Shalom my dearest sisters and brothers,
At the end of this week, we’ll be commemorating the martyrdom of the Prophet Yeshua, so today I thought it a good idea to look at his life as a prophet, and what such a calling might mean to us today.
In the Hebrew Bible, some prophets relate the manner of their calling. The most typical is Isaiah’s calling (Isa 6:1-8), at least in terms of the effect that God had on him as a human being.
There are a lot of religious people who firmly believe that, that little voice speaking in your head is God. However, you would know when Yahveh God has spoken directly to you, because there is a literal earthquake in your soul, and you are shaking and trembling in the Presence of a Being greater than the entire Universe!
This is exactly how Isaiah felt. In fact, he thought he was going to die! When you are in the Presence of Yahveh’s Glory and Holiness, you are fully aware that you will never be able to pass off your own words or thoughts as God’s, because there will be consequences. You realise that you will never be able to edit or change God’s words, according to your own personal beliefs, because there will be consequences. You become aware of the volcanic magnitude of God’s Message, and also the part of the plan into which Yahveh God has placed you, with regard to the transmission of that Message.
So when Yahveh God asks the rhetorical question, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Me?” the only answer that a prophet can then give in reply, is, “Here I am, O YHVH; send me!” (cf Isa 6:8).
Even though you know that, compared to what Yahveh is, you are insignificant, and your will compared to God’s Will is as a grain of sand to the entirety of the Universe – still, you become fully aware of the greatness and awesomeness of what God is asking you to be and do as a prophet. Your only possible response is, “Here I am; send me!”
Due to the standpoint of the Christian gospels, we will never get to hear of the manner in which God called Yeshua to prophethood (and many of his fellow Galileans did indeed view him as a prophet – see Mt 21:11, and cf Mt 10:41, Mt 13:57). In my heart of hearts, I like to think that it was an experience equally earth-shattering to that of the prophet Isaiah’s.
Before he was called to ministry, Yeshua was a minor follower of Yochanan the Immerser (‘John the Baptist’) – Yeshua knew who Yochanan was, but Yochanan did not know Yeshua. The ordinariness of Yeshua’s life as a Galilean peasant, and the spiritual hope that Yochanan gave to his followers, inspired Yeshua to later say, “Believe me I tell you, among those born of women, no one alive today is greater than Yochanan!”
Yeshua was a devoted follower of Yochanan. Like Isaiah, Yochanan had similarly been made aware, by God, of a dreadful tribulation to come, and would have been shaken to the core of what he was told was soon coming.
None of us can truly know how heavy and terrible a burden it is, to be told by God exactly what is to come – and be shown its fullest horrors – only to also be told that you can never tell everyone the real, full story. So you do your best to warn people of what you know is going to happen, but without actually telling them.
Imagine this fictional scenario: During the Nazi period, you are a Jew who has been called by God as a prophet. You have been shown what is about to happen to the Jewish people – it’s just that the rabbis have indoctrinated everyone to believe that there are no more prophets. What do you do? You would have this overwhelming urge to try and stop what is about to transpire, but you can never tell anyone that you know exactly what’s going to happen. So you ponder how every terrible event has mistakes and missteps that lead up to it.
Consequently, you do your best to make sure that those events don’t take place, but no one listens – absolutely no one. You do everything in your power to turn people away from the missteps that will lead to the death of millions, and still, no one listens to you. Can you imagine how frustrating that is!
People tell you to keep your head down, don’t make such a fuss, focus on friends and family, and everything will turn out fine. Governments and nations rise and fall, but nothing horrific is going to happen. You still try to warn people to leave, to flee Europe, but your community elders keep telling you to focus on your own salvation and your own journey to heaven, and it’ll all be fine. And then 12 million people die, including 6 million of your own people in gas chambers.
My point is, that a prophet’s job is often a thankless, unrewarding task. But that doesn’t mean that a prophet shouldn’t try – that a prophet shouldn’t warn people, knowing that they will refuse to listen. God certainly knows that they will refuse to listen, but at least no one can say afterwards to God, when the tribulation finally takes place, “You didn’t care about us enough to warn us”. That’s the reason why God tries, and prophets try, even though no one listens – so that no one can say that God didn’t care.
Yochanan’s ministry was to spiritually purify the priests, to make them worthy of service to Yahveh; also, to speak against the unjust in society, and call people back to the ways of Yahveh. This is what his fiery words were directed towards. And why did he do this? Well, at that stage, it was to prevent ‘the Day of Yahveh’ (the name that the Hebrew Bible gives to tribulations), because there was still time. But we know how stubborn human beings are, don’t we?
One part of a Hebrew prophet’s job is to speak truth to power. Samuel spoke truth to David, and Elijah spoke truth to Ahab. Isaiah was one of the greatest prophets of social justice, who spoke both to the ordinary Israelite and their daily lives, as well as to those in power.
