The Politics of Jesus & the Politics of Chanukka
Because today is the Shabbat that falls within the eight days of chanukka we want to remember the hashmonayim or the Maccabees as we call them in English. The Maccabees were a priestly family who stood up against King Antiochus the IV and his program to internationalize provincial Israel. King Antiochus decreed that anybody who possessed a Torah scroll, or who kept Shabbat, or who circumcised their son, or who publically refused to eat pork, would be killed. King Antiochus took over the temple in Jerusalem, installed a statue of Zeus, and offered pigs on the altar of burnt offering. Many Jews buckled under pressure and conformed. One old priest and his five sons did not. The family of the Maccabees led an insurrection. Eventually, the temple was cleansed of pigs and idols. Israel and the Torah survived.
As Christians we’re particularly happy to commemorate this victory, because for us it’s difficult to imagine a world without Israel and without Torah. At the time of King Antiochus God was preparing his world for the coming of Messiah. If there had been no Israel, where would Messiah have found a home? Without the Torah, who would have been able to figure out what Messiah is supposed to do? Without Israel and the Torah, Messiah doesn’t make sense. On Chanukka Christians have just as much to be thankful for as Jews do. Had Israel been exterminated under King Antiochus IV, the plan of salvation would have been back to square one. There never would have been any Christians.
Having said that, for Seventh-day Adventists there’s something particularly disturbing about this victory. Victory did not come as it did at the Sea of Reeds, when Moses told the children of Israel, “Stand still and see the L-rd’s salvation which he will do for you…For the L-rd will fight for you and you will keep quiet” [Exodus 14:13-14].
Victory did not come as in the days of Elisha, when “The L-rd caused the camp of the Syrians to hear the sound of chariots and the sound of horses, the sound of a great army” [2Kings 7:6]. The enemy panicked and abandoned their position. All Israel had to do was go outside of the gates of Shomron and collect souvenirs.
Victory did not come as during the reign of King Hizqiyahu, when “The angel of the L-rd went out and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand, and when people got up in the morning, there were only corpses — all dead” [2Kings 19:35-36].
Victory did not come as during the reign of King Yhoshafat when the Spirit of the L-rd announced his battle plan in advance, “Do not fear and be dismayed before this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s…Yours is not to fight this one, but to position yourselves, stand, and see the L-rd’s salvation with you” [2Chronicles 20:15-17].
Instead, the victory of the Maccabees came when commandment-keeping Jews resorted to violence. True, God gave them victory against impossible odds, but it wasn’t a matter of standing still and seeing his salvation. Commandment-keepers took up the sword, and not only against foreign oppressors. King Antiochus IV had plenty of Jews willing to coerce other Jews into worshiping idols on his side, and the Maccabees defeated them too. For the sake of God’s covenant with Israel the Maccabees fought a bloody civil war. Jews ended up killing Jews. While we’re happy with the result, as Adventists we’re not happy with the means of salvation.
An anecdote from the time illustrates our problem. The book of 1Maccabees relates how commandment-keeping Jews decided to fight. 1Maccabees 2:27-41.
Then Mattatyahu went through the city shouting, “Let everyone who is zealous for the Torah and who stands by the covenant follow after me! Thereupon he fled to the mountains with his sons, leaving behind in the city all their possessions. Many who sought to live according to righteousness and religious custom went out into the desert to settle there, they and their sons, their wives and their cattle, because misfortunes pressed so hard on them. It was reported to the officers and soldiers of the king who were in the City of David, in Jerusalem, that certain men who had flouted the king’s order had gone out to the hiding places in the desert. Many hurried out after them, and having caught up with them, camped opposite and prepared to attack them on the Shabbat. “Enough of this!” the pursuers said to them. “Come out and obey the king’s command, and your lives will be spared.” But they replied, “We will not come out, nor will we obey the king’s command to profane the Shabbat.” Then the enemy attacked them at once; but they did not retaliate; they neither threw stones, nor blocked up their own hiding places. They said, “Let us all die without reproach; heaven and earth are our witnesses that you destroy us unjustly.” So the officers and soldiers attacked them on the Shabbath, and they died with their wives, their children and their cattle, to the number of a thousand persons. When Mattatyahu and his friends heard of it, they mourned deeply for them. “If we all do as our kinsmen have done,” they said to one another, “and do not fight against the Gentiles for our lives and our traditions, they will soon destroy us from the earth.” On that day they came to this decision: “Let us fight against anyone who attacks us on the Shabbath, so that we may not all die as our kinsmen died in the hiding places.”
