Hello my friends!

I hope you have had a peaceful week. I so appreciate hearing from you through out the week. Please never hesitate to write and let me know about your journey. I do keep all of you in my prayers each day.

With it being the season of Lent and Holy Week quickly approaching, I find myself thinking a lot about power. Specifically how Jesus used power compared to how many Christians are using power today.

But before we get into that, here are some things that have shaped my thinking on this topic.

RESOURCES TO CONSIDER

-One of the most inspiring Old Testament scholars to me is Walter Brueggemann. One of his many great books is called, "Truth Speaks to Power: The Countercultural Nature of Scripture." If you haven't yet already, I would highly recommend giving this one a try. In this work, Brueggemann invites readers to take a closer look at the subversive messages found within the Old Testament.

-One of the philosophers I find deeply compelling and challenging is Jacques Ellul (1912-1994). He was a was a French law professor, historian, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. During the Second World War, he was active in the French resistance; his efforts to save Jews during this time eventually earned him the title: "Righteous Among the Nations." He was a towering intellectual figure. He taught in Paris and at the University of Bordeaux, wrote and published extensively, and engaged throughout his career in a dialogue between the realities of technology and contemporary life, the tenets of the Christian faith, and the principles of human freedom. His compelling book called, "On Freedom, Love, and Power" is a series of talks which clarifies some of Ellul's most controversial insights into what it means to understand and live out God's wishes. It is a great work to expand your thinking on this topic. As always, it is important to note that I like to read books that challenge me rather than books I agree with 100%. This book, along with all that I recommend, are in that category.

-One of my favorite podcasts is Hidden Brain and an episode that has really stuck with me on this topic is one called "How to Change the World" where the interview explores the reality that nonviolent resistance in our world is always more effective and brings about more change than violent resistance does. The caption for this episode reads: "Does power truly flow from the barrel of a gun? Pop culture and conventional history often teach us that violence is the most effective way to produce change. But is that common assumption actually true? Political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who has studied more than 100 years of revolutions and insurrections, says the answer is counterintuitive." It is absolutely worth your time to listen.

-A book that I have recommended before but bears mentioning again in today's newsletter is "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism" by Katherine Stewart. For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy. Stewart pulls back the curtain on the inner workings and leading personalities of a movement that has turned religion into a tool for domination. She exposes a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances and united not by any central command but by a shared, anti-democratic vision and a common will to power. She follows the money that fuels this movement, tracing much of it to a cadre of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors and family foundations. She shows that today’s Christian nationalism is the fruit of a longstanding antidemocratic, reactionary strain of American thought that draws on some of the most troubling episodes in America’s past.

Okay, onto today's content.

We Don't Define Power The Way Jesus Does.

The most convicting days for me during Holy Week are Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. For me, all these holy days display different dimensions of how Jesus defined power in contrast to how we so often define power.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is the day we reflect on Christ’s “triumphal” entry into the capital city of Jerusalem.

What makes this day so stark for me is roughly 100 years before Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey followed by his disciples, Judah Maccabee road into Jerusalem on a warhorse, followed by his army. Judah and his army would capture the city of Jerusalem that day in 164 BC and violently cleanse the temple, rededicating it to God. This rededication is celebrated by the festival of Hanukkah. After the Maccabean rebellion, Israel gained great independence from the Greek Seleucid Empire. This independent Israel would be known as the Hasmonean Dynasty and it would enjoy independence until 37 BC, which is when Herod the Great colluded with Rome to defeat the remaining Hasmonean rulers in order to become a Roman client king himself over Jerusalem. Israel would be under the rule of a foreign power once again when Jesus came on the scene.

When Jesus rode into town, being hailed as the messiah, many would have expected him to be another military messiah like Judah before him. One that would bring geo-political independence to their nation once again.

Yet, Jesus defined power in a different way.

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday is the day we Christians reflect on the last supper and Jesus washing the disciples feet.

"Maundy" comes from the Latin word mandatum, or commandment, reflecting Jesus' words "I give you a new commandment.” From John 13:34-35, this new mandate or command was “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Yet the part that always really moves me about this moment is towards the beginning of John 13, right before he washes the disciples feet. 

John 13:3-5 says, “Jesus knew that God had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”

Did you catch that profound stream of thought? Jesus knew that God had put all things under his power, so he got up and washed the disciples feet! Knowing that he had all the power of the cosmos and everything was under his authority, what did he do with it? He didn't take over the Roman Empire. He didn't install himself as the rightful ruler of the world. He washed the disciples feet. This is radical.

Jesus defined power in a different way.

Good Friday

This brings us to Good Friday. What makes this day so stark for me is that not only that Jesus was traded in for someone else, but who he was traded for: Barabbas.

In John 18:39-40, Pilate said, "It is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?” The crowd shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising."

Little is known about Barabbas, but we can gain a pretty good picture of what is happening in this trade initiated by Pontius Pilate by what we do know.

Matthew tells us that Barabbas is a “notorious prisoner.” (Matthew 27:16), meaning he was well known among the people for what made him a prisoner. Yet, both Mark and Luke highlight that Barabbas had been involved in "στάσις" (stasis: which means riot) in which he committed murder. The riot he was involved in was most likely one of the many insurrections against Roman power that took place within that time period.

