In Actual Fact: Thoughts on Ignorance

French squire:  And most importantly, because the Pope himself is French.

Roland:              Well, the Pope may be French, but Jesus is bloody English!

A Knight’s Tale (2001)

Indulge me a moment. I’m irritated and feel like a bit of a rant. Said rant’s key content is probably not news to my aware and astute readers, and I hardly think myself a solitary voice in stating it – but equally, what exactly is the point of maintaining a weekly blog if I can’t make use of it on occasion to unburden myself of the odd irritated rant?

What birthed my irritation was an article published this week on the Independent website, bearing the headline ‘Christmas 2017: One in five Brits do not know Jesus Christ born on 25 December, study finds’.¹

 

Your typical reconstructed nativity scene, with anachronistic electric fairy lights and everything.

Yes, you read that right. “Is this a spoof?” asked someone in the comments, and I thought, you might well ask. Apparently, the Independent would have us applaud the remaining four in five for apparently believing that the reason why the twenty-fifth of December was designated as the feast day for the birth of Jesus was because that was the genuine calendar date of his birth. Hint: it wasn’t. The date of Christmas was selected by Pope Julius I in the mid-fourth century, presumably in an attempt to fashion a smoother tradition to Christianity from pagan religion. The Romans celebrated the Saturnalia from 17^th-23^rd December, and further north, Germanic tribes marked the winter solstice with the festival of Yule. Even today ‘Yule’ occasionally shows up as a synonym for ‘Christmas’ – troll the ancient yuletide carol, fa la la la la et cetera – and a number of customs associated with these festivals persist in today’s Christmas traditions as well, such as the exchange of gifts and the decorating of houses with evergreen foliage. Julius I held the papacy some years after the reign of Emperor Constantine I – whose conversion to Christianity and subsequent decree of religious freedom spelt the end to state persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire – but prior to that of Emperor Theodosius I, whose Edict of Thessalonica established Christianity as the state religion; this, then, was a period in which Christianity was advancing and paganism receding, and making sure that converts would still get to enjoy their midwinter festivities after they forsook the gods to whom said festivities had historically been dedicated, in favour of worshipping Christ, was bound to ease the process. (What you think of that as a strategy for mission is your call.)

Still, even if the average Brit can hardly be expected to know about Julius I and all that – and I’ll freely admit I had to look up the details² – it seems pretty ludicrous for the Independent to marvel in such fashion at the supposed ignorance of this twenty per cent, when the fact of which they are accused of being ignorant is not, in actual fact, an actual fact. And it only got worse for the rest of the article:

“10 per cent were unaware he was born in a stable.” That Jesus was born in a stable is affirmed nowhere in the Bible. I had a peruse of the survey from which these statistics had been gathered, and one of the other possible answers to the question of where Jesus was born was ‘in a cave’, which is actually a well-attested early tradition still going strong in certain branches of the global Church today³ – but of course it flashed up as a wrong answer when I gave it a curious click. We know he was laid in a manger after he was born,⁴ but the stable is pure speculation. Frankly, I’m more concerned that ninety per cent of Brits would affirm its existence than that ten per cent would deny it.