Some Christians have argued that the Maccabean victory wasn’t from God. “If only they’d waited patiently and refused to fight, God might have sent an angel to deliver the last commandment-keepers left on earth! If only a prophet had told them to stand still and see God’s salvation!” Some Christians argue that it would have been better for the commandment-keeping remnant to have all perished rather than for Israel to exercise initiative.
Of course, the Maccabees probably figured if God desired to act without any cooperation on their part, he would have done so last Shabbat when a thousand of his faithful commandment-keepers perished. They figured the fact that he hadn’t acted on his own indicated that he has chosen to save the remnant of Israel by humble human instrumentalities. The Maccabees didn’t feel their recourse to violence expressed any lack of faith. Because they believed only God could give victory against such overwhelming odds, they took up the sword.
The rabbis were dead set against the Maccabees’ resort to violence. The rabbis blamed the Maccabees’ example for inspiring two disastrous insurrections against Rome. You won’t find these stories in the Hebrew Bible or in the Talmud. The rabbis didn’t preserve them. Only Christians preserved the accounts in the Books of Maccabees and in Yosef ben Mattatyahu’s Antiquities of the Jews.
Jesus’ attitude to this disturbing victory is more nuanced than that of the rabbis. In the gospel according to John he goes up the temple during Chanukka. John 10:19-23.
“Again there was a division among the Judeans because of these sayings. Many of them said, ‘He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to him?’ Others said, ‘These are not the words of one possessed of a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’ Now it was the Chanukka ta. e’gkai,nia in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, in the stoa of Solomon.”
Many readers have missed the reference to Chanukka in the Bible, because not all translators pay attention to Jewish Greek. Your Bible may say something like “the feast of dedication” or some such vague expression. But in Jewish Greek, the term ta. e’gkai,nia “the rededication,” always refers to Chanukka. This is the usage in the Books of Maccabees.
So Jesus is in the temple on Chanukka, opening the eyes of the blind on the festival of lights. But the politics of Jesus are not the politics of Chanukka.
Since Jesus wasn’t interested in running the government, at least not in running the Roman government, Christians sometimes say Jesus wasn’t political. This is an overly narrow definition of being political. Being political doesn’t necessarily mean ambition to run the government. All forms of influence on others are political. Martin Luther King never held an elected office, but he changed the way people interact. In that sense Martin Luther King was political. Jesus also was political in that he changed the way people treat each other. You can be political without being a politician. Changing the way people treat each another is a political act, especially when you do so in the face of strong opposition.
Many of Jesus’ recorded acts have strong political overtones. Jesus calls twelve disciples, symbolizing the twelve tribes back when Israel was ruled by God instead of by kings. Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom in which God would rule directly over Israel.
Within the Greek-speaking part of the Roman Empire under which Jesus was born, the word gospel evangelion, meant a government announcement concerning the emperor. The emperor had concluded a treaty and was extending his rule over new territory — that was the gospel. The emperor had fathered a legal heir to succeed him someday on the throne — that was the gospel. The emperor had repulsed an invasion and the empire was secure — that was the gospel. In the world of Jesus, the gospel was news about the emperor’s success.
We need to understand that when Jesus announced the kingdom of Heaven, or when the apostles proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom, what they were talking about was the King of Israel’s success. The gospel is the announcement that the God of Israel is returning to Zion to be enthroned as king and is again taking charge of his people’s welfare. The gospel is highly subversive language.
