. They gathered from a deep source of love for his people, giving him the courage to think he might be able to somehow renew the glory of the temple for God, bring a message of compassion to his people, and loosen Rome’s grip over their lives. Thinking these things, he questioned his own sanity, but began to realize that God intended for his hand to shepherd his people to a new freedom. Knowing the consequences of rebellion, his thoughts chilled him. Yet it was becoming clearer with each journey to Jerusalem that his quiet, routine life in Nazareth was going to be upended one day. He did not know when, but he had faith that it would happen in God’s own time.

At home, Jesus continued to labor with his father and brothers, but the older he grew the more his destiny of rebellion became apparent. As he studied Scripture with other devout youth in the village and prayed daily, the voice of divine presence grew louder. At times, its authority drove him to the ground under the overwhelming weight of what he sensed was coming. As his destiny took shape, he saw that soon he would have to leave his beloved village.

When the time came, his family was stunned. Many times, in the quiet of the evenings, after a hard day, he had tried to share with them the sense of presence that spoke to him with loving authority. His family listened, not comprehending. His leaving left them confused and angry because they needed his strong back at home. They understood that God was calling him, but they did not think he would leave town to do his work. Others who had heard the calling had stayed in their own villages, letting pilgrims come to them for guidance and blessing—and collecting a fee to share with their family. Here was Jesus, going away like a mad man. What did he think he was doing? Who did he think he was? Men like him were needed at home, not out wandering dusty roads. How could he help support the village by leaving? They were sure he had lost his mind. They begged him to stay, but he could not. The will to leave was not his own.

God’s call led to a desert wilderness along the Jordan River near Jerusalem. This was the home of John, a charismatic mystic who was known for submerging his followers in the river to cleanse them of their sins. John’s dipping of the faithful was totally in defiance of the temple’s teaching that sins could only be absolved through temple rites, such as an animal’s blood sacrifice on the altar. To defy the priests was risky, yet folks streamed from throughout Judea to lose their sins in the Jordan. They came because John spoke with prophetic zeal of a new salvation outside the corruption within the temple. Those seeking redemption were upstanding folks, as well as prostitutes, tax collectors, the diseased, and the destitute. They came to John to free themselves of sin in preparation for the imminent day of God’s final judgment, when he would release them from bondage forever. John preached that this new kingdom of God would be revealed soon, and they needed to be ready to be received. All who came to be cleansed were welcome without due.

It was unsafe to be a disciple of John’s. He was rejecting the priests’ authority and drawing Herod’s attention to himself as a troublemaker. All the same, Jesus joined this faithful band. It was a bold move that ended up bringing Jesus even closer to finding the authority and faith he needed to help John challenge the domination system. As John’s strong arms immersed Jesus into a still pool on the edge of the Jordan and returned him purified to the surface, a radiant light came upon Jesus, filling him with absolute peace. The divine presence he had come to know so well joined with him in an unheard-of bond of pure love between man and spirit. A great wave of passionate joy rolled through Jesus as he accepted God as his Father. Abba, he cried. I am blessed in your goodness. His Father replied: You are my beloved son on whom I rest my favor.

Yahweh was a violent god, punishing wholesale as he brought ruin to families, villages, and nations who confronted him. He even crushed his own people when they disobeyed. This ancient god of the Israelites was not a kindly figure. There was little to love. No one dared speak his name, let alone address him personally. Yet, here was Jesus calling out, Abba. It was a name used by a child for his loving papa, not for a god who inspired terror. Jesus, it seems, was addressing not Yahweh, but a more personal, familial god who had always been present in him. It was this presence of love that stirred Jesus to passion. In Jesus, the presence of love had replaced Yahweh. Over Jesus, Judaism would splinter.

John witnessed the miracle of love that had occurred in the Jordan. He saw Jesus reborn as a child of God, receiving God’s grace fully. Jesus was completely at one now with the light that lit his way. For some time, people had been calling John the Anointed One, but John cried out for all to hear that Jesus was the one they were expecting, not him. Jesus had become the Anointed One in John’s mind, and he wanted the world to know that Jesus was the Savior-king the Scriptures had promised. To John, Jesus was the Messiah.

