|
The Rev. Frank
Logue
A Messiah and King above the others Jesus was neither the first nor the last person to have his followers acclaim him as the Messiah promised by God in the Hebrew Bible. And the Jesus movement didn’t gain near the traction in Jesus’ lifetime that some of the other would-be Messiah’s movements did. The best example is Simon bar Kosiba who
led a revolt against Rome 100 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. From 132 to 135
a.d. Simon directed not only an attack against Rome, but
began to set up a new kingdom on earth.
The Most noted Rabbi of his day, Akiba, proclaimed Simon bar Kosiba the Messiah and changed his name to Simon bar Kokhba. Instead of being named the son of his father, Kosibo, Simon was named as the son of a star. This was taken from a verse in the Book of Numbers which states, “A star has shot off Jacob.” With the Son of a Star as their Nasi, which means prince, the Israelites united once more as a kingdom on earth under a new King like David. This was what many Jews had expected of Jesus 100 years earlier. Messiah is a term which means anointed one. It refers to someone anointed by God for a purpose. Their were anointed ones in Jewish history including the great King David. But their was the expectation of not another messiah, but The Messiah, the One who was to come. Many Jews wanted that one, God’s Messiah, to like David lead as earthly king. This was what had happened more than 100 years before Jesus when Judah Maccabee and his brothers led a revolt in which Israel overthrew the Seleucid Empire’s control of their land. This was seen in Jesus’ own day as very much like the situation with Rome. So many Jews expected a Messiah who would be a warrior king, overthrowing Rome and establishing an earthly kingdom. Jesus defied this expectation and will return to what Jesus did instead in a moment. But first let’s get the rest of the story on the Bar Kokba Revolt. In the year 135, Rome roused itself against the newly independent state in its midst and 12 legions were sent in to overturn the revolutionaries. Rome was clearly not amused. This was by various accounts one third to one half of the entire Roman Army. But the Jews fought back hard with a united army that outnumbered the Roman Legions. The Roman losses were heavy and Rome opted for Plan B, a scorched earth policy that starved out Bar Kokba’s followers as they held up in their siege positions. Rome’s patience paid off. After breaking the will to fight, Rome itself fought back hard killing more than half a million of Bar Kokba’s followers and destroying nearly 1,000 villages and 50 fortified towns. For the only time in the history of the Empire the victory was not announced to the traditional “I and the army are well,” and the army returned to no triumphant entry procession. They had taken a beating in the Bar Kokba Revolt and the legions were still too bloodied to pretend a full victory. Rome renamed the area Palestine after the Philistines as an insult to the Jews who survived. Though the Roman victory may have been hard won and little celebrated, the effect was the same—Simon Bar Kokba was dead, his armies defeated in battle and his earthly kingdom burned to the ground. No one continued the claim of his being The Messiah. No one continues to follow him today. The same is true for
nearly all of the claimants as Messiah. At various times in various places
Messiahs have arisen. There was Moses of Crete in the 400s who drowned his
followers in an attempt to walk dry shod through the sea to Palestine. The
Crusades spawned several. Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia declared the year 1290
as the beginning of a new era, and though many followed him in Italy for a
time, his ultimate fate is unknown. The same is true for many others who
claimed to by The Anointed One. Two more claimants to the Messiah role and we’ll see how Jesus differs. There was Sabbatai Zevi who played into Christian expectation that 1) something big was going to happen in the year 1666 and 2) Jews needed to return to Israel for the end to come. A Greek speaking Jew born in Turkey, he was raised by a wealthy father to study the Jewish writings and devote himself to study. He was acclaimed by all as a man of great faith and in time his claim as Messiah was upheld by many of the most respected Rabbis of the 1600s. Later, he was captured by a Sultan and forced to convert to Islam, which he did. He became well paid as the doorman to the Sultan while trying to play a duel game of continuing as Jewish Messiah while working as a Muslim doorman. It didn’t work and most of his followers did penance for following him and returned to more traditional Judaism. The final claimant as