Of course, today we think of the gospel quite differently. For us, the gospel is how individuals go to heaven by experiencing the correct formula: “salvation by grace through faith.” But in order to understand Jesus, we need to remember the literal meaning of the word “gospel” before Christian missionaries took it in a different direction. The gospel is the announcement of the King’s victory. While it certainly impacts individuals, the gospel isn’t really about how individuals escape this planet and go someplace else. The gospel is God’s kingdom come, God’s will being done here on earth as it is in heaven. The gospel is the good news that God is finally making good on all his ancient promises through the prophets and is redeeming his world. The gospel is about a new king and new relationships between his subjects. Let’s read Jesus’ mission statement. Luke 4:16-21.
"He came to Nazeret, where he had been raised. And as his custom was on the day of Shabbat he entered the synagogue, and stood to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed him. Opening the scroll, he found the place where it is written, ‘The Spirit of the L-rd is upon me, because he has anointed me to announce good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send the oppressed at liberty, to proclaim the acceptable year of the L-rd.’ He shut the scroll, giving it back to the attendant and sat down. All the eyes of those in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture is made good in your ears.’”
To the Jews listening in the synagogue, “the acceptable year of the L-rd” meant the Jubilee year of Leviticus 25. On account of the Roman system of taxation, most Jews living in Israel in the time of Jesus had lost their family farms to indebtedness. Land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy families. Most Jewish men worked as day laborers on the estates of the wealthy, cultivating land which had once belonged to their ancestors. Others survived as sharecroppers. In essence, they were exiles in their own land. The Torah’s provisions in Leviticus 25 for debt release every seven years and land reversion to the original owners every forty-nine years were ignored, because the Torah’s provisions were not in Roman interest. Jesus announces in the synagogue that ordinary Jews are about to inherit the land God promised their fathers.
In the prayer he teaches his disciples, Jesus says, “Remit us our debts as we ourselves have remitted them to our debtors.” Non-Jewish listeners unfamiliar with the Torah’s provision wouldn’t make sense of a prayer about debt remission. For this reason Luke has generalized Jesus’ prayer into “Forgive us our sins.” But in Matthew Jesus says, “Remit us our debts.” Jesus instructs his disciples to pray for the year of debt release and to implement their prayer by remitting any debts owed them.
Jesus’ radical commandments are also political. Jesus’ radical commandments of going the second mile and non-retaliation are not designed to drive home how impossible it is to be saved by our own struggles. Jesus doesn’t teach St Augustine’s negative function of the commandments. Jesus’ commandments are uncompromising because he trusts that the God of Israel is truly sovereign. This is why he and his disciples do not take matters into their own hands. In an oppressive situation sometimes the most effective way to take responsibility is to refuse to collaborate with the powers that be.
Jesus’ radical commandments outline the dynamics of God’s sovereignty. In the kingdom of Heaven slaves are redeemed, prisoners are released, defaulted loans are canceled, those sitting in darkness see a great light, demons are cast out, and the landless poor hear the proclamation of the Jubilee year as provided for in the Torah. These are not figurative commandments. Admittedly, in the unredeemed world these commandments would not be practical, but the point is Jesus ushers in the redeemed world. Jesus inaugurates the kingdom of Heaven. In the kingdom of Heaven Jesus’ radical commandments become realistic. Where the God of Israel reigns, his commandments are perfectly practical.
Under Roman occupation the temple in Jerusalem served as a center for tax collection. This was standard practice throughout the empire. The Romans knew people contemplating insurrection would think twice if it meant disrupting worship and neglecting local gods. In the province of Judea the synhedrin, headed up by the serving high priest, was accountable to Rome for collecting taxes. Because of this, ordinary Jews viewed the high priest more as a puppet of Rome than as their intercessor with God. Interestingly, a generation after Jesus, when the Jewish revolutionaries seized Jerusalem, the first thing they did was to burn the debt records in the temple. [Josephus, War 2.427]
The high priest’s appointment itself was also subject to Roman approval. The children of Israel served their God at the whim of a Roman prefect. The families from which the high priests were drawn were under no illusion about the price of collusion. The Gospel according to John [11:47-50] records the tenor of their deliberations over Jesus.
