The SETTING of the Ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem

One can scan the pages of written history from top to bottom, and in all accounts of the centuries and not find any generation in which Christ could better have come than just the generation in which He did come.

For a careful study of the time and period leaves an indelible conviction and impression on the heart and mind: that Jesus Christ was strictly of His time, and that the New Testament is, in its narratives, language, and allusions, strictly true to the period and circumstances in which all its events are set. However in another and far more important aspect there is no similarity between Jesus Christ and His period. "Never man" - of that, or any subsequent period of time "spoke like this man;" never man lived or died as He lived and died. Without doubt, if He was the Son of David, He also is the Son of God, Messiah of Israel, and the Saviour of the world.

Some years ago whilst standing in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem one little spot was pointed out to fellow travellers and myself that we were looking at the centre of the world. "X" marked the spot as it were! It was and is a rather strange and fantastic claim. Yet there is a real sense in which this tiny parcel of land on the earth’s surface called Israel is the geographical centre. Take the three great continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa; in between them and linking them up, lies this little land bridge on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Clearly, if you were to start a movement whose aim was extend out into the three great continents simultaneously, that strip of land would be the natural place to use as a starting point. The old legend about the centre of the world is, therefore, truer than the men who invented it realized. It is no haphazard or unrelated chance that made Bethlehem and Nazareth and Calvary just outside the boundary walls of Jerusalem the cradle of the Christian faith. It was the most brilliant setting for the launching of a world religion. The place was right in every detail, the setting designated by the God of history.

It was when the fullness of time was come, says Paul, that God sent forth His Son (Galatians 4:4) The timing of this intrusion in history was so accurate, all factors were in true focus, the time was right for the man at God’s right hand to enter into the converging levels and stratas of humanity. I intend to look at this event when the hour and the Man met.

(1) THE WAITING WORLD WITNESSED the Ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem

World conditions were ripe to receive God’s supreme revelation. It was the fullness of time, said Paul - supremely so when upon the whole Greco-Roman world there burst suddenly out in Galilee the phenomenal movement in the heavens of a slowly moving star, angels and men were locked in unfolding prophetic announcements. The sound of a new name was on the lips of men and women and heavenly messenger’s, the name of Jesus. His wondrous divinity is announced in His birth through the Holy Spirit, in His personality as Saviour (Jesus), and in His absolute Godhead as revealed in the name Emmanuel - God with us.

The Gospel of Matthew was written especially for Jewish people, though not exclusively for Jewish people. It sets forth the Law, and refers constantly to the Old Testament Covenant Scriptures, showing how both have been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Matthew alone recounts the visit of the mysterious Magi. The whole waiting world at this time was expecting the advent of some Great One. "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" Their adoration foreshadowed His universal domination. Again it is Matthew who tells us how Herod, the usurper of David’s sovereignty, sought to murder the heir. As it was, the wooden cradle that held the Child, would, in a few years be exchanged for a wooden cross. Trees were held in high value in the land of Promise, the people were instructed by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to care for the forests and tree plantations. Care for the trees would safeguard and maintain the soil and prevent erosion of the land. Later a highly skilled Jewish carpenter would make by hand yokes of perfect fit, easy to use by those working the land. I note with interest the use of wood as the material designated in the furniture on the stage of Redemption. 

(2) POLITICAL POWERS PROPELLED the Ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem

A clear and dominating feature of the political situation to the generation of people to which Jesus came, was the unification of the world. The Roman eagle perched on every frontier post, and looked out from every boundary. It was the emblem of the mighty Caesar’s success and achievement. The might of Roman domination, ensured the days of closed frontiers was long gone. The era of separate, self-sufficient, antagonistic nations glaring at one another across stacks of bristling weapons and piled up defences, was over. All the thousands of miles of routes and roads from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, from Britain’s Isle to the River Nile, from the heavy stone ribbon of Hadrian’s Wall to the sparkling waters of the River Euphrates, the blood splattered Roman standards could be seen. Everywhere the barriers were down, and remained down. The chaos had been crushed then re-organised and consolidated into a single community. The world had enforced peace, sang from the same hymn sheet, and was one big neighbourhood. 
Three factors contributed to this situation into which the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ was born. First factor was the Roman peace. Had Jesus come a hundred years earlier, his gospel would have been blocked (humanly speaking) at every turn and sign-post on the land by national frontiers, blocked on sea and ocean by cut throat pirates who made the high seas impassable. Had he come in later times, he would have found civilization battling with the barbarian hordes from the North, so preoccupied with the fighting to have time or inclination for the gospel. However Jesus came to a generation when Roman peace held the world in an iron grip, and men could hear the Bethlehem angels sing.