“While 85 per cent believe Jesus spoke Hebrew, just three per cent were aware that he is also said to have spoken Greek.” O my dear Aramaic, how neglected you are, poor thing! I’m not pretending that there isn’t substantial debate still churning about the exact relationship between Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek in the Israel of Jesus’ time – though the distinction between Hebrew as belonging to the sphere of religion, Aramaic to that of practical matters like trade and law, and Greek to that of government, seems as useful a delineation as any to start from – but of the three, the one we have the most evidence of Jesus having spoken in certainly Aramaic. The gospel accounts we have are in Greek, but on a number of occasions the writers make a point of recording Jesus’ words in Aramaic (or rather the best transliteration thereof they could manage). Example one: to Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5:22 he says ταλιθὰ κούμ (talithà koúm), a transliteration of the Aramaic טליתא קום (ṭalīthaʾ qūm), which is a feminine form of an adjective meaning ‘young’ followed by a part of a verb meaning ‘stand’, yielding the meaning, ‘young girl, get up’. (In his version of the story, Luke gives Jesus’ words in Greek: ἡ παῖς ἒγειρε (hē paĩs égeire), which is, similarly, a word meaning ‘child’, specified as feminine by the form of the definite article preceding it, followed by an imperative from a verb meaning ‘get up’.) Example two: the nickname he gives his disciple Simon in John 1:42 is Κηφᾶς (Kēphãs), that is the Aramaic (not Hebrew) word כיפא (kēphaʾ), meaning ‘rock’; it’s just had a Greek masculine ending stuck on it so that it declines nicely within the Greek text. The other gospel accounts, of course, skip straight to the Greek-translated form of the name, Πέτρος (Pétros), from πέτρα (pétra) meaning ‘rock’ (hence ‘petrify’ and other delightful words), which comes out in English as Peter, but references in Paul’s epistles tell us the Aramaic form was commonly used to refer to Simon Peter while he was alive.⁵ Example three: perhaps most strikingly, the words Jesus speaks on the cross in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 - ἠλὶ ἠλὶ λεμὰ σαβαχθάνι (ēlì ēlì lemà sabakhtháni) in the former and the slightly differently rendered ἐλωῒ ἐλωῒ λεμὰ σαβαχθάνι (elōḯ elōḯ lemà sabakhtháni) in the latter, meaning, as I’m sure you know, ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ – look pretty dang Aramaic, despite the fact that he’s clearly quoting the opening of Psalm 22, which is of course written in Hebrew. The verb meaning ‘you have forsaken me’ used in the original psalm is עֲזַבְתָּנִי (ʿəzabhtānī), from the root עזב (ʿzb), a nice Hebrew root for ‘forsake’, whereas the verb Jesus uses is from סבק (sbq), a root totally absent from the Hebrew Bible but very common in Aramaic with the meaning ‘forsake’ (among others). In other words, he’s quoting an Aramaic translation, or Targum, of the psalm.⁶ There are more examples I could discuss, but I’ll spare you any more linguistic minutiae and wrap up the point by noting that surely the only plausible reason for the gospel writers to switch from Greek into Aramaic for certain of Jesus’ sayings would be because they wanted, for whatever reason, to record the words that actually came out of his mouth in these instances, rather than a Greek translation of them? Granted, there’s also good evidence of Jesus’ familiarity with Hebrew and, to a lesser extent, Greek,⁷ but that he spoke Aramaic is clearest of all. So why, when I ticked the box marked ‘Other’ as well as those marked ‘Hebrew’ and ‘Greek’ in answer to the relevant poll’s question as to which languages Jesus spoke (there was none marked ‘Aramaic’), was I told I was wrong?

“One in five had no idea that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were four of [Jesus’ twelve disciples].” Well, call me illiterate, but I can’t seem to find a mention of any Mark or Luke in any of the lists of the twelve given in the gospels.⁸ So again, I’m more concerned about the supposedly clued-up majority here than the supposedly ignorant minority.

“The research, carried out via OnePoll.com, also revealed just three in ten learned their knowledge of Jesus and his story from The [sic] Bible itself.”

Oh. Well, that explains a lot.

Folks, I beg and implore you – don’t believe that things you hear about Jesus are true just because everybody else seems to think they are. God didn’t give us the scriptures so that we could stake our understanding of who he is on tradition and hearsay.

“Oh how I love your law!

It is my meditation all the day.

Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,

for it is ever with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers,

for your testimonies are my meditation.”⁹ – Psalm 119:97-99

The route to having understanding better than that of the fantastically learned, is to obsess over the Bible. Read it. Dwell on it. Wrestle with it. Let it be your constant preoccupation. And test everything you hear people say about God against it. It’s one thing to belong to the minority who are genuinely clueless about what the Bible says on a particular topic; it’s more dangerous, I’d argue – more falsely secure – to belong to the majority who think they know what it says, but turn out to be not much less ignorant. According to the poll cited by the Independent, seven in ten Brits would say they have a good knowledge of the story of Jesus. Perhaps they have a good knowledge of a story of Jesus – but unless it’s the one the Bible tells, that honestly doesn’t count for very much.