John started preaching that Jesus was the new Moses and heir to David’s throne, but it did not last long. John was in trouble. His preaching of a savior and his cleansing of sins in the Jordan River angered the temple priests. To make matters worse, he preached that the savior would soon lead a new kingdom of God on earth in defiance of Caesar’s rule. This was treason to Herod as Rome’s representative. Then John went over the top by condemning Herod for marrying his brother’s wife. The priests could only fume about John; Herod acted. He arrested John, hoping to end his apocalyptic movement. At first, John was left to rot in prison. But then, when it was least expected—ending all hope of a new kingdom—Herod beheaded John. Once again, the sword of oppression had eradicated a troublesome foe.

Jesus fled, as did others. He found himself alone in the wilderness, solely in the hands of the god he had come to know as Abba. Removed from the world, living in Abba’s presence, Jesus heard the sacred speak to him from the silence. In this transient state, a new message of God’s kingdom came upon him. The kingdom was not coming, as John had preached. God’s kingdom on Earth was not to come in the future. Abba, the Father, told Jesus that the kingdom was here-and-now, in this very moment, available to all who sought it. No one was to be excluded. The Father told Jesus to carry this good news to all of Abraham’s descendants as a new covenant.

Jesus emerged from the wilderness holding God’s authority. His god was the Father, a personal god promising to love freely without conditions in a kingdom of compassion and justice, a kingdom available to all who wanted to enter. Knock and the door to the kingdom would open to you. It was a religiously transforming message: follow the Father for a better life; look in your heart for his boundless love; return that love to God, yourself, and all others; love is the path to salvation and forgiveness paves the way.

The priests were livid. Although John was dead, Jesus was now subverting temple authority in his stead. Jesus’ message had a political twist as well: God is king, not Caesar. This was a message of doom for any bearer in the Roman world. Herod killed John to wipe out the coming of God’s kingdom. Jesus picked up the message and made it even more imminent. He preached of a God whose kingdom was already here for anyone who wished to enter. The priests wanted immediate action, but Rome was willing to wait. This time, extinguishing the messenger had to be done right.

With the wilderness behind him and his newfound message in hand, Jesus became an itinerant teacher, a Jewish mystic, wandering among the Galilean villages, living on handouts. Jesus spoke of God as a loving father, using parables and aphorisms to describe the new kingdom on earth. There was seating at the table for everyone. No one was turned away from the banquet.

His followers learned to love God fully and themselves equally. Unlike John, Jesus did not dip folks in water. He saved them with the Holy Spirit. He forgave sins by telling people to repent: to live with God in a new way. He told them to center themselves on the Father and have less concern for worldly ways. He wanted them to live in the presence of God and use the Father’s forgiveness and love to ease their suffering. He told them to worry less about wealth, the Torah, and what others did in their lives. He said, give to Caesar what belongs to the world, and give to God what belongs to Spirit. Follow me, for I have found the way to live in God’s kingdom now.

Jesus was charismatic and developed a strong following. Some had been disciples of John, but most were new. They were men and women who trailed after him, welcoming his message of compassion and justice in their anguished lives. Like John, he welcomed everyone, including tax collectors, prostitutes, and the infirm. His closest companions were Simon Peter; James and John, the sons of Zebedee; and Mary of Magdala.

Following Jesus soon became more and more treacherous. Rome and temple considered him a treasonous, social deviant. Besides denouncing Rome, he consorted openly with outcasts, did not observe kosher, did not fast, broke the Sabbath, did not observe purity codes, was at odds with his family, and pronounced forgiveness of sins under his own authority. Yet Jesus was popular, at least outside of Nazareth, where family and neighbors still thought he had gone insane. It was difficult for them to accept his leaving; let alone the subversive message he was spreading throughout Galilee and Judea, and even into the Holy City.

