John the baptist’s shrinking ministry.

John 3.26-36.

When John and his students were baptizing in Enon-by-Saleim, the students came to John to tattle on Jesus:

John 3.26 KWL

The students come to John and tell him, “Rabbi,

‘the one who comes after you,’ Jn 1.15

of whom you testified beyond the Jordan:

Look, he’s baptizing.

And everyone is coming to him.”

John’s response was to remind them what he had always taught: His job is to prepare people for Messiah—and here’s Messiah! Why on earth weren’t they rejoicing? He was.

John 3.27-30 KWL

27 In reply John says, “A person can’t receive anything

unless it had been given to him out of heaven.

28 You yourselves witnessed me say this:

‘I’m not Messiah.’

But I’m the one sent before this person—

29 the one who has the bride.

He’s the groom.

The groom’s friend, who stood and hears him with joy,

rejoices at the sound of the groom.

So this is my joy, fulfilled.

30 This person must grow larger.

And I must shrink.”

I once heard a commentator claim there are no parables in the gospel of John. I don’t know what book he was reading; John has plenty of parables and analogies in it. John uses one right here, to compare himself and Jesus to a groomsman and a groom. (The KJV uses “bridegroom,” because back in 1611, a “groom” meant a caretaker; usually the employee who fed and brushed your horse.)

In our culture, a wedding is the bride’s party; less so (sometimes far less so) the groom’s. Ancient middle easterners did it just the opposite: It was the groom’s party. It was at his house; he hosted it; he bought the food and drinks. And God’s kingdom is not John’s party; it’s the king’s. John’s a groomsman, and happy to see his friend so happy.

This was always John’s role. And goal! Unlike most ministers, who die long before their work ever gets fulfilled, John got to see the fruits of his labors: He got to see the Messiah he’d been proclaiming for years. And his first thought isn’t, “Well now what do I do with my life?” It’s kinda obvious, isn’t it? It’s to celebrate!

No, John didn’t disband his ministry and start traveling with Jesus himself. That wasn’t his duty. He was to keep doing as he was doing, and keep pointing people to Messiah. But people would stop following him, and start following Jesus, as was always the plan. Not only was John fine with this, he deliberately sent his own students to follow Jesus instead. Follow the king, not the king’s herald.

Few Christians nowadays are as fine with this as John was. When another ministry grows larger than ours, or supersedes what we’re doing by doing it better, we don’t always respond, “Wonderful! This’ll do so much more for the kingdom than I could.” More often: “Who the hell are they? Who do they think they are? We were the ones toiling in the heat of the day, and they just swoop in and have this huge success? Oh no. They need to respect us. They need to get in line. This is our territory. These are our sheep.”

No it’s not, and they’re not. Everything belongs to Jesus. Either we’re working for him, and always have been; or we aren’t, and were always really working for ourselves. If our beloved boss promotes someone else, either we trust he knows best—like we’ve been claiming he does all this time!—or we never really did trust him; it was all hypocrisy.

Basically whenever Christians get jealous fellow Christians, we’re never being jealous for Jesus. We’re actually being jealous of Jesus. We want the success—not for his sake, but for our own. If it’s for his sake, we’ll be thrilled when any fellow Christian, any sister church, any Christian ministry, is doing well. Their successes are our successes, for we’re all on the same team.

Unless we’re not. Unless, instead of groomsmen, we’re there to compete with the groom for his bride.

Jesus and John go baptizing.

John 3.22-26.

After the discourse with Nicodemus, Jesus and his students went traveling around Judea, baptizing.

Yes, baptizing. You know, like John the baptist had. Really. It’s in the gospel of John:

John 3.22 KWL

After these things,

Jesus and his students go into the Judean countryside.

They’re staying there with the Judeans,

and are baptizing.

I use “countryside” to translate γῆν/yín, “earth.” Basically it’s everywhere in Judea that’s not Jerusalem. The gospel of John spends a lot of time in Judea, because John was trying to correct the misconception we might get from the other gospels, that Jesus spent all his time in the Galilee and Dekapolis, and never went to Judea till Holy Week. Nope; he was in Jerusalem for all the festivals, same as any devout Jew. And sometimes longer, visiting friends.

Here John says they were baptizing. Now, John makes it clear a bit later that it’s Jesus’s students actually doing the baptizing, not Jesus himself. Jn 4.2 But don’t you get the idea Jesus didn’t approve of it! He absolutely did. He got baptized, by John. You recall he also told his students much later: When you make new students, baptize ’em in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Mt 28.19 And they did. Ac 2.38 And still do.

Now, the other thing to be aware of is we’re not yet talking about Christian baptism; this isn’t our sacrament where a new Christian declares they’ve renounced sin and trust Jesus and intend to follow him. This is still John-style baptism. These were people who’d likewise renounced sin, and intended to now follow the Law of Moses. Likely the students doing all the baptizing were former John students, who were simply doing as the prophet had taught ’em: Whenever somebody repents, put ’em in the water and ritually cleanse them. Give ’em an experience, which’ll help ’em remember the new commitment they made.

