Would Jesus Do That? (Part 2)

 My musings on this topic were disrupted by the health scare of ten days ago, but I am glad to report that the hip "lesion" had also been seen on CT scans dating back as far as 2009. Though this has increased in size, it has done so over a long period of time. It is unlikely to be cancer and even more unlikely related to the cancer for which I am currently being treated. I am so relieved!

Running in the background has been the ongoing contemplation of various events as I try to apply the question, "Would Jesus do that?" From here on, I will abbreviate as follows: WJDT. With regard to a military parade, Jesus actually had one. Kind of. The triumphal entry, a week before the resurrection, Jesus came into Jerusalam. Unlike the emperors of his day who would celebrate military victories with parades, Jeus was not riding a grand stallion but rather on a borrowed donkey. He was still greeted like an emperor with cheering crowds crying "Hosanna", an expression of adoration or joy. Unlike typical emperors, Jesus was not there to take up and consolidate more power. Rather, he was about to lay down his life as a sacrifice. 

Would Jesus organize, march in or attend a protest? There are many who misunderstand Jesus to have been a revolutionary. That was, after all, what the Jews of His day were looking for in a messiah. Yet, Jesus did not need to take power from officials nor empires. As some would come to understand, He was already King of Kings. Jesus demonstrated power over nature, sickness and disease, religious teaching, the demonic, and even death. He told his disciples to pay their taxes, since the coins bore the resemblance of the emperor. "Render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar's," he told them. What about all of us who bear the image of God? What are we then expected to do? We are to give our very lives to our Creator.

We should not look to politics, military might, wealth or anything material to save us out of our various predicaments. Only Jesus. At the same time, among Jesus' twelve closest confidantes were a zealot (protestor) and a tax collector (corrupted traitor to his own people, representing the Empire). People were never the same after encountering Jesus. "Go and sin no more," he said to a woman caught in adultery after preventing her from being stoned by a bunch of men. Thus, if Simon the Zealot still acted with zeal against the Empire or if Matthew still collected taxes, neither were permitted to do so sinfully.