Jesus was not a rebel among his followers. He was a teacher of wisdom, a healer, an exorcist, and a prophet. He expressed the Father’s love so completely that many who had fevers, rashes, bleeding, blindness, or lameness lost their infirmities in his presence. Even demons fled when he challenged those with chronic illusions to let go of their maladies and join him in God’s kingdom. But still, like the prophets before him, he railed against the domination system, putting God’s authority above priest and emperor.

Jesus’ life was in grave danger because of this, so he stayed out of harm’s way by keeping on the move and isolating himself from large crowds when he could. He never stayed long in any one village, and he sought the isolation of the Galilean hills as often as he could. Still crowds followed him everywhere, seeking forgiveness and healing. This peaceful man, preaching the wisdom of compassion and justice in a world dominated by tyranny, was becoming too visible. Time was running out. Knowing death would follow his imminent capture, Jesus wanted one last dramatic demonstration of God’s kingdom to keep his mission alive.

For his final act, Jesus chose the world stage of Jerusalem at Passover. Originally built to glorify God, the city now paid tribute to Caesar. The powerful and wealthy, including the high priests of the temple, did Rome’s bidding to maintain their positions. Jesus abhorred their choosing Caesar’s realm over God’s. They wrung their riches from peasant labor and called the resulting disparity the will of God. Jesus said that God’s kingdom would turn the tables, putting the least of his people first in restoring parity.

For over a year, Jesus had been preaching throughout Galilee and Judea, wielding the kingdom of God as a political cudgel for justice and as a religious instrument for equality. His preaching challenged the authority of both Caesar and the high priests. Now in Jerusalem, he was bringing the message of the kingdom directly to the center of Jewish passion in full view of the pilgrims who choked the temple grounds and city streets to celebrate Passover. The stage was set to drive home to Caesar and all who would listen that the city of peace was God’s domain and could not be conquered; that peace came from justice and equality, not from the sword; that peace lived in the hearts of God’s children through his love. Like a beacon of light shining from this city on the hill, Jesus would demonstrate that the Father is pure love and his compassion, which is in everyone, cannot be destroyed. This was the light in Jesus that could not be hidden.

Jesus entered Jerusalem humbly on a donkey. His followers spread palm leaves on his path to honor and glorify him. With the love of his followers on display and the peace of God in his heart, he rode the pain and sorrow of peasant suffering into the den of the oppressors. Like Zechariah, the prophet who foreshadowed the coming of the king, Jesus was taking a peaceful stand, without violence, against the domination system of his time. On the opposite side of town, Pontius Pilate, Rome’s new political authority as governor of Judea, had entered Jerusalem in royal grandeur, with battle-hardened legions marching before him to be certain that no one doubted his imperial power over this city crowded with pilgrims and potential trouble. He personally was there under the authority of Caesar to maintain control. It was not lost on him that Jesus’ humble entrance mocked Caesar. The tone set by Jesus was noted by Pilate like a beast opening one eye to observe an intruder in his cave. The wrath of Rome was alert to Jesus’ intent.

Jesus went first to the temple, the home of God’s glory. Like all Jews, he honored and supported the temple. He believed in its holiness but detested the collaboration of the high priests with Rome. To Jesus, their submission to Rome symbolized God submitting to Caesar. God’s path had brought him here as it once had brought the prophet Jeremiah, who let it be known that God’s house was not to be a robber’s den, a place for the wicked to hide. Not then and not now. Jesus, like Jeremiah, was protesting the use of the temple as a refuge for the abomination of injustice. The temple was supposed to be for God’s glory. It was not supposed to be a haven for those who harbored tyranny. Jesus was here to confront the priests.

