Jesus, like love, is something everyone wants to lay claim to. That is, just as there is no organized coalition banded together by a hatred of love, so there are precious few people who are willing to lay a charge at Jesus’ feet. In both cases we simply change the meaning of the term, into something we’re in favor of. Like Joshua outside the walls of Jericho, we want to get Jesus on our side. This is why Marxists have created their own Jesus. This is why theological liberals have their own Jesus. We come to the Bible wearing our own glasses, and aren’t at all surprised that Jesus comes out looking just like us.
We who are Reformed are well practiced at this art as well. Only we create a Jesus who is as cranky as we are. When our gentler evangelical brothers chide us for our bitter sarcasm, we are quick to point out some of Jesus most choice words for His enemies, “White washed tombs” “Sons of the Devil” being just a few. When the happy, ecumenical feel-good neo-evangelicals fuss at us for fussing at them for being happy, ecumenical feel-good neo-evangelicals, we are quick to remind them that Jesus may not have extinguished a smoking wick, but He was known to pick up a cracking whip. He did not stand at the entrance to the Temple, and like the gentleman that He is, invite the moneychangers to take their business elsewhere.
In both cases we are caught in this tension. On the one hand, we are to imitate Christ. He is to be our model, and we are to walk in His footsteps. On the other hand, we are not at all like Him. We can never stand in His unique position of moral authority. I’d like to make a suggestion as to how we might deal with this dilemma. Perhaps we ought to be quick to pick up the cross of Christ, and slow to pick up His prophetic mantle. Or better still, we ought not to pick up the prophetic mantle until we pick up the cross.
It is interesting to note that Jesus performed what might be understood as His first destructive miracle during Passion Week. Up until that point He has made the blind see, and the lame walk. He had freed many from illness and demonic oppression. Then, the day after His triumphal entry, He cursed a fig tree for having no figs. It was the same week that Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the Temple. One gets the sense that His sense of righteous indignation rose in proportion to the closeness of the coming of His suffering. We on the other hand ratchet up our rhetoric so as to avoid suffering, to avoid the cross.
If we enter into His suffering, if we are willing to lay down our lives, rest assured He will give us prophetic opportunities. If we are willing to go, silent as a lamb to the slaughter, He will not only raise us up, but will give us words to speak. If, on the other hand, we take it upon ourselves always to pronounce judgments of woe, woe may well become a close companion.