The second well-known factor was Roman road network. Roman engineering set in stone. Amazing road systems, many thousand tons of hardcore, local stone. Those who worked on them, enforced labourers, sweating, cursing, dying, little realized they were in a sense preparing a way for the Son of God. But they were. At times God’s purposes are worked out in stone and sweat and in the open air. Preacher’s could not have evangelised so effectively from Jerusalem, Samaria to the furthest parts of the earth. Redemption rushed down Roman roads.

The third important factor making for the unity of the world when Jesus came was the vital one of Common language. For while each province spoke its own tongue or dialect, everywhere the people were bilingual and were able to speak in the Greek language to a greater or lesser degree. At all points of the compass from the heights of Galatia as much as on the busy streets of Athens, in the sunshine of Spain as in Rome, preachers with a mission and a gospel message could speak Greek knowing they would be listened to and fully understood. The Roman peace, the road network, the common language, had shrunk the world and linked the people together, the way had been prepared on these three levels to receive the message of Jesus Christ.

(3) ECONOMIC EMERGENCIES ENABLED the Ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem

It was also economically as well politically the right time in history when Jesus came. Externally and superficially all appeared well at the time. Culture, luxury, and magnificence but all was not well, for below the surface, was an economic time bomb. Fuses were smouldering in the hearts of thousands of people right across the Greco-Roman world. Israel under Roman rule was in an economic mess. The appearance of luxury was a lie, and the so-called magnificence of the day pressurized the misery and frustration in the hearts of many. It was called the Golden Age, by writers, but in fact it was a ghastly and appalling age. Poverty clothed the people with thin rags, and a seething bitterness against the falseness to be found in every level of society, military, religious, civil all the institutions. The time was ripe for a drastic and dramatic change, time for the long promised One of the Hebrew Scriptures to reveal Himself and usher in new hope and fairness. It was time for the Holy one of Israel to again come to the rescue and redemption of His people and all the people in the World. People had had enough of living in darkened cellars, and longed as it were to sit in the bright sunshine on the flat-topped roofs of their homes, with a few shekels in their purse, and enough to put wine and barley bread on the table.

In fact in Jerusalem and reaching to every quarter of Caesar’s dominions the economic situation had worsened to crisis levels when Jesus came. Israel felt the disastrous after math of war, the wild, colossal extravagance of Herod the Great, the crushing burden of taxation, the growing overpopulation which made it almost impossible for the land to provide food enough for its inhabitants. Stress and depression effected the great mass of the people, care-ridden and full of worry. It was an hour of dark despair and economic need, and the fullness of time for Jesus to minister in Jerusalem. 

(4) MORAL MIRE MOTIVATED the Ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem.

It has been said, and believed by many people of an earlier age, and through the years to the present time, that after Jesus came the world lost its light heartedness and natural laughter and good spirits. The golden light changed to mid-grey, mud in place of pure colour; until then the Greco-Roman world was perfectly happy, innocent and pleasurably contented in its nature worship of Zeus, and Dionysus and Aphrodite. Then Jesus came and really spoiled everything! That statement was and is an ongoing lie, false to the facts. Historically it is nonsense. The very idea that the ancient world was happy and innocent and a laugh every minute is a miserable myth.

Paul in his Letter to the Romans, in the opening chapter, pens and paints a true picture, that stands for ever for all future ages to look at study and read, of a world sunk in a mire of moral hopelessness. Writing in (Romans 1:24 - 32) of the natural man the picture could not have been more sombre. Lost in sin. Blind to God. Living in darkness, poisoned by his own fallen nature. The dark list of human behaviour when sin rules and God is rejected makes grim and depressing reading, similar behaviour today is seen in every popular newspaper, reflected by many dramas and plays on television. We are reminded daily, that human nature does not change, so the problem is an ongoing one, and rather frightening one in the sense that God’s wrath is clearly seen, in actuality He allows sinful man to do exactly as they please, sin of every kind and intensity, perversion, violence and murder, the judgement of God already rests on this free- wheeling behaviour. Sin is powerful, but, as then, so it is today, the power of God to save and deliver, is still at work in our time and generation today.

