Curious Christian

In considering how to integrate Christian teaching with everyday life I find that I am led time and time again to reconsider the significance of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

If we view Jesus exclusively through the lens of religious categories, is it any wonder that we end up with a sacred/secular dichotomy? Yet when I consider what Paul and the gospel writers actually said in their context it strikes me how again and again they used political and economic language. The crucifixion was a religious act, sure, but it was also much more…

The crucifixion was a political act. If there is one historically fact that is accepted above all others, it that Jesus was crucified under the orders of Pontius Pilot, the Pagan Roman governor of Jerusalem. The Pharisees may have gotten riled up over perceived blaspheme, but the pretext of Jesus’ execution was sedition against the Imperial system. Amongst other things, the crucifixion of Jesus was a critique of and challenge to the powers of his day – do your worst!

The crucifixion was a social act. Crucifixion was designed to humiliate people, to strip enemies of their reputation and status. In accepting the cross, Jesus declared to the world that status isn’t everything.

The crucifixion was an economic act. As he was nailed to the cross, Jesus was stripped of all his meager possessions, even the clothes off his back, which were gambled over by his executioners. Yet Jesus chose this fate rather than seek financial security. Jesus spoke of a deeper wealth that had more to do with our capacity to give than our desire to receive. Jesus presents a challenge to wage slavery and amoral investment that we should not ignore.

And if the crucifixion can be recognised as more than a religious act, can we then see his resurrection in a new light? The resurrection vindicated Jesus in his relativising of strength, respectability and affluence, and calls us into a new way of approaching the world. If we truly wish to reassess the sacred/secular dichotomies we have inherited from modernist Christianity we must not stop at reassessments of ecclesiology and mission methodology. We must dig deep and reassess our Christology, our very understanding of God incarnate.