Yochanan castigated the Sadducean priests, as well as Antipas himself. When it came his time, Yeshua did no less – he criticised the rich and the wealthy, and the ruling Sadducean hierarchy. However, it is most notable what Yeshua did not do – go out and speak directly against the Romans, because (and I think you’ll agree with me) that would have been a really dumb idea.
When Yochanan was arrested and then killed, such a tragedy would have devastated his followers. Yeshua would have been equally distraught. But he didn’t stay that way. Something happened that invigorated him, and I personally believe that what revived his spirit, was God’s calling to be a prophet – to be a mouthpiece of Yahveh. Yeshua experienced the Presence of Yahveh in a powerful and formidable way, that changed the whole course of his remaining life.
When Yeshua was also made to see the horrors of what was coming, I suspect that what was different in his case was that, whereas Yochanan’s focus was on preventing the Day of Yahveh, Yeshua’s task was to save as many of the Jewish people from the terrible consequences of it as he could, because the Day of Yahveh was no longer preventable.
Therefore, one quality of his ministry was the urgency of it. It was no longer a case of stopping the tribulation, because now, it was definitely coming. It was only a matter of when – something neither he nor the angels in heaven knew, only our heavenly Father. Yeshua’s ministry was therefore to go to the ordinary people of the Galilee and Judea, and give them a way of life, and a way of being, that would quite literally save them from destruction.
One incredibly annoying aspect of some people who discuss Yeshua’s ministry, is that their focus is so much on him, that they completely ignore everything that was going on around him – the life-struggles, and the religious machinations that he was reacting against. It would be like today, to focus on how stalwart and courageous a leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy is for his people, and then completely ignore the Russian invasion of Ukraine!
Given how the gospels are written, you would be forgiven if you thought that the image of ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ was actually how Yeshua was, and that everything was peace and harmony during Yeshua’s ministry, all daffodils and daisies, spring lambs and floating baby cherubs; or that he was like a magician pottering around the Galilee performing showy miracles, just to prove to everyone that he was a god, by attracting everyone’s attention in plain sight (because that wasn’t at all dangerous during the fascist Roman occupation, was it)? But you would be painting a false picture.
Yeshua’s homeland was occupied by the cruelty of the Roman Empire, an empire that was run on a love of pain, blood and death. Under the Occupation, you cannot speak openly of your concerns about the injustice of their regime; you have to be guarded in what you say. If you hold large gatherings, you will be arrested and executed (which is why the large gatherings of thousands of people written about in the gospels, are most likely fictional).
There was also a group of people who threatened to rile up the Romans to such an extent, that the entire Jewish people could be annihilated. It was a known fact that when a subject-people became so troublesome to the Romans, they would simply wipe them out – Carthage suffered this fate, and the Romans wiped out the Dacian kingdom of Sarmitsegethusa, when they rebelled. It wasn’t a good idea to goad the Romans into wiping out the Jewish people, because it was something they could do, given the right level of provocation.
These provocateurs were the Zealots. The New Testament is strangely silent on them, probably, because the gospel writers did not want it known how there could be people who would oppose the Roman authorities, since the public would then ask, ‘why would people be opposing Rome’? What was it that Rome was doing to its subject populations, that was causing people to rise against them?
Yeshua knew somehow – whether it was directly from what God told him, or from his own observations – that what the Zealots did through their violence would endanger the entire Jewish nation. Their way of violence had to be stopped. The Zealots taught violence in order to bring about the messianic Kingdom of David, so to counter them, Yeshua would have to teach the peace of the Kingdom of God. The Zealots murdered their fellow Jews who opposed them, so Yeshua taught, “Any kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and no city divided against itself will remain standing.”
In Jeremiah’s ministry, one of his goals was to impress upon the Jewish people that they should not oppose the power of Babylon, because it was not a danger to the Jewish religion. Yeshua’s rôle was also something similar – to encourage people not to fight against the Romans, because they were not a danger to the Jewish faith. In time, at the coming of the Great Harvest, the power of Rome would be swept away, and the faithful would be gathered into God’s storehouses.
I mentioned earlier what Yeshua did not do. One notable thing he didn’t do, was to go to large cities, with the obvious exception of Jerusalem. Nazareth is only a short walk to Sepphoris, which was the ancient capital city of the Galilee – about one and a quarter hour’s walk, at normal speed. And yet we have no record of him ever going there as part of his ministry. Antipas had his palace there, yet Sepphoris is never mentioned in the gospels at all.
If you were fully aware of the political situation of the time, you would realise why Yeshua never went to Sepphoris: as soon as the authorities became aware of him, then if he ever entered Sepphoris, he would have been arrested and executed by Antipas at the very start of his ministry, before he ever managed to get any of his message out. I often wonder if God actually directed him to stay away from Sepphoris. He and his emissaries (‘apostles’) went around many towns and villages of the Galilee, delivering his message of the Kingdom of God, with the notable exception of the capital, Sepphoris.