The letter writer to the Church at Rome says, "I am bound both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: " The righteous will live by faith". (Romans 1; 14 - 17.)

What goes round, comes round, in the moral life of man and nations, weakened by the continued experiment of slackening morality, and constant tampering with long established codes of honour of decent behaviour, there comes a time of reaction. Enough is enough. Inevitably that something of God which exists beneath the surface of men’s hearts, stands up and records meaningful protest. The glamour of sensationalist creed and teaching, the seduction and lure of the modern gospel of uncontrolled - that anything goes, have the Living Lord Jesus Christ to reckon with, sooner or later. Men will not be satisfied with choking ethics of dust nor want to hear gutter-gospel from arrogant godless preachers for over long. The mire of morality will always motivate the ministry of preachers and ministers who really love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that He alone can lift any and every life from "guttermost to the uttermost". 

(5) RELIGIOUS REQUIREMENTS RESOLVED - Ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem

When Jesus first came, it was a time of religious ferment. One could buy a god that appealed from a craftsman at his market stall. No doubt on a sale day it was possible to get two gods for the price of one god. They could be purchased, made from stone or marble, metal, silver was popular, carved or polished wood would only need a quick dusting down from time to time. It was the in-thing to collect a few gods, one paid the money and made the choice, then carried the god home in a parcel, to think of a satisfactory place to stand it and of course it would need a name worthy of its important status! There were so many gods stood around that many of them were nameless as well as useless.

It was into such a situation that Jesus came and the religious state of affairs existing at the time, that gave the Redeemer resolve to minister in Jerusalem, He alone had the answer to a great human need. The final answer was in His hands. His hour would come. The wooden transom cross was ready. 

The old gods of Rome were either dead of dying. To fill the god gap two expedients were tried. One idea was to import a whole new batch of gods from the East, outlandish colourful oriental deities, were brought in, to create fresh interest and stir Rome’s jaded and sad senses. The Olympus where the gods were supposed to live, and dwell, was filled with ordinary people and academic philosophers with smiles on their faces, for the place and the multiplicity of the assorted gods, stood about, still, and silent. It was rather silly and the whole situation became a standing joke. The people stood and smiled at the assembled gods, and the gods stared right back at them. What a way to spend a day out at the Olympus or the Pantheon.

The second idea was as futile as the import idea. It was the strange phenomenon of according to Caesar divine honours. The Emperor was promoted to rank of deity. In this act of elevation the Roman Empire reached the bottom pit of shame, stupidity and degradation. The way up, was in fact the way down and out as far as the Roman Empire was concerned. Today thousands of dogs are named Caesar, from god to dog says it all! All the man-made gods, all the self appointed gods, all the expedients failed. What was a whole Pantheon of man-made gods worth if they had nothing to say to a man or woman with a broken heart. What could the divinity of Caesar say to a soul stabbed with the remorse of sin? When everything had been done that could be done, the hungry hearts of man and woman were hungry still.

In all the swirling mists of mystery in these matters, there was something taking place, it was definite and real it was spiritual. There was a strange something impending from the side of God. He was making His Presence felt in a very gentle way. He was causing men in many places throughout the empire, men of deeper nature, and with a more spiritual vision to look into the darkness of the day, for some glimmer of golden light, for some faint flush of dawn.

For the waiting Jewish people throughout the empire, the Hope of the Messiah of Israel was blazing more clearly and brightly than it had done for centuries. The great mass of Jewish literature written in the inter-testament period between the Old Testament and the New Testament is full of this great hope. Promise and prophecy flitted like the rays of the sun in Jewish hearts and minds. Hebrew Scripture was becoming relevant and meaningful again. The Jewish people, penetrating as they did every corner of the empire, took that great dream with them and handed it on to their children, family and friends. The Hope was so precious to them, and certainly prepared the way for the Jesus in a wonderful way. The One Supreme God was at work in the hearts of the sons of men, the Hebrew Scriptures was delivering precious treasure to the poor in heart. The Word was to be made flesh and come and live among the sons of men, He would visit village, town and city. He would walk in the valley and stand on the mountain. He would sail on the water and eat on the shore, at all times and in every place He would speak words of understanding, love, mercy, forgiveness and hope. He would be awesome in in His ministry, a ministry which would lead Him eventually to Jerusalem.

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