On occasion you’ll find a Christian who gets dismissive of John’s baptism. Mostly because they figure Jesus, or Christian baptism, supersedes it. Which yeah, it kinda does… but it kinda doesn’t. It’s still valid to turn away from sin and follow God; it’s just we now know the way to follow God is by following Jesus, not the Law. Follow a person, not a text… one we can way too easily poke loopholes into.

“You’re leading me to stumble.”

STUMBLE 'stəm.bəl verb. Trip, almost fall, or lose one’s balance.

2. Make a mistake, or repeated mistakes [in speaking].

3. [“stumble upon”] Discover or encounter by chance.

4. [noun] An act of stumbling.

5. [In bible] Get offended.

6. [Among Christians] Sin, or trespass.

[Stumbler 'stəm.b(ə.)lər noun]

Romans 14.21 KJV

It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

“Stumbleth” in this verse translates προσκόπτει/proskóptei, “one strikes against [an object],” a word ancient Greeks used to describe a boat smacking the waves, or a foot tripping over a rock, or the rattling one makes while breathing. Aristotle of Athens used it to describe friction. “Stumble” and “trip” are good ways to translate it.

But the Greeks also used proskópto—namely the friction idea—as a metaphor to describe someone who’s taken offense. It’s why Paul immediately wrote after it, ἢ σκανδαλίζεται/i skandalídzete, “or is scandalized,” or as the KJV put it, “or is offended.” Means the same thing.

And actually means the same thing in ancient Hebrew:

Malachi 2.8 KJV

But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.

The ancient Hebrews used that word—found here in the verb-form הִכְשַׁלְתֶּ֥ם/hikšeltém, “y’all make [one] stagger,”—to likewise describe people who took offense. In this particular case, God’s critiquing his priests for the sloppy and inconsistent way they follow him, which is actually causing other people to take offense at his Law.

So when you come across stumbling and stumbling-blocks in the bible, unless the passage is about literal roadblocks and booby traps, it typically has to do with offense. Someone doesn’t wanna follow God because they’re bothered by what he wants ’em to do… or they just don’t care to do it, are looking for excuses not to, and have found something which offends them. I know various pagans and ex-Christians who love to use the excuse, “But God could’ve stopped bad stuff from happening and didn’t,” or “Lookit all the messed-up stuff God had the Hebrews do in Joshua and Judges,” and that’s become their handy excuse for not following Jesus.

Funny thing is, in my experience Christians tend to use “stumble,” not to describe how they personally take offense, but to describe sin. When they talk about stumbling, they talk about sinning. When they talk about making other people stumble, they don’t mean offending them; they mean making ’em sin.

Worse, they’re reading this definition back into the bible, and they’re misinterpreting all the verses which refer to stumbling. So, heads up: Don’t you do that.

“What If I Stumble?”

There’s a DC Talk song from their 1995 Jesus Freak album titled “What If I Stumble?” which manages to mix up both definitions of “stumble”—the popular Christian interpretation and the biblical one. The chorus goes like so:

What if I stumble

What if I fall

What if I lose my step

And I make fools of us all

Will the love continue

When my walk becomes a crawl

What if I stumble

And what if I fall

The song’s about being worried “my trespasses / Will leave a deadly scar,” as the second verse puts it. That one’s misdeeds might lead pagans away from Jesus. That’s a common concern among Evangelicals, although if you talk to your average atheist they’ll say it’s really not. Christian hypocrisy is easy and fun to mock, but they don’t believe because they find the bible and Christianity unbelievable. But I digress.

Y’notice DC Talk uses “stumble” not to mean “take offense,” like the bible uses it. They don’t mean “What if I get offended,” but “What if I trespass.” What if I make a mistake, commit an error, say the wrong thing, do something awful, embarrass my fellow Christians? What if I screw up?

And yeah, we shouldn’t wanna screw up! But again: Using “stumble” in a way inconsistent with bible. Not inconsistent with the way other Christians do… but y’know, shouldn’t our Christianese really be consistent with bible?

I use DC Talk’s song as an example; they certainly weren’t the first to use “stumble” incorrectly. I’ve heard it used inconsistently all my life. They’re just doing the same thing as most of my fellow Evangelicals. Ask any of your fellow Christians what “What if I stumble?” means and they’re also gonna say “What if I sin?” If they’re any kind of biblical scholar, they might know the proper biblical definition. But then again, that might not be the first definition which pops into their minds either.

Christians who object to our behavior.

The one time Christians actually use the word correctly, weirdly enough, is when they talk about things which might cause them to stumble.