Yeshua’s message to his fellow Galileans – who were in immediate danger of being swallowed up by Zealot ideas of rebellion against the Romans – was to turn from the way of the sword, and embrace the way of God’s Kingdom. Yeshua reached out to the outcast and the rejected – those whom religious fundamentalists (like the Zealots) had put beyond the boundaries of acceptable society; he spoke against religious hypocrites, whose religious energies were focussed on the strict adherence to the letter of their religion, instead of focussing on its spirit, as God intended.
Many religious people focus so entirely on the externals of their religion, that they conveniently ignore the more important internals. The biblical prophets taught that no amount of animal sacrifice could wipe clean an unrepentant heart, and Yeshua was called by God to teach the same. It was the penitent tax-collector who went home clean before God, and not the haughty Torah-scholar.
Yeshua taught spiritual humility: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted”.
Yeshua taught us not to give up, or think that our efforts don’t matter, because even a little yeast can leaven a great batch of flour. One person can make a difference, if their focus is in the right direction. Even a small seed can grow, and together with other small seeds, can yield a great harvest.
He taught how stern judgment from religious people is destructive, but how mercy and forgiveness restore life – a reflection of how our heavenly Father forgives and shows us mercy, in order to restore us to the fullness of life in God’s ever-present Kingdom. Each and every one of us matters, like the lost sheep, or the precious silver coin that goes missing.
He taught us to give and to help one another, without expecting reward; and how giving to those who cannot give anything back was especially pleasing to God.
His good news to his fellow Jews, was that in spite of his warnings of tribulation, the Jewish people would survive; his good news to the poor, was that in the tribulation to come, those who were their overlords and creditors, would be swept away in the Great Harvest – so don’t let your daily worries destroy you. His good news to the humble in spirit, was that they would be the eventual inheritors of the Land.
I am convinced that Yeshua taught many more things that are not contained in the gospels, simply because they were not relevant to the agenda of the gospel writers – or because they were contrary to what Paul taught. Yeshua’s ministry was to teach a certain outlook, a certain mindset, a certain way of thinking and behaving towards others, that would ensure the Romans would not annihilate the entire Jewish people, if the Zealots continued in their violent quest.
And his ministry succeeded. During the Jewish-Roman War, the Galilee quickly fell to the Romans, without the cities of the Galilee being reduced to rubble. After Jerusalem was burnt and pulled to the ground, so that not one stone was left standing on another; and after the cities of Judea were ravaged and pillaged, with their citizens either killed or taken as slaves, surviving Jews fled to the Galilee. And it was the Galilee that would prove to be the bastion of Jewish life over the next few centuries, until Jews could return to Judea. Yeshua’s ministry was a success, because the Galilee survived, and so the Jewish people survived.
Today, we are going through some trying times. We lived through a pandemic, during which 6.2 million people have already died worldwide; in the UK, about a thousand people still die from Covid every week. Just when we were working our way past that, our 21st century version of Hitler decides to embark on the annihilation of the Ukrainian people – even sending portable crematoria and incinerators to places like Mariupol, to ensure that there are no traces of their war crimes, as there were in Bucha and Borodyanka. NATO allies are doing all they can to help the Ukrainians, short of doing anything which will result in the war spilling over to the rest of Europe . . . because Putin’s ambitions are not limited to Ukraine.
For some people, the only solution is to put blinkers on, and tune out the troubles of the world around us. However, if there is one thing that we Jews have learned, is that silence gives permission for wickedness to do its worst. It might be easy for some religions to say, ‘Nothing to do with me – there’s nothing I can do about it, so why bother?’ But that’s not how the Israelite religion functions; those are not the values of the Israelite faith.
For many of us, such things can be really frightening and overwhelming; at times it can even seem a little hopeless. The Way of Yahveh teaches us to build God’s Kingdom within us, to establish a place of peace within us that we can retreat to, whenever the world outside becomes too much. If the Kingdom is built within us, it can be built outside of us too. Talmidaism has ideals, principles and values which speak not only to the individual, but also to communities, to personal relationships, to nations, to the environment around us, and to other religions.
In every generation, there are threats. Nations rise and fall, leaders both great and wicked will come among us, diseases will plague us, and wars will threaten us. No generation can afford to become complacent – what is achieved and built up by one generation, can easily be torn down and destroyed by the next. However, the prayers, good words and good works of good people are able to prolong the rises, and delay the falls. What is rebuilt after the falls, will not be rebuilt from nothing.
What God’s ways and God’s Kingdom within us enable us to do, is to find times of rest and peace. A life will not always be entirely peaceful, but God wants us also to know that it will not always be filled with trouble either. Life has intervening moments of both, and God’s teachings enable us to find rest in the good times, and reinvigorate our minds and souls, so that when the bad times do come, we will be able to do something about those things in our lives that we can change, and survive and endure through those things we cannot change.
It all starts with the change for the good within us.
The peace and blessings of Yahveh our Redeemer be with you all
your brother in service and humility
Shmuliq