The scholar Robert Eisenman pointed out that John 18:40 refers to Barabbas as a "λῃστής" (lēstēs, which means "bandit"), which is the same word the ancient historian Josephus always used when talking about “Revolutionaries.”

What first struck me personally about Barabbas was his name. In Aramaic, his name means “son of the father.” Some scriptural manuscripts and translations even call him “Jesus Barabbas.” When I first learned that, I literally got chills. The crowd (us) traded in Jesus, the true Son of God for the Jesus, son of god, they (we) preferred. One who would define power our way.

Jesus defined power in a different way.

The Humble Power of Jesus

I often feel like this contrast between how we define power and how Jesus defines power is so often neglected within Christianity today.

My heart breaks so much over how power is used by those claiming to follow Jesus. How theology and politics are weaponized in order to confront what they believe to be sin in our culture. How this is so often carried out with almost no humility, mercy, or compassion towards those they believe to be “in sin.”

All while Jesus “confronted sin” not by any means of harsh, unmerciful coercion upon the world, but by a love that led him to lay down his life for the world.

Jesus defines power in a different way.

One of the passages of scripture that I keep coming back to time and time again is Philippians 2: 3-8. Rebecca and I even had this scripture read at our wedding because the way Paul describes Christ’s relationship with power is how we wanted to shape our relationship with each other throughout our marriage.

Paul writes, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!"

Jesus is equal with God. Jesus has all the power of God. Yet, Jesus did not see equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage.

How often is the opposite of this seen within Christianity today, especially in the realm of politics and culture? Where a relationship with Jesus seems to be seen as a license for many Christians to impose what is “biblical” or what is “truth” onto others. Where a relationship with Jesus seems to be seen as a license for many Christians to secure and maintain positions of power for their own advantage in this world. How often we Christians exploit our relationship with Jesus in a way Jesus would never exploit his relationship with God. What devastating consequences our coercive definition of power has within our relationship with our world. Especially when we exercise this definition of power “in Jesus name.”

Holy Week tells a different definition of power.

Unlike other would-be messiahs who exercise their power through the ways of the warhorse and the sword, Jesus exercises his power through the non-violent ways of peace. Not only did he enter the capital unarmed and riding a donkey, a royal symbol of peace for Israel, but what is more incredible is that would-be insurrectionists, like zealots, followed him as disciples, unarmed and embodying his way of power as well.

Ultimately, Christ’s leading in this way of power would be found unacceptable by us who were looking for a military king instead. His trial, torture, and execution would be our response to his call for radical forgiveness, non-violence, peace, and justice for the poor, the oppressed, and the most vulnerable.

When he brought only healing, teaching, good news for the poor, and a towel to wash disciple’s feet and didn’t bring war against the Roman Empire through the chariots and swords of all the past kings, we traded him in for someone who would: Barabbas, the insurrectionist.

Then we put him on a cross. The cross was our response to Christ’s definition of power. It is so often the only kind of power we know how to use: coercion and death. Yet Christ used it to display the ultimate power of God. Where we responded with our violent definition of power towards Christ’s love, God responded with the power of love instead, which raised Christ from the grave.

The resurrection is God’s response to our definition of power. Where we respond with the power of coercion and death, God keeps responding and overcoming with the power of love and life through Christ.

Holy Week shows us how difficult it is for us to believe that the way of Christ’s power can actually bring the victory we are looking for as his disciples. This is why the cross is so illogical to the world. While the world tends to only understand the ways of warhorses and swords, Christ brings victory through the self sacrificial way of the cross. The way of Christ’s cross is diametrically opposed to the way of the empire’s sword. It is by Christ’s cross and the ways of love that led him there, the ways of love that was rejected by placing him there, that we are saved. That our world is saved. It is this definition of power, the power of love, that we are called to embody as his disciples.

That is what true power looks like. To live, love, and die the way Jesus lived, loved, and died. All in the trust that resurrection and redemption will come.

Confessing Our Definition Of Power

A few years ago, I wrote a sort of poetic Christian confession for the season of lent, pointing to this contrast of power. I’d like to end today’s newsletter with that today.

We want the warhorse.

Jesus rides a donkey.

We want the bird of prey.

The Holy Spirit descends as a dove.

We want the militia.

Jesus calls disciples.

We want the courtroom.

Jesus sets a table.

We want the gavel.

Jesus washes feet.

We want to take up swords.

Jesus takes up a cross.

We want the empire.

Jesus brings the Kingdom of God.

We want the nation.

Jesus calls the church.

We want to keep certain people out.

God tears the curtain in two.

We want the roaring lion.

God comes as a slaughtered lamb.

We keep trying to arm God.

God keeps trying to disarm us.

May Christ redefine what power looks like for us today.

Now I'd like to hear from you. What are your thoughts on power and how it is defined? Write me and let me know. Your responses are a vital part of this project.

If you'd like to help support my work, you can click here: support. My sincerest thanks to all of you who have supported so far! It truly does help keep this project alive.​

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I hope you have a peace filled week,

-Ben

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS

​The Sin Of Christian Wrath​

​Hate Masquerading As Christian Love​

​What Do We Mean By "Revival?"​

​The God of the Bible​

​Not Everything Happens For A Reason​

​The Gun Problem is a Sin Problem​

​Conversations In Conflict​