Years ago, years before the DC Talk song came out, a Fundamentalist acquaintance objected to something I did or said. I don’t remember what it was; certainly I wasn’t offended by it, nor did I think it was any kind of sin. Maybe I said “ass.” Back in high school I took advantage of the fact “ass” is in the King James Version, Ge 22.3, 44.13, 49.14, etc. and said it more than I ought’ve. And whenever people objected, show ’em what I call “ass proof texts.” Like this one.

Genesis 22.3 KJV

And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass…

It’s evidence that the bible uses this word profusely. So why can’t I?

Anyway dude took offense, and told, “You’re leading me to stumble.”

What he meant was, “You’re tempting me to do as you’re doing.” But then again, y’notice an awful lot of the Christians who object, “You’re leading me to stumble” aren’t really all that tempted to do as we’re doing. If they caught me smoking cigars, listening to heavy metal, or leaving flaming bags of poo on doorsteps, they aren’t always gonna think, “Oh I wanna do that.” I mean, sometimes they might, but usually not.

Nah; what they’re actually doing when they tell me, “You’re leading me to stumble,” is hypocrisy. They’re trying to get me to stop by warning me, “Your bad behavior might provoke more bad behavior. You don’t want that on your conscience, do you?” And really that’s a mighty ineffective warning: Most of the people who indulge in casual bad behavior really won’t mind when others join ’em! Hey, wanna have some more fun with the word “ass” with me?

2 Peter 2.16 KJV

But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

See, “dumb ass” is in the bible too!

And yeah, more than likely some Fundamentalist is gonna find this article, ignore everything I wrote about what stumbling means, and get all offended by my ass proof texts. His knee-jerk reaction is gonna be to object, “You’re leading people to stumble.” But more accurately I’m making him stumble—in the proper biblical sense. I’ve offended him. He doesn’t approve of mixing up the popular definition of “ass” with the KJV use of “ass,” and wishes I wouldn’t play with his favorite bible translation like that, and read vulgar ideas into the sacred text. I’ve made him stumble.

I haven’t made him sin though. That is, till he writes me a rude email and says some things he shouldn’t. But his carnal lack of emotional self-control and his poor choice of words: That’s on him. Not me. He’s supposed to follow the Holy Spirit, become inoculated from offense, and therefore not stumble over every little thing he comes across. To use a more recent metaphor, he’s not meant to be such a snowflake.

Like our Lord Jesus once put it:

John 11.9-10 KJV

9 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. 10 But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

That passage make more sense to you, now that you know what Jesus actually means by “stumbleth”? If you’re following the light of the world, you shouldn’t offend as quickly and easily as your average snowflake. God’s granted you the emotional maturity to handle such things like an adult. Whereas if you’re not in the light, of course every little thing is gonna enrage you.

So while those people who are quick to say, “You’re making me stumble” mean our behavior might lead them astray, what they’re actually saying—what they’re unknowingly saying—is the truth. They’re offended.

And don’t be a dick; try not to offend ’em unnecessarily! But don’t stress out about it. I’ve unintentionally offended lots of people, and when I’ve actually tried to offend people I wasn’t that effective. Best to go through life trying to love everyone as best we can, be quick to apologize, and don’t take offense at snowflakes!

And be quick to laugh at ass proof texts. One more before I go!

Exodus 20.17 KJV

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Yep, “ass” is in the 10 Commandments—so don’t covet your neighbor’s ass! Oh, and “stumble” means “get offended”—gotta end with the proper takeaway. Bye.

Fundamentalists and legalism.

Fundamentalists have a reputation for being legalistic—and that reputation is entirely deserved. They’re totally legalistic. They have to be; it comes with the fundamentalism. If you’re gonna insist, as Fundies do, that there are certain doctrines all Christians have to believe, and if they don’t they’re not Christian—and if you’re gonna insist, as most Fundies do, you need to avoid and distrust people who aren’t truly Christian—then legalism is inevitable.

Now yes, there are such creatures as gracious Fundamentalists! I know many. I grew up with many. They believe in Fundamentalism, and believe it’s important; but they also believe in the Spirit’s fruit, which includes kindness and generosity and compassion and patience. And they strive to be those things, and do a really good job. Better than me!

But because they’re Fundamentalist, their strict demands for doctrinal purity are gonna butt heads with their good fruit. Again, inevitable. Because they follow the Spirit, they have to love their neighbors. But because they’re Fundamentalists, they have to tell these same neighbors, “Jesus expects you to believe what I do, and until you do, you’re not Christian; you’re going to hell.”

Because they’re Christian, and follow the scriptures, they’ll certainly tell people we’re saved by God’s grace. And totally believe it! But because they’re Fundamentalist, this grace only comes through faith—and by “faith” they don’t mean trusting in Jesus to save us regardless of our wayward beliefs. (In other words, actual saving faith.) By “faith” they mean the Christian faith. Specifically the Fundamentalist faith. When the scriptures say “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,” Ac 16.31 they mentally insert “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as described, and only described, in our doctrine; you cannot know him any other way, and thou shalt be saved.” You cannot pray, “I believe; help thou mine unbelief”; Mk 9.24 you have to sort out your unbeliefs first.