I started with the intention of indulging in a rant. I seem to have ended by making an exhortation that applies as directly to myself as to anyone: there’s still way too much in the Bible that I haven’t ever taken the trouble to meditate on, let alone doing so all day, and I don’t doubt there are questions regarding which I still belong to a falsely-secure ignorant majority, thinking I know what the Bible says about the topic at hand, because that’s what everyone else seems to think it says, without actually having read and understood the relevant portions of it for myself. My friends, let’s make the scriptures our obsession, because when we love them such that they are our meditation all the day, God will begin to grant us wisdom and understanding surpassing that of those who oppose us and those who instruct us. Let’s not be content with anything less.

Footnotes

¹ No kidding – here it is: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/christmas-jesus-christ-birthday-25-december-brits-ignorant-nativity-christianity-bethlehem-a8094496.html.

² Not that that involved anything more stunningly intellectual than a bit of online searching.

³ For further details: https://www.christianpost.com/news/christmas-history-was-jesus-born-in-a-cave-111405/. “The idea that Jesus was born in a cave is simply based upon tradition and does not come from the Bible,” quotes the article at its end. True, I grant you; the same may be said for the idea that Jesus was born in a stable.

⁴ That fact is a fairly big deal in the first part of Luke 2: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+2&version=ESVUK.

⁵ Paul refers to the man in question as Κηφᾶς (in English translations, Cephas) eight times, in 1 Corinthians 1:12, 3:22, 9:5, and 15:5; and Galatians 1:18, 2:9, 2:11, and 2:14. By contrast, he only calls him Peter twice, in Galatians 2:7 and 2:8, so in the same chapter in which he calls him Cephas three times.

⁶ A surviving Targum known to the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon uses the exact same form of the verb that would seem to be indicated by the Greek transliteration of what Jesus said, סבקתני: http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/showtargum.php. The same Targum also uses a different expression for ‘why’ to what Jesus said, namely מטול מה (meṭūl māh), literally ‘on account of what’. לָמָה (lāmāh), the word Jesus used for ‘why’, is less frequently used in Aramaic than in Hebrew, but is nonetheless good Aramaic that could quite happily have been used in a Targum.

⁷ I know one very clever and godly person who thinks the beatitudes were originally delivered in Greek, on the grounds of the alliteration that appears in them; see point 10 in this article: https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-reasons-pastors-should-study-the-bible-in-its-original-languages/. Although, you know, the rest of the article’s worth a read too.

⁸ You’re looking at Matthew 10, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10&version=ESVUK, Mark 3, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+3&version=ESVUK, and Luke 6, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+6&version=ESVUK. Some of the twelve are identified by more than one name in the different accounts, but we still don’t have any Marks or Lukes.

⁹ Whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+119&version=ESVUK. I won’t tell you to read all of it, but you could check out the מ (mem) section from which I took my three-verse extract, maybe?

Let the Challenge Begin

“May the luck of the raven’s eye be with you. Let the challenge begin.”

Raven (2002-2010), passim

Rejoice, all ye noughties kids. Glad tidings I bring: Raven is back.¹

 

A raven (unless it’s a crow; I can’t tell) in a suitably fantasy-ish landscape. Apparently the raven who plays Raven’s raven form in Raven is (or possibly was) called Jake.

Probably the finest bit of children’s programming ever produced by BBC Scotland, Raven originally ran for ten series from 2002 to 2010, won two BAFTAs, and spawned three spin-off series.² Few programmes, I think it fair to assert, are so heartily beloved by Brits of my generation as this one: bring up Raven in any nostalgic conversation about the television broadcasting we used to enjoy, and you’ll almost certainly be met with a wistful grin and an enthusiastic exclamation to the effect of, “I loved that show!” from more than one quarter. The fact that it has retained a major cult following to this day and been one of the programmes most frequently requested for relaunch³ was undoubtedly a key factor in why the powers that be at CBBC have decided to gift the world with an all-new series beginning this coming Monday. I am, I confess, extremely – perhaps disproportionately – excited.⁴