“So the chiefpriests and Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do?’ This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’ But one of them, Kiafa, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’”
We sometimes talk about Jesus cleansing the temple, but Jesus didn’t really cleanse the temple. He upset the tables. Upsetting the tables was a prophetic act signifying coming destruction. By upsetting the tables, Jesus was saying that the whole tangled system of temple and taxes was about to come under God’s judgment. Jesus then takes over the temple by showing up every day at the portico of Solomon to propagate his subversive teaching. Ordinary Jews welcomed the message of God’s soon intervention. In the words of chiefpriests, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him.” Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom was unacceptable to Israel’s self-appointed leaders in the 1st century, because they knew such an Israel would end their privilege and power.
For what it’s worth, Jesus is executed for his politics. In all four gospel accounts Pontius Pilate wants to know one thing from Jesus: “Are you the king of the Jews?” For an execution it was only necessarily for Pilate to suspect that this particular Jew might interfere with the smooth-running of the occupation government. It wasn’t a matter of guilt or innocence. Crucifixion was a political punishment. The Roman titulus, nailed to the cross together with the condemned man, spelled it out in three languages: “Jesus, king of the Jews.” The titulus was meant to emphasize the futility of Jewish aspirations to obey the social and economic provisions of the Torah.
By crucifying Jesus, the Roman occupiers and their priestly collaborators were preempting a non-violent revolution. During the trial Jesus doesn’t say anything to correct popular Jewish notions about the kingdom of Heaven. Jesus doesn’t say the kingdom of Heaven is confined to inner transformation within human hearts. Like other Jews of his time, Jesus believed that the kingdom of Heaven would put an end to the domination of idol-worshipers over those who longed to obey God alone. Even after his resurrection, when his disappointed followers remark, “We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel” [Luke 24:21], Jesus doesn’t rebuke their hope. He doesn’t tell them they should have been hoping for a non-material redemption. Instead, Jesus rebukes them for failing to see that Messiah’s suffering inaugurates the kingdom.
The kingdom of Heaven isn’t different from other kingdoms because it’s invisible. It’s different from other kingdoms because its king is a servant. This king doesn’t lord it over his subjects in the manner of the Gentiles [Luke 22:25-27]. This king serves his subjects, and his subjects are liberated to serve one another. This kingdom has different politics. It operates without oppression or exploitation.
The politics of Jesus are not accommodation. In Jesus’ day the Sadducees, who hung on to a semblance of power by cooperating with the occupation government, were the party of accommodation. The Sadducees were willing to forfeit God’s kingship for Caesar’s kingship, so long as Rome permitted the sacrificial rituals to continue in the temple. With the sacrificial system intact, at least God could forgive the Sadducees their sins. For Jesus that sort of betrayal was not an option. Jesus is more faithful to Israel than the Sadducees.
The politics of Jesus are not public withdrawal. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees concentrated on personal holiness rather than squarely facing government suppression of God’s commandments. The Pharisees applied the ritual purity of the priests serving in the temple to all Jewish males in all situations, but in other matters settled for limited cooperation with the powers that be, rather than obedience to God’s commandments. Jesus rejected that sort of evasiveness. Like Israel’s ancient prophets, Jesus insisted that private devotion is no substitute for public morality. An inner attitude without outward consequences is a sham. Jesus made it clear that God cannot be sanctified in me while my neighbor is prevented from rendering full and free obedience to his commandments. Because Israel is a community of relationships, holiness can never be purely private. Jesus is more public than the Pharisees.
The politics of Jesus are not passive withdrawal. In Jesus’ day the Essenes advocated passive withdrawal. “Go out in the desert, where there are no idols and no idol-worshipers. Wait out there for the redemption.” From the Dead Sea Scrolls we know what the Essenes were waiting for quietly in the desert. They were dreaming of angel warriors who God would send to give a purified Israel victory over idol-worshipers. One of the most copied books in their library is entitled, “The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness.” Jesus also out into the desert, where he was tempted to achieve the throne by Satan’s methods, but he refused the temptation. At his arrest in the garden Jesus again was tempted to call down twelve legions of angels [Matthew 26:53], a legion for each tribe of Israel. Again, Jesus refused to be that kind of king. Jesus is more an activist than the Essenes.