Don’t get me wrong: Doctrine is important. Theology and orthodoxy are important. We’re not gonna grow properly as Christians when we have a distorted understanding of who Jesus is, and what he teaches us about his Father. That’s why we spend the rest of our lives following him, getting to know him better, and unlearning all the junk we’ve picked up about him from pagans, Christianists, and intellectually lazy Christians who simply regurgitate what we’ve been told instead of doing our homework. (Including intellectually lazy Fundies.) But what makes us Christian? Following Jesus. Do we need to know everything about him first? Nah; his first students surely didn’t. But they knew he has the words of eternal life, Jn 6.68 and followed him anyway. As must we.

Legalism puts the cart before the horse: It insists we get sorted out before we can come to Jesus. And obviously it has to be the other way round! Come to Jesus, and he’ll sort us out.

So yeah, Fundies do legalism. Because while they’ll claim, “Come to Jesus and he’ll sort you out,” they tend to behave as though, if you’re not yet sorted out, you’re holding out; you’ve not yet come to Jesus; you’re not yet Christian. And if they’re the paranoid sort of Fundamentalist, they’ll suspect you have a devil in you, and that’s why you’re not sorted out yet. They might have to cast you out! Not the devil—you.

…Don’t we all have 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 fundamental beliefs?

FUNDAMENTALIST fən.də'mɛn.(t)əl.ɪst adjective. Adheres to certain beliefs as necessary and foundational.

2. Theologically (and politically) conservative in their religion.

3. [capitalized] Related to the 20th-century movement which considers certain Christian beliefs mandatory.

[Fundamentalism fən.də'mɛn.(t)əl.ɪz.əm noun, Fundie 'fən.di adjective.]

I grew up Fundamentalist, and refer to Fundies a bunch. But I need to explain what I mean by the term. Too many people use it too, but use it wrong.

For most folks fundamentalist is a synonym for “super conservative.” If you’re a fundamentalist of any stripe—fundamentalist Christian, fundamentalist Muslim, fundamentalist Jew, fundamentalist Mormon, fundamentalist Republican—people assume you’re extremely conservative. Or at least more conservative than they are: “I may be conservative, but you’re fundamentalist.” It picked up this definition for good reason: Fundies typically are super conservative. And a number of ’em pride themselves on this. It often feels like they’re trying to play a game of conservative chicken: “You might claim to be prolife, but I’m willing to dynamite clinics. How prolife is that?” Um, not in the slightest. But let’s not go there today. (I wrote on the topic elsewhere.)

But Fundamentalist isn’t synonymous with conservative. Fr’instance my church has its Fundamentalists… who aren’t anywhere near as conservative as other Fundamentalists might demand they be. My church’s Fundies recognize women can be in church leadership. Recognize Jesus came to save everybody, not just Christians. Recognize miracles still happen… whereas other Fundamentalists are absolutely insistent they don’t; they stopped. Yet they’re still Fundamentalist.

’Cause properly any fundamentalist is someone who believes there are fundamentals—meaning non-negotiable doctrines which people have to adhere to. Christians in particular: At the very least, we gotta believe in God the Father, in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, and all the Nicene Creed stuff which spells out the basic stuff. We can’t do as those pagans who call themselves Christian yet don’t even believe in Christ. Or they’ve mangled his teachings so bad, they’ve nullified all of them. Or instead of Jesus, they believe in some form of Historical Jesus which ironically is total fiction. Or they like Jesus a whole lot, but in practice they follow Deepak Chopra or Ayn Rand more. Or assume they’re Christian because they were baptized Christian, but they’ve never followed Jesus. There are an awful lot of fake Christians out there, trying to blend in.

Fundamentalism is meant to be the antidote to all the fakery. Capital-F Fundamentalists believe plenty of churches and denominations don’t follow Jesus at all; don’t recognize him as Lord and God, don’t believe God’s a trinity, don’t trust bible, don’t expect Jesus to save ’em (they gotta earn it with good karma), don’t even try to be good and moral people. In contrast they, the Fundamentalists, have fundamental truths. And require ’em of all their members.

Which “fundamental truths?” Well, I pointed to the Nicene Creed—and nearly every Fundie believes everything we find in that creed. Thing is, nearly every Fundamentalist is anti-Catholic, wrongly believes the creed is “a Catholic thing,” and is automatically prejudiced against it. While agreeing with it. Go figure. But instead of the creed, they have their own creeds—their church’s faith statements, which contain all the things they consider vital to Christianity. All of ’em go further than the creed—obviously, because the creed never mentions bible, and Fundies definitely trust bible. (Sometimes too much, but I already wrote about that.) Some of ’em go way further than the creed, and some of ’em go overboard and are straight-up legalist.

