The Puzzle of Christianity. Peter Vardy

(Matthew 3:17). The dove would have reminded readers of the Gospels of the dove sent out from the Ark by Noah to find dry land when the whole of the known world was engulfed in flood water. In Christian theology, the dove has come to symbolise both peace and the Holy Spirit which God sent down on Jesus at His baptism, just as believers are later meant to receive the same Spirit at their baptism. The role of the Holy Spirit and its significance will be made clear later.

      Baptism was not just a crucial event in Jesus’ life; it was also a central command by Jesus recorded in the Gospels. He sent His disciples out to live simply among people, to preach the good news that He came to bring (the word ‘gospel’, as we have seen, means good news) and also to baptise people. Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus as saying: ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19). The practice of baptism therefore became central for all Christians; this is the moment when the Spirit of God is believed to fall on the baptised person and make the individual fully part of the Christian community. The Christian practice of baptism varies. Many churches have infant baptism when the child is baptised as a baby and welcomed into the Church. Vows to renounce evil and to commit to God are taken on behalf of the baby by the parents and ‘godparents’ (these are two or three people who promise to help take care of the spiritual upbringing of the child, although in many parts of the world this spiritual side of the godparents’ role has become peripheral). Some Christians, however, hold that baptism should be delayed until a person can make the promises to renounce evil and to hold fast to Christ for themselves, whilst others practise ‘full immersion’ baptism; instead of a few drops of water being sprinkled on the person to be baptised, they are immersed completely in water in the way that Jesus would probably have been baptised in the River Jordan. For most Christians, baptism is the mark of the formal entry of a person into the Christian community.

      Figure 2: This picture is full of symbolism. Jesus stands where the river Jordan ends, symbolising the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new. He is baptised by John. On the left three figures represent the Trinity, the middle of which (God the Son) looks apprehensively at the scene; He knows it will end in His death (a sepulchre is in the distance). Behind, this a man strips off, ready to be baptised. His colouring is the same as Jesus’, indicating all Christians share in Jesus’ baptism. The overhanging tree represents the love of the Father, the dove represents the Holy Spirit and Jesus Himself represents the Son. The prickly trees in the background represent the Pharisees who pass disapprovingly in the middle distance.

      The Gospels record Jesus going into the desert wilderness to be alone and to pray. For instance: ‘Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed’ (Mark 1:35).

      During one of these times of solitary prayer and contemplation He faced severe temptations and tests. The possibility of taking alternative paths in life was very real and these temptations came to Him with great force and attractiveness. He is shown as being tempted by the devil and, again, Christians differ as to how this is to be understood, some believing the story should be taken literally and others holding that it is a metaphor for Jesus wrestling with real internal temptations. The existence of the devil, an angel who disobeyed God and rose in rebellion against God, is taken for granted in the New Testament and by many Christians who see the world as a battleground between God and the devil. However, all agree that the devil is subject to God and will eventually be defeated by God. Indeed Jesus Himself, in resisting temptation and dying for all human beings, is seen to have defeated the power of the devil even though his influence still continues and needs to be resisted. What is clear is that Jesus’ commitment to God from the youngest age was overwhelming and He was able to resist temptation and, Christians have traditionally held, was able to remain free from sin.

      Jesus then embarked on His ministry which, as we have seen, lasted one to three years. He had no settled home, did not marry and depended on the generosity of women and others who supported Him and His followers. Women played a vital part in His ministry and were some of His closest friends. Jesus remained all His life within a fairly narrow area of Palestine, teaching and talking to people and showing them, through stories or parables, the nature of God’s love and of God’s coming kingdom even if, as we shall see, this love and this promised kingdom were very different from those people’s expectations.

      Initially it appears that Jesus preached only to Jews and saw His message as concerning only them, but He came to realise that the message He had to bring was universal. There is an important point here that divides Christians. Some Christians, influenced particularly by the Gospel of John, see Jesus as always being aware of His divine nature and always preaching both to Jews and Gentiles. However, many mainstream Christians see Jesus’ teaching as developing over time and Him coming to realise that God’s message was for all human beings and not simply the Jews.

One of the most extraordinary and well attested aspects of Jesus’ life was that He mixed with everyone; and for a Jew this was really surprising. Devout, God-fearing Jews kept themselves to themselves. They had nothing to do with the Romans unless this was strictly necessary; they did not mix with Samaritans (the group of Jews descended from those who remained behind in Israel after the Babylonian captivity and who were despised by mainstream Jews); they looked down on those who collected taxes for the Romans; they despised those who did not keep to the strict purity rules laid down in the Hebrew Scriptures; they tended not to talk to or mix with women outside their families and certainly would not be touched by them; they considered that women were impure during their periods and should keep to their houses; and they condemned and despised those who committed ethical failings such as adultery. Jesus, by contrast, kept company with all kinds of people; he talked to Romans and Samaritans; women were His constant companions; a devout woman massaged His feet and wiped away her tears from them with her hair (a very intimate thing to do); a former tax collector was one of His closest friends; and He was most critical of all of those who thought themselves holy and ‘good’. He seemed to find God more readily in those who were outcasts from respectable society than in the wealthy and those whom others considered to be righteous and good. It was not surprising that He became both exceedingly popular with ordinary people and exceedingly unpopular with the priests and those in power and authority.

      In many ways Jesus was a scandalous figure, an outsider who challenged the complacency of the supposedly religious society in which He lived and who had little time for those who were pleased with themselves because they had ‘kept the rules’ and were convinced that this made them righteous in God’s eyes. He was, at one level, a simple person because His message could be understood by everyone, whatever their background, but He was also expressing the most profound theological truths with a simplicity that no one has ever achieved before or since. Nevertheless, many Jews today would see the essential nature of Jesus’ teaching as being entirely in accordance with the best rabbinic teaching tradition.

      In the next chapter we will look at the message that Jesus came to bring although, in many ways, Jesus’ life and message are inseparable. He preached about the love of God and the need for forgiveness and drew huge crowds. He ate in different people’s houses, attended weddings and was in the middle of life in first-century Palestine. His reputation and fame grew as well as His ability to perform the most extraordinary miracles: healing people of many diseases including leprosy; restoring sight to people who were blind; enabling people who were paralysed to walk; curing a woman with a permanent period; turning water into wine; walking on water; and raising someone from the dead. Jesus never performed miracles to prove His power but always out of compassion and, in a number of cases, told the people who had been cured to say nothing about what had been done (Christians hold that the Hebrew Scriptures prophesied that the Messiah would perform miracles; see Isaiah 35:4–6). Nevertheless, as His fame spread He was constantly surrounded by thousands of people who wanted to listen to Him, and He felt physically tired and drained. He also knew that His growing reputation, as well as His message, was unacceptable to the Jewish authorities. His attacks on the priests and those in positions of wealth and influence were popular amongst ordinary people but were unacceptable to those He spoke out against who, it must be said,