“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you figuratively, but will show you plainly of the Father.” ~ Jesus (John 16:25)

 

This is actually one of the very last things Jesus says in the Bible*, which means that almost everything said by Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke & John was in large part metaphorical and should be read & enlivened as such (with the implications of this Truth for conservative Christians and other “biblical literalists” being hopefully obvious) …

 

So now that Jesus is starting to speak more literally with his disciples in this passage, what did he mean here with “the hour is coming when I will … show you plainly of the Father”?  Why, he is speaking of his own crucifixion, of course – the moment he chose to stop merely speaking about The Way of Joyful Self-Sacrifice and chose to show his followers that most dramatic example of it instead!  And this is no mere hollow theory – to the contrary, the Bible is filled with concrete evidence pointing directly towards this interpretation … Consider:

01]  For starters, Jesus said almost from the very beginning of his ministry that he did not want to form any new religion, but rather that he merely wanted a radical reform of the hyper-conservative Judaism of his day (Matthew 5:17-18).

02]  In addition, despite the stark protestations of many, he openly stated in no uncertain terms that he did not want to be worshipped (Mark 10:18, John 5:41, John 7:16, John 8:50-54, John 12:44 et al), that he did not bring any miracles or perform any healings himself (Matthew 8:13, Matthew 9:29, Matthew 12:38-39, Matthew 16:4, Mark 5:34, Mark 9:23, Mark 10:52, Luke 7:50, Luke 8:48-52, Luke 11:29, Luke 17:19, Luke 18:42, John 9:39, John 11:4+11 et al), and that he did not want anyone falsely claiming that he was the Messiah (Matthew 8:4, Matthew 9:30, Matthew 12:16, Mark 1:44, Mark 5:43, Mark 7:36, Mark 8:26, Luke 5:14, Luke 8:56) … In Truth, Jesus was immensely frustrated with his followers (Matthew 12:34, Matthew 15:7-9, Matthew 17:17, Mark 9:19, Luke 9:41, John 8:25, John 8:43, John 14:10) and as such set about a way that he could stop talking about his Way and show others the same instead …

03]  So he planned his own crucifixion – He reconnoitered Jerusalem well beforehand (Mark 11:11, Luke 9:52, Luke 10:1, Luke 19:5 & John 7:10), … he pre-arranged the final meal he would take with his disciples (Matthew 21:1-6, Matthew 26:18, Mark 11:1-6, Mark 14:12-16, Luke 19:29-32 & Luke 22:10-13), … he set his plan in motion by aggressively overturning the money-changing tables in the Temple and then making a hasty exit (Matthew 21:17, Mark 11:19 & Luke 21:37), … he purposefully timed his grand entrance into Jerusalem to coincide with the Festival of Booths (Matthew 21:8-9, Mark 11:7-10, Luke 19:35-38 & John 12:12-13), … he gave himself up knowingly in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:52-53, Mark 14:47-49, Luke 22:50-51 & John 18:11a), … he refused to defend himself before both the Sanhedrin and the Romans (Matthew 27:12-14, Mark 14:61, Luke 23:7-12), … and then he quoted Psalm 22:1 from the cross itself (Matthew 27:46 & Mark 15:34) – a Psalm well known by many at the time, and a Psalm that clearly showed that Jesus had purposefully set himself up for his final selfless sacrifice (Matthew 26:54, Luke 4:21, Luke 24:44, Psalm 22:6-8, Psalm 22:14-16, Psalm 22:18, Psalm 22:24).

04]  And as if that isn’t all evidence enough, Jesus told his disciples may times exactly what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem; told them many times that he had indeed already planned his own crucifixion (Matthew 16:21, Matthew 17:22, Matthew 20:18-19, Matthew 20:22, Matthew 23:34-36, Matthew 26:2, Matthew 26:6-12, Matthew 26:21, Matthew 26:24, Matthew 26:32, Matthew 26:45-46, Matthew 26:54-56, Matthew 28:6, Mark 8:31-32, Mark 9:31-32, Mark 10:33-34, Mark 14:21, Mark 14:28, Luke 9:22, Luke 9:44, Luke 11:30, Luke 11:49-51, Luke 13:33, Luke 18:31-33, Luke 22:15, John 2:21-22, John 3:14, John 6:51, John 7:33, John 8:21, John 8:28, John 10:11+15, John 10:17-18, John 12:8, John 12:23-25, John 12:27, John 12:32-33, John 13:18, John 14:30, John 16:7, John 16:16 & John 18:11b) …

05]  And finally – and by far most importantly, it is crucial to remember that Jesus’ primary intention (if not his sole intention) during his entire ministry was to reawaken others to the “perfect Love” of God within them (Matthew 5:40-48 + John 14:20) by living a life “of the Father” – namely, a life that inspired others to “take up their cross” of self-sacrificial service and then “follow” him by enlivening the same (Matthew 16:24 et al) … And this is precisely what he did on Golgotha – he exemplified The Way of selfless Love in the plainest way possible; by allowing himself to get nailed to a cross; and thereby providing an incredibly clear example of the willingly self-sacrificial Love of which he had been exhorting for the three years beforehand.

 

*NOTE that the book of Revelation does not speak either of or for Jesus Christ, but rather of another “Jesus” entirely — a “Jesus” whose ideas and attitudes actually directly contradict the “perfect Love” of The Way professed by the Jesus of whom we read in the Gospels.

Filed under: My Favorite Verses by Scaughdt