Fundamentalists worry Christianity’s ground-floor ideas have been compromised in way too many churches, among too many Christians. They want no part of any Christianity which won’t defend ’em. Real Christians embrace the fundamentals. So it’s not wrong to say fundamentalism of any sort is conservative; the very definition of conservatism is to point backwards to the tried-and-true as our objective standards.

But here’s the catch; here’s why Christians and pagans alike are confused as to what a Fundamentalist is: Not every conservative is pointing back to the same past. Me, I point back to the first-century apostolic church of Christ Jesus, and to the creeds of ancient Christianity. Sometimes to the beginnings of my own denomination.

Whereas other Christians point back to “the way we’ve always done things.” Which really means the way they remember they’ve always done things; some of these traditions only go back 20 or 40 years. Or two generations. Or a century, like my denomination. The Pharisee “tradition of the elders” only extended back about 50 years before Jesus began to critique it. Some traditions are hardly that ancient.

And way too many conservative American traditions date back to the upper-class customs of the American South during slavery, or during the Jim Crow segregationist era. In other words, they’re not pointing to Christianity at all. Just a particularly heinous form of Christianism… which they remember fondly only because it wasn’t persecuting them.

That is the form of fundamentalism I object to most. Not the folks who wanna keep Christianity orthodox—who wanna make sure we follow Jesus, know our bibles, understand him to the best of our ability, and strive to do the good deeds God laid out for us to do. I’m all for that! What I’m not for, is the false religion of conforming to a social standard which only appears moral, but is really patriarchy, racism, political control, Mammonism, and hypocrisy.

Jesus’s resurrection: If he wasn’t raised, we’re boned.

Of Christianity’s two biggest holidays, Christmas is the easier one for pagans to swallow. ’Cause Jesus the Nazarene was born. That, they won’t debate. There are a few cranks who think Jesus’s life is entirely mythological, start to finish; but for the most part everyone agrees he was born. May not believe he was miraculously born, but certainly they agree he was born.

Easter’s way harder. ’Cause Jesus the Nazarene rose from the dead. And no, he didn’t just wake up in a tomb after a two-day coma following a brutal flogging and crucifixion. Wasn’t a spectral event either, where his ghost went visiting his loved ones to tell them everything’s all right; he’s on a higher plane now; in time they’ll join him. Nor was it a “spiritual” event, where people had visions or mass hallucinations of him, or missed him so hard they psyched themselves into believing they saw him.

Christians state Jesus is alive. In a body. A human body. An extraordinary body; apparently his new body can do things our current bodies can’t. But alive in a way people recognize as fully alive. Not some walking-dead zombie, nor some phantom. Jesus physically interacted with his students, family, and followers, for nearly a month and a half before physically going to heaven.

That, pagans struggle with. ’Cause they don’t believe in resurrection. Resuscitation, sure; CPR can keep a heart going till it can beat on its own, or doctors can revive frozen people. Returning from the dead happens all the time. But permanently? In a new body? Which he took with him to heaven? They’re not buying it. They’re more likely to believe in the Easter Bunny.

But that’s the deal we Christians proclaim on Easter: Christ is risen indeed.

It’s not the central belief of Christianity; God’s kingdom is. But if Jesus didn’t literally come back from the dead on the morning of 5 April 33, it means there’s no such kingdom, and Jesus is never coming back to set it up. And nobody’s coming back from death. There’s no eternal life; at best an eternal afterlife, which ain’t life. There’s no hope for the lost. The Sadducees were right. Christianity’s a sham. There’s no point in any of us being Christians.

No I’m not being hyperbolic. This is precisely what the apostles taught.

1 Corinthians 15.12-19 KWL

12 If it’s preached Christ is risen from the dead,

how can some of you say resurrection of the dead isn’t true?

13 If resurrection of the dead isn’t true, not even Christ is risen.

14 If Christ isn’t risen, our message is worthless. Your faith is worthless.

15 Turns out we’re bearing false witness about God: We testified about God that he raised Christ!

Whom, if it’s true the dead aren’t raised, he didn’t raise.

16 If the dead aren’t raised, Christ isn’t risen either.

17 If Christ isn’t risen, your faith has no foundation.

You’re still in your sins, 18 and those who “sleep in Christ” are gone.

19 If hope in Christ only exists in this life, we’re the most pathetic of all people.

No resurrection, no kingdom, no Christianity. Period.

Easter.

On 5 April 33, before the sun rose at 5:23 a.m. in Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. Executed less than 48 hours before, he became the first human on earth to be resurrected.

Jesus died the day before Passover. This was deliberate. This way his death would fulfill many of the Passover rituals. Because of this relationship to Passover, many Christians actually call this day some variation of the Hebrew פֶּסַח/Pesákh, “Passover.” In Greek and Latin (and Russian), it’s Pascha; in Danish Påske, Dutch Pasen, French Pâques, Italian Pasqua, Spanish Pascua, Swedish Påsk.