The thing about Raven is that much as it is, at the end of the day, a gameshow – a mere kids’ gameshow with nine-to-thirteen-year-olds competing against each other to win a prize in the form of cash or a holiday – it never felt like one. It wasn’t so much that it called us to suspend our disbelief as that it seized our disbelief under the arms and dangled it helpless from the rafters without our consent: the whole idea of the programme was to maintain this pretence that Raven’s ‘young warriors’ really were inhabitants of this land of myth and magic, competing to prove their worth in the battle against the forces of darkness. No hint that they were in fact just ordinary schoolchildren being supervised doing outward-bound activities somewhere in Scotland was allowed to reach us. Even the charade of scrambling selected letters of the competitors’ given and family names to produce vaguely fantasy-esque pseudonyms by which they were known throughout the duration of the tournament, contributed: this was not some kid called Jamie Woods, this was Jaddo, Ultimate Warrior, bearer of the emblem of the mountain, wielder of his rightfully earned Staff of Power.⁵

I have always felt that the marginally similar outward-bound activities I was forced to do on various school trips would have been far more exciting if the instructors had taken a leaf or two out of Raven’s book. On such trips, I recall, I was presented with rocks to climb and lakes to canoe in and high-ropes courses to complete without there being any apparent reason for my doing so other than that that was what the activity organisers had arbitrarily decided my group was going to be doing that afternoon. If only they had told me that at the top of the rocks lay a portal through which I would need to pass in order that the evil Nevar might be defeated; or that the lake was my only route of access to a hoard of the gold rings I might later desperately need to replenish my ‘lives’, the feathers atop my standard, should I fail in too many challenges; or even, from a slightly different angle, that by completing the high-ropes course even though I was finding it seriously scary, I would be proving my valour, and that if I tried and failed I would depart with honour – heck, if I had been addressed as ‘young warrior’ one single time, or even if the activity had been launched with a dramatic, “Let the challenge begin!” – I would have had so much more motivation to complete these tasks. If only there had been some grand inspiring storyline, however vaguely sketched, behind my being charged to complete them. If only they had been presented as a chance to strike blows for the right side in the ongoing struggle of good against evil. If only there had been a sense that this was about something worthier and weightier than my mere little self.

 

We were canoeing on Lake Windermere, which is of course a bit less impressive than Lake Louise if this lovely shot is anything to go by. Frankly, Canada, I’d say you’re rather showing off at this point.

I once came across one of those Tumblr posts that regularly make their way over to Facebook in screenshotted format, in which a blogger was suggesting that the way to increase one’s enthusiasm for mundane, everyday tasks is to pretend that they are not in fact mundane or everyday, but rather mighty challenges of the sort with which our favourite fictional heroes are typically faced.⁶ Consider washing the dishes to be preparing your armour for battle. Consider homework assignments to be top-secret research vital to the cracking of a tough case. Consider that long journey you really don’t want to have to take to be the next leg of the route to Mordor to destroy the One Ring. Clearly, then, I’m not the only one who thinks it would be easier to do the tasks set before us if we could successfully kid ourselves that to do so was to contribute to some grand inspiring storyline, to strike blows for good against evil, to do something worthier and weightier than our mere little, mundane, everyday selves.

But suppose we didn’t have to kid ourselves. Suppose it were true.

Paul’s letter to the community of believers in Christ living in Ephesus is structured as follows. The first three chapters are basically a splurge of doxology where Paul richly enthuses over the amazingness of the gospel from a few different angles, also expressing his prayer that the Ephesians would come to understand said amazingness more comprehensively. To God be the glory forever and ever, amen, and then we’re on to the second half of the letter, which kicks off with a meaningful ‘therefore’ before outlining what it looks like to conduct oneself in a manner worthy of the amazingness of the gospel by which one has been saved, in various different contexts. The section, and indeed the letter, is wrapped up with the following famous passage (not counting the few verses of final greetings at the very end):

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.⁷

There’s plenty going on in there – enough to fuel several blog posts, not to mention a very entertaining session of constructing a labelled cardboard panoply⁸ in which to deck a willing volunteer as a visual aid (my secondary school CU was a scream) – but my point today is this: all the things Paul was just talking about in the second half of Ephesians, all those mundane, everyday behaviours of bearing with one another, and letting go of our anger before the end of the day, and avoiding sexual immorality and covetousness in our conversation, and singing hymns in one anothers’ presence, and giving due respect to our parents – all of those things are the way we wage war against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. In fact, take a look at that sentence again: we are called to wage war against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. Just you try to tell me that doesn’t sound more like something Raven asks of his young warriors than a guide to appropriate behaviour for professing Christians.

