desperate. Theirs was an occupied territory. The Roman Empire controlled their homeland.
The craftspeople, farmers, and laborers were exploited. The bulk of their wages were seized
through the Roman system of taxation. Each year the Romans were around, the taxes were raised.
Little was left for the locals to sustain their lives.
Enslaved by a system of injustice, many of the people rebelled. Historically, we know that the
Roman government had to send extra troops to Palestine because of the uprising. The Roman Empire
sent its finest troops to quell the guerilla warfare waged by the insurgents. We know that the temple in
Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 C.E. A large number of people were then exiled from their homeland.
During this period in the first century, Christ was a present-future savior. Christ’s followers
placed on him their hopes that they would be saved from the immediate hardships of their lives.
The people were hurting. They were in misery because of political and economic oppression.
They believed that, in their lifetime, Jesus would save them from their agony. They believed that, with
God’s power, Christ would liberate them from the foreign occupiers. Christ would go before them and
lead them out of their captivity. Christ would go before them and lead them into God’s household.
But they were not liberated. Christ did not come again. The Second Coming did not happen.
The generations that lived immediately after the Resurrection looked forward to Christ leading
them out of their suffering. They fully believed the kingdom of God was at hand and they would
experience it.
But Christ did not return in their lifetime. Christ did not return to those brave, early Christians
that proclaimed him Lord.
Then, at the end of the first century, something happened that remains with us to this day. There
was a shift in Christian thinking.
Instead of believing that they should look toward the future -- toward a time when Christ would
come and redeem their lives – the early Christians looked back at what Jesus had done. They looked
at what the ministry of Jesus had been, and they placed that Jesus at the center of their lives.
The early Christian church pulled Christ back to where they were, instead of looking for him
where they longed to be. They no longer allowed Christ to lead their lives. They simply permitted
Christ to be at their center. They placed Jesus at the center of their being and kept him contained.
It was as if the people limited their faith by limiting their belief that God would work through
Christ in a new way.
The location of Christ became fixed and it has not moved since then!
The Christian church from the latter part of the 1st century until now has shaped its theology and
Biblical interpretation with an attitude of certainty. Christians declare a knowledge of Christ that is
tethered to a Jesus of the past.
Christian ethicist Tom Driver discusses the perils of keeping Jesus located in Jerusalem. Driver
writes, “The Christian temptation, as I see it, is to suppose that we already know the way we should
follow because it is already revealed in Christ. A similar temptation is to posit an ideal community
centered upon the figure of Christ. By following ‘the way of Christ’ and by participating in communion
with him, Christians may suppose that they hold the key to the eventual solidarity of the human
community.” (p. 152)
On this Palm Sunday, instead of thinking we know where Christ is, instead of declaring we
know what Christ is doing, let us entertain the possibility that we do not know what God has in store for
us through Christ.
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