But in many Germanic-speaking countries, including English, we use the ancient pagan word for April, Eostur. In German this becomes Ostern; in English Easter. Because of the pagan origins of this word, certain Christians avoid it and just call the day “Resurrection Sunday.” Which is fine, but confuses non-Christians who don’t realize why we’re acting like a bunch of snowflakes.

Easter is our most important holiday. Christmas tends to get the world’s focus (and certainly that of merchants), but it’s only because Christmas doesn’t stretch their beliefs too far. Everybody agrees Jesus was born. We only differ on details. But Easter is about how Jesus rose from the dead, and that’s a sticking point for a whole lot of pagans. They don’t buy it.

They don’t even like it: When they die, they wanna go to heaven and stay there. Resurrection? Coming back? In a body? No no no. And we’ll even find Christians who agree with them: They’ll claim Jesus didn’t literally return from death, but exists in some super-spiritual ghostly form which returned to heaven. And that’s where we’ll go too: Heaven. No resurrection; not necessary. Yes it’s a heretic idea, but a popular one.

So to pagans, Easter’s a myth. It’s a nice story about how we Christians think Jesus came back from the dead, but it comes from ancient times, back when people believed anyone could come back from the dead if they knew the right magic spell. Really it’s just a metaphor for spring, new life, rebirth; just like eggs and baby chicks and bunnies. They’ll celebrate that. With chocolate, fancy hats, brunch, and maybe an egg hunt.

But to us Christians, Easter’s no myth. It happened. It validates Jesus; without it we’d have no clue whether he was just one of many great moral teachers, or someone to seriously bet our lives upon. It proves he’s everything he said he is. Proved it for the first Christians, who risked (and suffered) fearful deaths for him. Proves it for today’s Christians, some of whom do likewise.

Vinegar to drink.

Mark 15.23, 26, Matthew 27.33-34, 48, Luke 23.36, John 19.28-30

Back when David was in deep doo-doo, Ps 69.2 he wrote Psalm 69 to gripe about his enemies. But when he talked about his comforters, Ps 69.20 he commented,

Psalm 69.21 KWL

They gave me bitter food,

and for my thirst, they made me drink vinegar.

It’s a memorable idea, and one which no doubt the authors of the gospels thought of when Jesus was getting crucified. ’Cause Jesus didn’t wanna drink what they provided.

Our culture might be unaware: Back then, you didn’t drink the water. You never knew where it came from, and rarely was it pure. Fastest way to get dysentery or cholera. So the ancients drank wine, either full-strength or watered-down. (Or beer, if your culture made beer.) The alcohol killed any bacteria. Ignore all those teetotalers who claim “wine” back then was actually grape juice: Grape juice was as potentially harmful as water. It needed to be wine.

The gospels aren’t consistent in how they describe the wine Jesus was offered. Mark called it myrrh-wine and Matthew called it wine with χολῆς/holís, “bile.” For Luke and John, it was really old wine, which both of ’em straight-up called ὄξος/óxos, “vinegar.”

Mark 15.22-23 KWL

22 They bring Jesus to Gulgálta Place (i.e. Skull Place).

23 They’re giving Jesus myrrh-wine, which he doesn’t take.

 

Matthew 27.33-34 KWL

33 Coming to the place called Gulgálta, called Skull Place,

34 they give Jesus wine to drink—with bile mixed in,

and on tasting it he didn’t want to drink.

 

Luke 23.36 KWL

They mock him. The soldiers who came were bringing him vinegar…

John states they added hyssop, but the KJV changes John’s account to “[a branch] of hyssop,” Jn 19.29 KJV to sync it up with Mark and Matthew’s account of putting the wine in a sponge, putting the sponge on a reed (or a hyssop stick, I suppose), and offering it to Jesus. But hyssop is also a bitter extract, and may be what Matthew meant by bile. I dunno.

Mark 15.36 KWL

One of the runners, filling a sponge of vinegar,

putting it on a reed, gives Jesus a drink,

saying, “Let me do this;

we might see if Elijah comes to take him.”

 

Matthew 27.48 KWL

One runner quickly leaves them:

Taking a sponge full of vinegar,

putting it on a reed, he gives Jesus a drink.

 

John 19.28-30 KWL

28 After this Jesus, knowing everything was now finished,

says to fulfill the scripture, “I thirst.”

29 A full jar of vinegar is sitting there.

So a sponge full of vinegar, with hyssop put on it, is brought to Jesus’s mouth.

30 When he tastes the vinegar, Jesus says, “It’s finished.”

He bends his head and hands over his spirit.

Yeah, the soldiers and their runners offered Jesus vinegar more than once.