So yes, the armour thing is a metaphor, but the battle is a real one. Spirit against flesh. Good against evil. We don’t have to motivate ourselves to complete the mundane, everyday tasks in front of us by kidding ourselves that to do so is to contribute to some grand, inspiring storyline; on the contrary, adelphoi, we’re kidding ourselves every time we get it in our heads that it’s not. If we think we’re to conduct ourselves the way the Bible tells us without there being any apparent reason for our doing so other than that that’s what God has arbitrarily decided we ought to be doing, then it’s surely no wonder that we lack enthusiasm for such an endeavour. But the reality is that every time we choose obedience over disobedience, however seemingly minimal the issue at hand, we strike a blow for the right side in the ongoing struggle of good against evil. Every resentment we refuse to allow to settle, every covetous comment we catch and do away with before it escapes our lips, every word of encouragement sung in the hearing of our comrades-in-arms – every such action is about something worthier and weightier than our mere little selves. There is a grand inspiring storyline behind the tasks with which we’re charged, and at its climax stands the cross on which the very Word of God gave himself over to the full force of his Father’s righteous anger in order that we, the worst sort of traitors, might receive mercy; he won the victory over all wrongdoing and corruption and decay, and invites us to share in the spoil – but more than that, to share in the battle. Our Captain calls us to arms. He calls us to wage war against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, not by our own power but in the power of his Spirit, with perseverance and prayer, conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of our calling. He calls us to take up the whole armour of God and stand firm.

Let the challenge begin.

Footnotes

¹ I kid you not. Extended trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3j9TYqu0Ek.

² If you have a hankering for more facts, then I have to say that as thorough profiles of television programmes go, this one from UK Game Shows ticks a lot of boxes: http://ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Raven.

³ As stated in this interview with the new series’ producer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/raven/gunaydin.

⁴ As you may, if you know me well or Facebook thinks you do, have spotted from a certain status I posted a few days ago. Ahem.

⁵ Jaddo was the winner of the third tournament (‘tournament’ being, in Raven’s case, essentially a synonym for ‘series’). Some sweet and creative human with plenty of time on his or her hands has created cute little icons of all the Raven warriors ever: http://miniravenwarriors.webs.com/ravenwarriorarchive.htm.

⁶ I’m afraid I can’t reference it because I can’t find it. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

⁷ Here’s the whole chapter, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+6&version=ESVUK, but you’ll gather from my remarks that I’d really rather you gave the whole book a quick skim than only the verses I’ve quoted and the few packed in around them.

⁸ ‘Panoply’ (Greek πανοπλία, panoplía) is in fact the word translated ‘whole armour’ in the ESV. It comes from a combination of the words πᾶς (pās, ‘all’) and ὅπλον (hóplon, ‘tool, implement of war’), and refers to the whole equipment of the ὁπλίτης (hoplítēs, ‘hoplite, heavy-armed foot-soldier’), not just the wearable defensive bits but the weapons as well, hence the slight discrepancy between the set of items Paul includes in his description and what we might conceive of as a suit of armour: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=panoplia&la=greek#lexicon.

Thoughts on Happiness 3: The Wrong Diagnosis

“This is stagefright. I had it once during Lady Windermere’s Fan. The only cure is to go on stage and not be frightened.”

Up the Women S2 E6, ‘Panto’ (2015)

Apparently they get doctors to wear white coats and stethoscopes because it makes people feel trusting towards them, regardless of whether said white coats and stethoscopes are actually helping them do their job or anything.