The priests were not amused by Jesus challenging them about whose authority ruled the temple. Was it Caesar’s or God’s? Having literally turned over tables the first day in a symbolic effort to shut down the temple as a refuge for injustice, Jesus made matters worse on the next day by defying the priests face-to-face. When confronted, the priests used a series of tough questions, hoping to undermine Jesus’ standing with the people by getting damaging answers from him. Instead, Jesus met every attack with witty riposte, then figuratively turned the tables on them again by asking his own tough questions. Unlike Jesus, the priests stumbled miserably over their answers, embarrassing themselves—to the delight of the pilgrims who were watching. It was evident that Jesus had won the day by symbolizing the temple as the place of justice God intended it to be.

Humiliated on their own turf by this troublemaker, the priests wanted desperately to destroy him. Jesus was using them to convince his followers to believe that expressing compassion and justice was more important to God than following temple ritual. Unable to take him out on their own, they complained to Pilate that the time for action had certainly come. Pilate agreed for his own reasons. He saw the political need to strike the head of this new kingdom movement now before an uprising occurred during Passover. The crowds were too great to control without a disastrous bloodbath if Jesus were to incite them to riot. The intruder had moved too far into the den for comfort, and the wrathful beast was now watching with both eyes open. With teeth bared and claws extended, a low growl rumbled from its belly.

It was not lost on Jesus that he was doomed. He tried to prepare his disciples for the end, but they were deaf to what he was saying. As soon as Pilate’s soldiers had the opportunity, they pounced, catching Jesus on the eve of Passover as he prayed alone in a quiet garden, far from the crowds who loved him. His disciples ran in fear, but they were safe. Pilate wanted Jesus—not them. Jesus was the intruder who had threatened the beast. With him gone, Pilate and the priests believed that the Jesus movement would die with him. They were to be proven wrong.

Herod had killed John with the same intent of quelling the growing movement of a competing kingdom. It hadn’t worked. John’s disciple Jesus reformed the movement and carried on with the mission of subverting Rome’s authority. Pilate intended to make Jesus’ execution more public than John’s, so that no one would foolishly try this again. To show the Jews what would happen to anyone who continued this nonsense, Pilate crucified Jesus openly at the gates of Jerusalem in full view of all who came and went.

Jesus was executed as a common criminal. After being stripped of his clothes, beaten, humiliated with a thorny crown, and flogged until flesh coated the lash, spikes were driven through each outstretched wrist into a beam of wood hoisted on a post to which his crossed ankles were nailed with a single long rod. Jesus hung in writhing agony for days as he slowly suffocated to death. Growing weaker from hunger and thirst, no longer able to raise his body to breathe, he slumped toward death, crushing his lungs as he sank into a breathless coma. A wave of mercy must have spread over him as he died. As with the thousands of crucified victims before him, his torn flesh was left to mongrels and carrion. Then when stripped of their meat, his bones were tossed into a common lime pit where Rome rid itself of the remains of those who defied its authority.

At the time, Jesus was just another example of what happens when you challenge tyranny. To Rome and temple, it was the end of another petty, flailing lunge at their power over Galilee and Judea. Thousands of Jews had died before on crosses. More deaths were certain. The desire to overcome oppression seethed in the Jewish heart. Caesar, as a God, had declared this land to be part of his kingdom, no matter what John, Jesus, or anyone else declared: Play by the rules and you can live. Defy Rome and the wrath of the beast will tear you apart. It happened to John. It happened to Jesus. It would happen again and again. Jesus was not the last of the rebels.

Afterword

Historically, Jesus was a Jew who led a small band of disciples in Roman occupied Galilee and Judea in the early first century CE. He taught his views on God’s sacred authority to all who would listen. In doing so, he acted against temple and Roman sovereignty, and those in power regarded him as a rebel. As such, the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, had him crucified. After his death, adherents continued to revere him. Oral tales of his teaching circulated for decades among Jewish sects of Jesus followers. Later, several of these sects depicted his sayings, acts, life, and death in written gospels as they separated from traditional Judaism. Today, millions of Christians worship Jesus as their risen savior. Others, Christian and non-Christian alike, see him as a mystic teacher, or spiritual master.