Certain commentators claim the myrrh in the wine was meant to be medicinal. Supposedly the Romans, feeling a little bad for their victims, wanted to numb them just a little to the excruciating pain of crucifixion. Man, is that optimistic of the commentators. Ask your local supplier of essential oils: Myrrh is no painkiller. It wasn’t even a folk-remedy painkiller. The ancients used it as perfume—to keep wounds and medicines from smelling bad. From there, moderns leap to the conclusion it was kind of an antiseptic—it kept wounds from getting infected and gangrenous, right? But it didn’t do that at all: It hid the smell of wounds which were getting septic. It made you worse, not better. Despite your favorite websites, myrrh has no proven purpose in medicine.

So what was it doing in the wine? Myrrh is bitter. (So’s hyssop.) It made the wine taste like bile. And when people taste bile, what do they do? They gag: It tastes like vomit. They’ll frequently even vomit.

Yep, it was the Romans’ sick little joke. The victims got thirsty and begged for wine… so you gave ’em myrrh-wine, and watched ’em freak out. Arguably that was why they put the vinegar in a sponge on a reed: It wasn’t because the crosses were impractically tall. It’s because the soldiers didn’t wanna get puked on.

Wasn’t Jesus thirsty?

Christians sometimes think there’s a serious discrepancy in the gospels’ stories of Jesus’s crucifixion. ’Cause in Mark and Matthew, Jesus refused to drink anything. But in John, he declared “I’m thirsty!” and drank the vinegar. Or wine, depending on the translation—and upon whether the translators could imagine Jesus willingly drinking vinegar.

I’ve heard interpreters claim Jesus refused the wine because he didn’t wanna be numbed. He wanted to really suffer all the pain he was going through, with senses entirely intact. (Or as intact as they could be, considering all the blood loss.) He was dying for our sins here, and he wanted sin to suffer on its way down. So no alcohol, no myrrh, no nothing. Bring on the pain!

There’s a bothersome amount of sadomasochism in this interpretation, which says all sorts of creepy things about the preachers. There’s plenty of suffering involved in public rejection, flogging, and crucifixion. Jesus was going down hard. Bad wine and a mild sedative weren’t gonna make things better.

But again, that wasn’t the Romans’ motive at all. They weren’t trying to be light on their victims. They figured every crucified person was an annoyance or danger to Rome, and deserved what they were getting. They’d just beaten Jesus up for fun. They were still having fun at his expense, gambling for his clothes, mocking the title which Pilatus had fastened to the cross. Myrrh-wine wasn’t a mercy. It was more sick fun.

So you can see why Jesus initially wouldn’t touch the stuff. Of course he was thirsty. But not that thirsty.

That is, till the very end. John said he decided to drink the vinegar to fulfill the scriptures. Jn 19.28 Maybe he meant the Psalms passage, where David’s enemies made him drink vinegar. But maybe it’s also this passage:

Mark 14.24-25 KWL

24 Jesus tells them, “This is the blood of my relationship, poured out for many.

25 Amen: I promise you I’ll never drink of the fruit of the vine again—

till that day when I drink it new, in God’s kingdom.”

I admit that’s a stretch though. John never quoted that statement, and you know he totally would have if it were relevant. I have nonetheless heard it preached that Jesus was willing to drink the wine because it was finished: He was dying, God’s kingdom was coming into the world, and all things were being made new. He drank it in victory… though it sure didn’t look like any victory at the time. But meh; I don’t buy it.

Is there an inconsistency between Jesus’s declaration, “I’ll never drink of the fruit of the vine again,” and drinking the vinegar? Maybe. But I expect, and most Christian expect, Jesus was speaking of proper wine. The festal stuff, which you drink at Passovers and holidays. Not the awful swill the Romans were providing.

In any event he probably did have the Psalms passage in mind when he drank the vinegar. Here the Romans were, offering him phony comfort. But it was deliberately made bitter, and was just another form of torment.

So Jesus put it off till the very last minute, did the deed and fulfilled the verse… then gave up the ghost.

What became of Judas Iscariot.

Matthew 27.3-10, Acts 1.15-26.

Technically Judas bar Simon of Kerioth, the renegade follower of Jesus whom we know as Judas Iscariot, isn’t part of the stations of the cross. Whether we’re using St. Francis or St. John Paul’s list, neither of ’em figured his situation is specifically worthy of meditation. Although we should study Judas some, ’cause he’s an example of an apostle gone wrong—an example we really don’t wanna follow. Nor repeat. But Jesus was too busy going through his own suffering to really focus on what was happening with Judas.

Judas came up when he handed Jesus over to the authorities… and in three of the gospels, that’s the last we ever hear of him. The exceptions are Matthew—and since the author of Luke also wrote Acts, it’s kinda in another gospel, ’cause Acts is about how the Holy Spirit and apostles started Jesus’s church. But that’s a whole other discussion.

Here’s the problem: For the most part, the Matthew and Acts stories contradict one another.

