A Failed Messiah

The scriptures referred to are Philippians 2:5-11 and Luke 22:14-23:56.

There aren't a lot of biographies of people who failed. Yes, some of the greatest achievers didn't succeed in everything they tried. Einstein didn't manage to come up with a theory that tied all the forces of the universe together. In fact, gravity is still confounding scientists who want a theory of everything. Actor/director Charles Laughton failed to finish his film version of I, Claudius. And you can find many inspirational lists of people who failed before becoming successful and famous. What's hard to find are stories of people who never succeeded in their main goal. Like Franz Reichelt who jumped off the Eiffel Tower in 1912 using his invention of a parachute suit. That ended as badly as you would expect. And the only reason we know about him today is because it was filmed by a newsreel which, unlike him, now lives on You Tube. He also has an article on Wikipedia but I doubt anyone wrote a book about him.

While listening to one of Luke Timothy Johnson's excellent lectures on the Great Courses, he used a phrase I'd never thought of applying to Jesus: a failed messiah. Johnson says, at least in the eyes of the people standing around the cross and those who heard about his execution afterward, Jesus was a failed messiah. A messiah ought to make things better for his people. Jesus didn't. He did not lead a successful revolt and expel the pagan oppressors from the land God gave the Jews. He did not bring about the end of the current evil age and usher in the Messianic Age. He did not set up a physical kingdom of God on earth. Those are the basic things that the Jews, including the 12 disciples, expected from the Messiah. He checked off none of the boxes on the list of qualifications for a successful messiah.

Nor did he try to do those things. At least Simon bar Kokhba was a military leader. 60 years after the Romans defeated the Jewish revolt in 70 AD, bar Kokhba managed to put up strong opposition to the forces of the Emperor Hadrian. For about 3 years, there was once again an independent Jewish state. Jews did think he was the Messiah, including the revered Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva. Simon bar Kokhba was eventually killed in a siege but at least he did things that were recognizably messianic.

Jesus didn't start a holy war. Because he saw the problems facing his people, and indeed all people, differently.

Then as now folks see the main problem with the world as “those people.” To the Jews “those people” were the Romans...and other Gentiles...and Jews who aren't as observant as the Pharisees...or as pure as the Essenes...or as militant as the Zealots. To the Romans the problem was the Jews...and the Carthaginians...and the Gauls...and their own slaves. Today “those people” are the far right...or the far left...or the rich...or the poor...or atheists...or Christians...or Q-Anon folks...or Muslims...or Russians...or Chinese...or blacks...or whites...or Mexicans...or anyone else. We always feel that our problems are caused by “those people,” however we define them. And that makes the solution simple. Just neutralize “those people” and everything will be fine.

That's the plot of our big blockbusters and thrillers. Just defeat the group of bad guys and it's all good. Better than that: destroy the bad guys. Blow up the villain's volcano base or death star or put on a magic glove and snap your fingers and make all the bad guys go away. Instant happy ending.

Unfortunately that was also the basic idea behind the Nazis' Final Solution. They also thought certain people were the problem. Build death camps and just eliminate all those Jews...and Slavs...and Communists...and Jehovah's Witnesses...and Protestants and Catholics who hid Jews...and gays...and mentally ill people...and disabled people.

“Hell is other people,” Jean-Paul Sartre observed. Or as a clergyman once said about his troublesome parish, “There is nothing wrong that a few strategic funerals wouldn't fix.” I think—I hope—he said it tongue in cheek.

But we all feel that way. We may not say it out loud but we hear or read some depressing news and we wish that the person or persons causing all the problems would just drop dead. Which means the difference between us and the people on those true crime documentaries on TV is that we don't act on that feeling. At least not directly.

In Dickens' A Christmas Carol two men ask Ebenezer Scrooge for a donation to help the poor. He says, “Are there no prisons?” “Plenty of prisons,” says one of the men. “And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?” “They are,” says one of the men. “I wish I could say they were not.” So Scrooge refuses to give anything to buy the poor food and drink and a way to keep warm. “I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.” “Many can't go there,” the man says, “and many would rather die.” “If they would rather die,” says Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

The workhouses were designed to be horrible places to discourage people from using them. Today we make getting assistance difficult for the same reason. And if you make it hard for people to get the basics in life—food, a place to live, healthcare—then, by simple logic, you are making it more likely they will die. Currently the richest Americans live 10 to 15 years longer than the poorest. And the gap has increased by a couple of years since 2001. Is there that much of a moral difference between making people die sooner than they should and letting them die sooner than they should?

As Paul McCarthy and Wings sang, “When you were young and your heart was an open book/You used to say “Live and let live,/...But if this ever changing world in which we're living/Makes you give in and cry/Say “Live and let die!” People today may not be as blatant in their programs to get rid of “those people” as the Romans or the Nazis were. Neglect isn't as efficient as rounding up people and killing them but it lets us slowly eliminate the people who are the problem without getting our hands dirty.

The late Paul Farmer said, “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.” There's a lot of truth to that when it comes to how we treat others. But what is at the root of that idea? What causes us to disregard the importance of others? The gut feeling that we are more important than other people. That the world revolves around us and that our feelings, our desires, and our rights come first.

Of course if we come first, before everything and everyone else, you know what that makes us? God. And thinking that Self Is Number 1 is SIN 1, a violation of the first commandment. Putting anything before God is idolatry. But secretly don't we all worship ourselves? We think that we alone see the world as it is. We think we know what's best for everyone. “If they just asked me, I would set them straight.” We even think we know better than God what's good for us and what isn't. The story of the temptation in the Garden of Eden is a template for every temptation. We think: “It won't hurt.” “Just this once.” “How bad can it be?” And the next thing you know you are naked and vulnerable to a lot of things you didn't consider would go wrong. And when the time comes to be accountable we blame someone else. It was the snake! It was the woman! It wasn't me! (Genesis 3:1-19)

The people of the world think the problem is other people, “those people.” But as the comic strip Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Humans are their own worst enemies. Aliens or robots or monsters aren't killing people or making our planet uninhabitable or creating microplastics that are now in our blood. People are. And people are standing by and letting it be done. Because we don't want to give up our desires to have cool stuff and next day delivery and big vehicles and cheap energy and cheap labor and more drugs to make us feel good and more weapons to make us feel safe and the right to live as we want without regard to how it affects anyone else.

Which is why the solution isn't a superhero or even a holy warrior king. Jesus knew that. But if that's what you think the Messiah should be, then he failed miserably.

But if you think that the problem with the world is not other people but all of us, playing God, thinking we are right; if you think we need someone who doesn't try to solve the world's problems by killing people; if you think what the world needs is someone who instead heals and feeds and gives life to people, who reveals the uncomfortable truth about ourselves and the wonderful truth about the God who is love, who demonstrates God's love in his life even when it leads to his sacrifice and death, who is willing to take on the evil in this world unflinchingly and to be the one who absorbs the full brunt of our sin and penchant to blame someone else and take out our anger on someone else and to try to eliminate them as the cause of our unease, then Jesus is that person.

If you think what we need is someone who shows that you can change the world not by eliminating people but by changing people, by changing the way we look at God and at each other, by changing the way we treat others, and by changing “those people” into our people, then Jesus is that person.

We are not God. We have tried to be that and failed horribly. We have forgotten that we are made in God's image, all of us are. Unfortunately we have lost what God's image in us means. But in Jesus we see that image clearly. In Jesus we see what God is really like. And more than that, in Jesus we see what we can be. If we, like he, deny ourselves and take up our crosses and follow him.