Remember the ‘historical paramedics’ sketches that formed a memorable component of Horrible Histories’ excellent third series?¹ In these, some unfortunate modern-day person, having called an ambulance for an ill or injured acquaintance, is promptly greeted by versions of Mat Baynton and Jim Howick hailing from some bygone era, who are keen to employ their self-proclaimed medical expertise in aid of the invalid, but then again, equally keen to make themselves scarce as soon as the real paramedics show up. It’s a fun and fast-paced reworking of the earlier ‘Historical Hospital’ sketch series,² and manages to stand out as a highlight of the programme among some very stiff competition.

The significant feature of the ‘historical paramedics’ sketches insofar as concerns this post, nonetheless, is this: because the writers like to cram in as many entertaining historical cures as they plausibly can into the two or three minutes of the sketch’s duration – everything from swallowing live buttered spiders as a remedy for generic ‘sickness’, to wrapping a sweaty sock around the neck to deal with a cold – the historical paramedics often attempt to treat many more ailments than their reluctant patients are actually suffering from. They mistake a birthmark for a boil or wart; they yell in a lady’s ear only to conclude from her recoiling that she is suffering from earache; and they waste some while debating the exact nature of a supposed stab wound that turns out to be nothing more than the stain of a dropped strawberry-flavoured ice lolly.³ The historical paramedics’ cures all, of course, sound ridiculous to modern ears – that’s the heart of the comedy here – but on top of that, they sometimes exercise one of those ridiculous cures on a patient who isn’t even suffering from the affliction it’s intended to treat.

It’s one thing to be wrong about the cure. To be wrong about the diagnosis, however, is to make double the mistake: the chances of you picking the right cure for your condition when you haven’t even correctly identified what that condition is are doubtless very small indeed.

So yes, I’m swinging back round to medical analogies for the final post of this little series on happiness. Call last week’s a digression and this an expansion of the first, if you like. In that one I made the point that Jesus didn’t do what he did on our behalf in order that we might have a happier life, but rather in order that we might have life, full stop. Now I’d like to have a closer look at what some of the implications might be if we get that wrong.

I was once with a non-Christian friend at a church event whose dominant theme was stress. The teaching component consisted of a clip from an instalment of J John’s ‘Just 10’ series on the Ten Commandments, namely the one pertaining to the prohibition of work on Shabbat.⁴ At one point J John launches into a series of idioms describing the stressed-out situation that can be relieved by the rest found in Jesus:

“Do you feel like you’re ready to throw in the towel? Do you feel like you’re at the end of your tether? Do you feel like you’re a bundle of nerves? Do you feel like you’re falling apart? Are you at your wit’s end? Do you feel like resigning from the human race?”

 

Apparently the expression ‘throw in the towel’ comes from the practice of throwing a towel into a boxing ring to indicate that a contestant forfeits the match.

Before the clip was shown, we had been given a sheet of paper on which was printed a slightly adapted version of this list of idioms with some of the key words blanked out, as a little guessing game kind of thing. My friend frowned over ‘I’m a bundle of [blank]’ before eventually hazarding, “bundle of fun?”

The cure J John was advocating was to find rest in Jesus. All well and good. But the diagnosis that came out of the clip we saw (I don’t attempt here to deliver a verdict on the whole half-hour sermon) was being a bundle of nerves and so forth. And I don’t at all mean to say that Jesus doesn’t offer relief from the pressures and burdens of the world – come to him all who are weary and heavy laden, for he is gentle and humble, his yoke easy and his burden light⁵ – but that’s not the core of the reason we need him. Or do only those feeling stressed and deprived of rest – upset and deprived of happiness – need Jesus? In which case, what about those who don’t identify with that diagnosis? What about those who would describe themselves more as a bundle of fun than a bundle of nerves?

The stress thing is only one angle: far too often, I think, and in far too many ways, we as Christians like to try to tell the rest of the world how they feel. You’re stressed, we tell them, and you’re dissatisfied, and you feel this emptiness, this hole in your life, and you fear death, and you harbour regrets, and you worry that life is meaningless, and you’re not, at the end of the day, happy. And granted, for many people, one or more of these kinds of assertions is likely to be true – but others might turn around and say that they feel quite happy enough, thank you very much, and so whatever cure we’re offering, they don’t need it. They don’t suffer from the affliction we’re offering to treat. We’re about as much use to them as the historical paramedics are to their poor misdiagnosed patients.