Not that inerrantists haven’t tried their darnedest to sync them up, and I’ll get to how they’ve tried it. But first things first: The passages.

Matthew 27.3-10 KWL

3 Upon seeing Jesus is condemned,

a repentant Judas his betrayer returned the 30 silvers

to the head priests and elders,

4 saying, “I sin by betraying innocent blood.”

They say, “What’s it have to do with us?

It’s your problem.”

5 Throwing the silver into the temple, Judas leaves,

and goes off to hang himself.

6 The head priests, taking the silver, say,

“We can’t put this in the treasury,

since it’s the value of blood.”

7 Convening, they decide to buy with it the potter’s field,

for burying strangers.

8 Thus that land is called Bloodfield to this day;

9 then the saying of the prophet Jeremiah is fulfilled,

saying, “They take the 30 silvers,

the value of the one they valued,

who was valued by Israel’s sons.

10 They give it for the potter’s field,

just as the Lord directed me.”

 

Acts 1.15-20 KWL

15 In these days, Simon Peter gets up

in the middle of the family to say,

“The crowd is more than 120 people I can name.

16 Men! Family!

We have to fulfill the scripture

the Holy Spirit foretold through David’s mouth

about Judas, who became the guide of those who arrested Jesus.

17 Judas was counted among us.

He received a place in this ministry.

18 He thus got himself a plot of land

from his unrighteous reward,

and was found face-down,

burst open, his innards all spilled out.

19 All Jerusalem’s dwellers came to know it,

so the plot’s called in their dialect Khaqal-Dema,” i.e. Bloodfield.

20 “It’s written in the book of Psalms:

‘Make his house desert, and don’t let settlers in it.’ Ps 69.25

And alternately, ‘Another person: Take his office.’” Ps 109.8

“Oh no! Easter is a pagan holiday!”

Whenever Easter approaches, you might run into Evangelicals who pointedly refer to the day as “Resurrection Sunday.” If not, don’t be surprised when you bump into ’em. And don’t be surprised when they comment, “Resurrection Sunday—not ‘Easter.’ I don’t do Easter. Easter is a pagan holiday.”

It is? According to these guys, it is. About a decade ago there was a meme claiming Easter was named for the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. (The name sounds so similar!) But more often you’re gonna hear the story of some northern European goddess of the spring named Eostre, and during the spring equinox, ancient pagans would worship her with symbols which represent fertility, like rabbits and eggs. And that’s where our secular Easter traditions came from: From pagans.

Okay. Those of us who know Christian history, know Jesus died the day before Passover in the year 33. The first Passover took place at some point in the 15th century BC, on 14 Nisan of whatever year that was. Nisan is the first month of spring, and Hebrew months begin at the new moon, so on the 14th the moon will be full. Christians swiped that holiday. Most of us still call it Passover! (Or some variant of Πάσχα/Páscha, the Greek word for Passover; only northern European languages call it something like Easter.)

So no, we didn’t adopt some pagan European equinox celebration. We swiped a Hebrew holiday which happens to take place the same time of year. And when European paganism was wiped out once European kings turned to Jesus, and ordered their subjects to turn to him too, the Europeans were left with all these unattached customs… with no god to connect ’em to anymore, because all they knew was Jesus.

Is that a problem? Only if people are still worshiping Eostre. But no one’s worshiping Eostre. When Europeans ditched that religion, they stopped worshiping her so hard, today’s historians know next to nothing about her! Europeans abandoned the Eostre legends, the Eostre worship practices, everything. It didn’t even go underground, or get collected in books about bygone mythology, like the stories we still have about Wotan and Thor and Baldr. Eostre’s gone. So gone, some historians doubt she even existed.

It’s exactly the sort of victory over pagan idolatry Christians should be sharing, celebrating, and rejoicing over. Instead we have paranoid Christians who wanna bring Eostre back, solely for the purpose of telling one another we need to hate and fear her. You realize there are real evils in the world we oughta fight, not ridiculous distractions. But nope, we have people trying to play connect-the-dots with other pagan gods, hoping to find some kind of devilish conspiracy theory. Hoping to find something to fear. Hoping to find something with which they can spread fear. Which says all kinds of devilish things about them.

Hence their dire warnings: “Watch out for these secular Easter traditions! If you do ’em, you might unintentionally worship Eostre. And God will be very, very angry.” And smite you somehow. Or smite the whole country. Supposedly he’s petty like that.

Okay. Any depiction of God which doesn’t describe him as gracious, which claims he’s eagerly planning to punish his kids for our unwitting errors, clearly hasn’t been paying any attention to the way Jesus describes his loving Father. ’Cause God does grace. Whereas these fearful Christians, and the churches where they get or spread their ridiculous rubbish, do not. It’s why they’re so fearful.

Don’t mimic such godless, fruitless people. Follow the Spirit. And use your head!