Messiah died in Brooklyn in 1994—Rabbi I mention these messiahs among the many who have made that claim because I think that part of making an account of the faith that within us is to understand just what we mean when we speak of Jesus as Messiah and King. Jesus himself tells Pilate in today’s Gospel reading, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” This separates Jesus from the revolutionary Bar Kokba and the Muslim doorman Sabbatai Zevi and others who set about to use force to create a kingdom on earth. Jesus may be in the lineage of King David, but he would be no King in the same way. Nor would he be priest and king like the Maccabees, at least not in that earthly way. Perhaps the one most in line with Jesus is the more recent Rabbi Schneerson who was an earthly teacher who pointed to heavenly truths. But, of course, the Christian claims about Jesus go much farther. For we know how the trial with Pilate ended. Jesus was condemned to death. He was shamefully abused by the crowds and the soldiers alike as hate spewed out on Jesus who call the King of Peace. Jesus was nailed to the hard wood of the cross, lifted high in the air and left to suffocate slowly as the day we call Good Friday wore on. By that night, as far as anyone could tell, the would be revolutionary was dead, his followers were in hiding and within a year, no one would dare remember Jesus’ name allowed for fear of reprisal. Yet, Sunday brought an amazing experience of the resurrected Jesus which transformed the defeated disciples into audacious apostles. The ones who could best know the truth of who Jesus was and what had happened to him both in his death and after became the new preachers and teachers spreading the Good News of their dead and risen messiah. Rather than crushing the movement, the crucifixion gave the Jesus Movement traction and this defies not only logic, but the pattern we see through the centuries with others. Had Jesus been like any one of the dozens of Messiahs hailed by others and followed faithfully in their lifetimes, we would have learned his name only as a footnote to history. That’s why I took the time to show the repeating pattern of messianic hopes. Just as Jesus himself predicted false messiahs and prophets will and do arise. But those other messiahs did not leave behind a religion, they left only unmet expectations and dashed hopes. No Jesus is The Anointed One with staying power. And it is because he never was trying to establish a kingdom without. Jesus was establishing a kingdom within. The occupying forces he sought to overtake exist within the human heart. Jesus’ movement still exists because Jesus’ followers still feel his presence right here, right now. The way you open yourself to this most fully is just to ask. To ask Jesus to be king not of some country, but the king of you heart, the lord of your life. Ask Jesus to come in and give you his peace. Jesus told Pilate, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” And in that statement we find that this was not primarily a judicial proceeding, for it was a fore drawn conclusion that Pilate would appease the crowds and kill Jesus. Pilate had people crucified all the time and for much less serious charges than threatening to incite the crowds against Rome. The real test that day was not what Jesus would say, but how Pilate would react. For from our theological perspective we see that Truth was standing right in front of Pilate and if Pilate were of the truth, he would listen to Jesus. It is Pilate who is on trial and he fails to put aside his own expectations long enough to see the Truth before him. On Christ the King Sunday we recognize Jesus once more as the king of our lives. We are offered once again an opportunity to give ourselves back to Jesus all over again. Truth is standing right before you in the person of God made man in Jesus. Will you like Pilate turn a blind eye toward that Truth. Or will you like his followers through the centuries once more acknowledge Jesus as king of your heart. Once more let him enter in. And once more let him guide you as you seek to follow his will. His kingdom is not an earthly one, but a heavenly one and the place to follow him is not without, but within. That’s the Truth that Pilate did not see. But that Truth of Jesus as Lord is one we will celebrate once again in communion as we take Jesus within us in bread and wine and ask for his presence to sustain us as we conform our lives more and more to the service of his kingdom. Amen.
|
|
His
government minted its own coins proclaiming the year 132 as the year 1 of a
new era. His troops defeated an entire Roman legion, bringing an entire year
of peace to his nation of Israel. 
Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Rabbi
Schneerson was a Ukranian born Chasidic Jew who rose to lead a sect within his
group. In the process, he created more than 2,600 schools and orphanages and
did a massive amount of good around the world. There is a dispute as to
whether he himself ever claimed to be the Messiah, though there is no doubt
that he renewed an interest in The Messiah within the hasidic community and
Judaism at large to some degree. Now more than 10 years after his death, some
still claim him as The Messiah who brought about a messianic age, while others
say that he never gave himself that title and neither should those who value
his teaching and work. 