But the politics of Jesus are not the politics of Chanukka either. The politics of Jesus are not violent insurrection against idolatrous coercion. The politics of Chanukka glorified suicide tactics. In Jesus’ day the Zealots were the spiritual descendants of the Maccabees. The Zealots advocated violent resistance to idols in the hope that God would honor their self-sacrifice by dramatic intervention. Jesus called that is a temptation of Satan [Luke 4:9-13].
The politics of Jesus are the cross. Jews who haven’t accepted Christianity have rightly protested that redemption is such an obvious event it can’t be missed or overlooked. A secret redemption available only in the form of inner psychological experience simply doesn’t qualify as the kingdom of Heaven. Far from bringing an invisible redemption, as Christians have often claimed, the cross makes the cost of redemption painfully obvious.
Up to the cross, what God underwent in order to secure Israel’s redemption had been invisible. True, at the redemption from Egypt Scripture speaks about God “knowing Israel’s pain” [Exodus 3:7] and at the redemption from exile in Babylon Scripture says God was afflicted in all Israel’s affliction [Isaiah 63:8], but the personal cost to him wasn’t seen. We’re told about it, but that’s all. The cross demonstrates that God has been imminent within his creation from the beginning. The cross makes God’s participation in Israel’s messianic birth-pangs visible.
The politics of Jesus are that the God of Israel brings the world’s redemption by undergoing Israel’s destiny himself. God voluntarily takes on Israel’s endtime suffering and absorbs it. Israel’s endtime sufferings, Messiah’s birth-pangs, become God’s own hurt. The King fully identifies with his people. The kingdom of Heaven comes, not by God exercising coercive authority, but by his willingness to undergo what his children undergo. Contrary to what Israel might expect, the kingdom of Heaven does not break through with Israel countering Gentile violence with violence and beating the world at its own game. Contrary to what the Gentiles might expect, the kingdom of Heaven does not break through with God dumping underachieving Israel and giving somebody else a turn. Instead, Satan’s reign is broken by God himself absorbing every blow the world can inflict and coming back for more. It is God’s solidarity with his creatures that redeems us from bondage and mends our brokenness. God’s participation in Israel is what brings the victory of God’s kingdom.
The cross takes salvation history to the next level. After the cross, God calls on his people to participate in his struggle for redemption [Colossians 1:27; 2Corinthians 1:5-10; Philippians 1:29-30]. Participation in God’s struggle becomes a voluntary privilege of the highest order. In Mark 8:34 Jesus calls on his disciples to take up their crosses and die with him. Taking up the cross means confronting the powers that be with full awareness of the ugly consequences.
We often talk about being like Jesus, but the only respect in which Jesus explicitly calls his followers to be like him is in respect to the cross. The apostolic writers constantly remind their listeners that those who embody the kingdom of Heaven must reckon with the hostility of the world and its rulers. There’s a price to pay for nonconformity. But the world will only be redeemed by nonconformity to its idolatrous demands. Once we see at the cross how utterly committed God is to those in exile, even to the extent of identifying with rebels against Rome and taking their punishment, we cannot opt out of partnership with this God. For the followers of Jesus there’s no reneging on confrontation.
We can say then, that Jesus carries on the Maccabean heritage of active resistance, but not the heritage of answering violence with violence.
The King of Israel is succeeding — that’s the gospel we announce. Eventually, evil will be completely overcome. Very good news, indeed. But in the meantime don’t stop praying, “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” In the meantime Messiah’s birth-pangs are incomplete. God calls on you to share his struggle to redeem the world he loves. In the meantime Jesus challenges you to take up the cross and follow him. Let’s not play the game of moving the goalpost. Jesus did not die to bring an invisible kingdom or a do-nothing government. Jesus did not die on the cross in order to bring a peace that’s all in your head. Someday every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of the Father. Happy Chanukka.
