This is my final post on this particular series, The Scandal of God. You can click here for the first post and here for the second post. In these few posts, I’ve been looking at how God, or the God whom Scripture presents to us, is a scandalous God.

This is not your typical description of God as found in systematic texts explaining the nature of God. Could you actually imagine the adjective scandalous next to immutability and holy? But, if one takes a look at the 66 books of the Bible, I believe you can only walk away with such a view. Yahweh is scandalous, meaning His words and actions cause public outrage and bring severe criticism from all corners, even from His own people.

And while, in my last post, I briefly looked at the scandalousness of God as seen in Noah, Abraham, the Psalms, the Song of Songs and how God chose women to be the first to know about the resurrected Christ, none of these really compare to the pinnacle of God’s scandal. This one is the crème de la crème.

His name is Jesus of Nazareth.

When one undertakes a simple reading of the Gospels, there are many things valuable we can gather from such. There are words of encouragement, words of healing and words of challenge. And, most of the time, Jesus seems to play nice. He plays according to the rules, or our rules, that is. But He doesn’t always.

Two examples come to mind:

1) Jesus had a spitting ministry. I promise you He did. It’s recorded three times in the Scriptures, that is, God’s inspired Word! And you know that good ol’ Bible verse:

Every matter [is] established by two or three witnesses. (Matthew 18:16)

 

So, Jesus must have had a spitting ministry.

Mark picks up on this twice, as found in 7:31-37 and 8:22-26 of his Gospel. In the first account, Jesus takes a man aside, puts his fingers in the guy’s ears, then spits on his hands and touches the man’s tongue. Ok?! I’m not sure I’ve heard of Benny Hinn or Todd Bentley doing that one.

In the second instance, Jesus has the audacity to spit into a blind man’s eyes. Then, if that’s not enough, John gives us another account where Jesus spat into the ground to make some mud and then used this mud to ‘anoint’ the guys eyes.

Oh, this is good. This would fit nicely into our Sunday gatherings. I can see the order in the bulletin: Welcome, 3 songs, Announcements, Sermon, Lord’s Table, Anointed Spittle and Mud. Yep, that would go over real well.

2) Jesus’ outrage at those making money of God. After seeing a handful of people making a few bucks, or drachma, off God, Jesus goes into the temple courts and does a little spring cleaning by pouring out the coins of money-changers rather than collecting them for His own ministry. He, then, goes on to overturn their tables. And, to help with such a task, he strands together a nice whip to frighten the masses (see John 2:14-16). Sounds more like Indiana Jones than Jesus meek-and-mild. Jesus must have forgotten to do His devotional that morning from the best-seller Your Best Life Now.

No doubt that both of these accounts left quite a few in outrage while also bringing down a boat-load of criticism. And, He’s going to get nailed to a cross for it.

But, though these two accounts, and numerous others, stand as a testimony that our God, and His Son, are quite the scandalous team, none of these compare to the scandal of God as expressed in those three most important events we read about in the Gospels: Christ’s incarnation, Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection.

The Incarnation
Most Christians love to focus in on the cross and resurrection of Christ, and rightly so, especially in this Easter season. They are the high point of Christ’s mission, and I’ll come on to those in a moment. But there is a sense in which the indignity of God is displayed in great measure at the birth of Christ.

Think about it. Christ, the divine Son, comes into the flesh as a helpless babe, nestled snugly in a feeding trough for animals. Think about it! God comes as a drooling, crying, pooping infant. Oh, and don’t forget the constant spitting up. I don’t think the Christmas carol, Away In A Manger, got it correct in one of the stanzas:

The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes

Remember, Christ was a real and authentic baby in real and authentic human flesh. Don’t even try and claim He never cried or pooped or spit-up as a baby.

Though we have sort of an advantage viewing these things in retrospect, if we consider them from a correct perspective, they can leave us quite uncomfortable. Why is the divine God-Son being entrusted to a young teenage girl and her not-much-older husband? And, do we really need Pampers for this one?

