(Sorry for this ridiculous delay - my eyes are now healed from the Spring surgeries but I ended up with a stage three concussion when someone accidentally pushed me in October. This year's health issues have slowed me down but have also been surprisingly rewarding in the quiet time and peace I have enjoyed. But now I can continue this free online course. You can find Lesson 1 in the archives on my website, bettejeancundiff.blogspot.com - posted way back in May)
Aiming
the lens back in time. . .
(And don't forget the contemplation questions at the end to share
and discuss on Facebook if you wish)
Taking a look at Jesus in the present moment, while trying to see him
as he was two thousand years ago, creates an immediate conflict. Let’s use this
phrase as an example: “taking its own sweet time”. A city slicker like me might ask what does
‘sweet time’ have to do with the computer project I’m trying to complete in a
timely manner? Yet, it wasn’t until I moved into a country home with an honest
to goodness vegetable garden, that I heard myself saying, “those green tomatoes
will just be ready in their own sweet time”, and the phrase actually meant what
it said. I remember having one of those
“Duh!” moments. A farmer coined that phrase a long time ago for his maturing
fruits and vegetables. The phrase made sense in that context. Though often repeated
today it is really just gobble gook for a townie.
Just think of modern slang, political scandals and complaints, ‘in’
jokes and the growing distance between well written English and ‘tweets’. The mind boggles. Now, we begin to
understand the gulf between understanding another culture, no less another time
period. Understanding the 40s and 50s is hard enough—two thousand years is
almost ridiculous. However, though surmounting this chasm is the first step in
making sense of any ’snapshot’ of the day and times of Jesus and will demand a
whole bunch of research, I am officially retired. I have to admit the prospect
sounds like fun.
And so I pile around me towers of books, bibles, articles, DVD’s and
set up an undemanding, yet consistent research schedule.
Whoa! Hold on! Two thousand years of cultural clutter, looking like a
Hollywood reproduction of end world devastation clogs my lens view. Like a
journalist/photographer in a war zone, I will have to wade carefully through
the rebuilt and reconstructed, the hidden propaganda landmines of times past.
Think of the overlays of New Age idealism, Victorian proprieties, bloody
reformations and inquisitions, the burning of literature and sciences in the
dark ages, the political imperatives and religious prejudices and superstitions
all the way back to the bickering, backbiting and downright violent
disagreements within the Jesus movement right from the get go in the first century.
Whew!
Breathless, but still undaunted I make the commitment to continue. I
shall don my suit of personal “body armor”—an open
mind, the willingness to learn, to be wrong, to be disappointed and yes, to
even be amazed!
. . .And I add one more piece of armor, perhaps the most important — my
willingness to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit each step of the way.
Thoughts to Contemplate and Discuss and Share on Facebook if you wish
1. If you had to give a thumbnail sketch of
who Jesus was, what would you say right now?
2. What personal experiences, studies and/or
prejudices formed your conclusions in the above question?
3. How open do you think you can be to what
you may discover as we continue through this material?
4. What research materials might you have on
hand or plan to attain to help you expand on the information you discover here?
(This extended research is purely voluntary.)
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