Maybe we’re just afraid of the fire-and-brimstone stuff. Maybe we don’t like the idea of telling people that the reason they need Jesus is because without him they’re going to hell. And there’s absolutely grounds to try to be sensitive and gentle and winsome when we’re sharing the gospel, rather than just stating the facts of it in whichever rough-and-ready fashion takes our fancy.⁶ Still, if we end up taking that principle to an extreme where we obscure the diagnosis of the human condition, we may very well end up doing more harm than good. The diagnosis of the human condition being, of course, that before we trust in Jesus’ resurrection, we are, in spiritual terms, nothing less than dead. (And I don’t even have to quote Ephesians to prove it.)⁷

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” – Genesis 2:16-17

“The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ … Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever – ’

therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.” – Genesis 2:12, 22-23

“For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” – 1 Corinthians 15:21-22

If the given diagnosis is anything less than spiritual death, then Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection make about as much sense for a cure as do buttered spiders or a sweaty sock. We do the unbelieving world a disservice, and our God a dishonour, when we imply that the diagnosis that warrants the cure of the cross is stressed-out-ness, or dissatisfaction, or unhappiness of whatever variety. And we shoot ourselves cleanly in the foot as far as our own proclamation of the gospel goes as well. Jesus came, as per John 10:10, that we might have life;⁸ anything less than that is not really the gospel. Granted, people might still think the cure sounds ridiculous if we explain the diagnosis rightly, but if we don’t do the latter, we make double the mistake, and leave a very small chance of anyone accepting the cure.

On which note, much as I know I tend as a rule to address my blog posts as if to fellow-believers, allow me to transgress that norm for a moment: if on the off-chance you’re reading this as someone who doesn’t know and love the Lord Jesus, then please know that, whatever I or anyone else may have implied in the past, the reason Christians think you need Jesus isn’t because you need to be happier. The reason Christians think you need Jesus is because you need to be alive – in a way that goes beyond the three score years and ten of earthly existence that you’ll manage to snag if you’re lucky (a mere blink of an eye in terms of eternity) – and because he’s the only one who can give you life.

The diagnosis is death. The cure is resurrection. Jesus has shown that it works. Come to him all you who are feeling weary and heavy laden – and come to him also all you who aren’t feeling particularly either. Come to him whether you’re a bundle of nerves or a bundle of fun. Come to him and rise from death – because without him, through our common ancestor Adam, all are dead. It’s one diagnosis and one cure for all, folks: come to Jesus.

Footnotes

¹ If not, here’s one to give you a flavour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZIMRVpKLFg. There was also one in Series 2, incidentally, as I learned here, https://horriblehistoriestv.wordpress.com/historical-paramedics/, but the majority were in Series 3.

² Featured in Series 1 and 2, and once in Series 3: https://horriblehistoriestv.wordpress.com/historical-hospital/.

³ I highly recommend Mary Berry’s no-churn ice-cream recipe, https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/no-churn_ice_cream_72012, though you’re better off freezing the finished product for two days than two hours.

⁴ The newest version of this sermon series was filmed at the out-of-town megachurch in my very own home city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SerTk8VO-H0. The bit I reference is a couple of minutes from the end of the video.

⁵ This is the passage J John references in the bit of his talk immediately preceding the list of idioms, and it’s from the end of Matthew 11: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+11&version=ESVUK.

⁶ “Do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behaviour in Christ may be put to shame.” So said the apostle Peter on the subject: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter+3&version=ESVUK.

⁷ Here’s Genesis 2, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen+2&version=ESVUK, so you can just click across one page to the right for the following chapter; and here’s 1 Corinthians 15: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+15&version=ESVUK.

⁸ This was the key Bible reference in my post two weeks ago. See also what a dear friend of mine has to say on the subject: https://www.exeterecu.com/#!Life-to-the-Full-Life-at-all/b4dab/56a9432f0cf22a80b02beb2a. Seriously worth reading.