All we can muster up would be these words: Undignified! Scandalous!

The Crucifixion
If God coming in the form of a pooping babe isn’t demoralising enough, then there is the reality that, some 30-plus years later, He ends up crucified on a cross between two thieves.

Now, most crucifixes I’ve seen give Jesus a couple of drops of blood on His forehead, one or two scrapes on his knees, and then a nice red incision from the spear that was jabbed into His side.

Nope, not even close! Not even close!

Most of us have seen Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Pretty brutal wasn’t it? The countless pints of blood that must have been lost, the flayed skin that had open up all across his back from the whip that had come down on it countless times. Many suggest Christ was hit with 39 lashes, as the Law prescribed no more than 40, lest someone be degraded (see Deuteronomy 25:1-3). But, we usually fail to remember that it was the Romans who were beating Jesus, not the Jews. The pagan Romans would have had no such law. So, who knows how many lashes Jesus actually received.

Spit at, mocked, beaten, whipped, nailed to a cross with only a loincloth to cover Him.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your God.

Paul was right. This is absolutely foolish.

‘Come on Jesus, get angry like you did with the money changers! Call those legion of angels. Let’s make the greatest fourth-quarter comeback in the history of mankind.’

But He’s not interested. He never opens His mouth. He never lashes back. He never tries to scare them with the statement, ‘Wait til I show up next time.’

He takes it. And more than being bloodied and bruised, His Father is judging Him for the sin of mankind, the only time the Father and Son are at odds with one another. All because of a piece of fruit a long time ago. Even more, all because of grotesque sin that has stained us to the core. It’s all on the shoulders of an innocent Lamb.

Ridiculous! Scandalous!

The Resurrection
We know the end of the story. We know the whole story. It’s really not fair. It loses its shock value. It loses its startling nature.

But, on the third day, after some women had come to anoint Him, they realise that their bloodied Messiah isn’t in that cave-of -a -tomb anymore. He’s risen!

And remember, this is Jesus’ biggest day. He had just defeated sin, just conquered death, just put Satan down for the 1-2-3 count. And what does He do?! What’s He gonna do?!

He walks a seven-mile dusty road with two very disillusioned followers, that road to Emmaus, and breaks bread with them. He takes time to comfort His closest followers. He shows up on a beach early one morning and has a little breakfast. He gets a little one-on-one time with Peter, to restore the pain and brokenness over the abandonment and denial.

Absolutely shocking! What is going on here?!

I can imagine it if this had happened in the 21st century:

‘He’s out! He’s lose! Call CNN! Call the worship team! Get on your make-up! Oh, we can market this one real well! John, you head up the t-shirt campaign. Mary, you get the bracelets together. Peter, as long as you don’t insert foot into mouth, we’ll let CNN interview you.’

But that is about as far from the Gospel account as we can get. As long as the church in America and other parts of the world keeps on making God out to be Hollywood celebrity or a circus clown, the more we continue to estrange ourselves from the One we claim to follow.

Christ’s resurrection is amazing, the most important event in the history of mankind. Nothing matches it. But, in the economy of God, we find His Son evading all pep rallies. There is simply no shouting J-E-S-U-S. We even see foreshadowings of this after many of His miracles as Christ slips through the crowd so that they can’t crown Him king.

It doesn’t fit into our box of how it should have been done, at least if we had been God-in-the-flesh. For us, it’s a press conference for the world to know. For Christ, it’s back to the grind as if nothing had ever happened.

Outrage! Scandalous!

They could have made so much money off this one.

Christ, the sum of all God’s revelation, a glimpse at what the Father is really like, the initiator of the new covenant, Love in the flesh, the King above all kings. True. But the way He walks, the way He talks, the way He acts does not seem to line up with our expectations of what God is supposed to be like.

But, in all actuality, this is our God. This is the God that Scripture presents to us. The One who causes public outrage and calls down criticism from all. You know what they say: like Father, like Son.

This is our scandalous God. And I’m ready to follow in the next scandal.