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Jesus and the Way of the Cross

Kang Won Don

The core of the Christian faith is found in the cross and the resurrection. However, the sad reality is that the cross and the resurrection have become an abstract thought rather than related directly to the life of the Christians. The cross has been for a long time the symbol of Christianity, yet its historical substance has been forgotten. And today the cross has simply become a cute accessory in the form of necklaces or earrings. Following the union of Christianity and the dominating state power, the Christian faith came to imbibe a sense of glory and victory. Thus, the glory of resurrection is spoken about loudly while the suffering and embarrassment of the cross has been shoved into the back of the consciousness.

If not for some Christians who have immersed themselves in the suffering and struggle of the minjung*, Christianity would have fallen to a state of accepting the abstract idea of the cross and resurrection as the center of the faith. These Christians who have experienced and participated in the suffering and struggle of the minjung have begun to look at the Bible and the faith tradition anew with the eyes of the minjung.

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*Kang Won Don does not define minjung as a concept to preserve the dynamic substance of a suffering people who, conscious of their situation, strive to realize their self-image and subject-hood through their own power.

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The Bible used to be a book of events "created," "undertaken," or "waged" by God together with the minjung and by Jesus together with the minjung. The Bible came into existence with the "retelling" – transmission – of the story of the "events" by the minjung who had experienced them.

There came a time, however, when the story of the minjung became suppressed. This was when the "Bible" became part of a new language created by the church authority. Thus, we now realize how the work of discovering the story of the minjung, suppressed by the establishment of a new formal language, and discovering the original "event" told by the story, are the most important work in getting to the original meaning of the "events." In the words of a Korean minjung theologian, Ahn Byung Mu, "In the beginning was the word, and it was followed by kerygma."

Temple Cleaning: A Way to the Cross (Mark 11: 15-19)

There is no disagreement that Jesus' confrontation with the temple system was a direct cause for punishment by crucifixion. John emphasizes this event of purification of the temple by Jesus by placing this in the first portion of his writing (John 2:13 ff). The temple purification event told by Mark contains many editorial or interpretative remarks. If we were to reconstruct the event of the purification of the temple by Jesus, we find the following: "Jesus went to the temple and drove out the people who were selling and buying in the temple; he overturned the tables of the money dealers and the chairs of those selling pigeons. (And Jesus prohibited the use of the temple grounds as a place of selling.) In seeing this, those people (priests and scholars of the law – added by Mark) who were hostile to Jesus began to seek ways to kill him."

From this, we find that the event in the temple led to the conspiracy among those people hostile to Jesus to kill him. Verse 17 in the passage resembles the second half of Isaiah 56:1 and

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Jeremiah 7:11. This may indicate that the verse may not have been the words of Jesus but reflects an interpretation about the event undertaken by Jesus.

To understand the road Jesus had taken towards the cross, we must understand why Jesus attacked the temple and what the role of the temple system was at the time. We must know exactly what was involved in the event of attacking the temple. It is told that Jesus attacked the merchants who were changing money, who were selling pigeons for sacrifice and other things at the grounds of the temple.

Money exchange and selling of sacrificial animals were important sources of income for the temple and a subtle means of exploiting the minjung. The people in authority at the temple had determined that the money used in gentile areas was unclean or unfit for offering. They then forced all temple offerings to be made with the currency determined by the temple itself. So people coming to the temple had to change money to that which was acceptable in the temple. Of course, the merchants and the priests of the temple shared the 2.1 per cent or 4.2 per cent premium commission in the exchange of money.

The same was true about the animals brought for sacrifice at the temple. The religious leaders determined whether they were clean or not. Therefore, many people were forced to purchase those animals which were designated as clean and which were naturally sold at higher prices.

Payment of the tithe or the tenth of one's income and the temple tax also contributed to the fattening of the temple income. The payment of the tithe was originally a tax on the farm products. Through this system of taking, it was possible to control a considerable portion of the surplus value of the agricultural production.

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The Temple System in Palestine

The Palestinian society in the first century practiced a mixed mode of production, the Asiatic mode of production and the slavery system of the Roman Empire. The temple system was in the center of this. The colonial domination of Palestine by the Roman Empire was undertaken through the local government of priests-aristocrats. The priests-aristocrats had a firm control over the scholars of laws, regional landlords and the state apparatus of the Sanhedrin.

The Roman Empire demanded from Palestine an annual tribute of 600 talents. The process of the implementation of colonial policies brought about a deepening, worsening of contradictions between the urban centers and the rural community for, virtually, all production value was undertaken by the agricultural sector, and the surplus value produced from agriculture was channeled into the urban centers and then remitted to Rome. The people who dominated the land in the rural areas were absent landlords living in the urban centers. They appropriated high rates of tenant rent. The life of the court of King Herod and the priests-aristocrats was dependent on the labor of the peasants who were the prime source of surplus value.

The royal court and the priests-aristocrats were extremely corrupt and they needed enormous financial resources in their endeavors to Hellenize Palestine. Because of this situation, the life of the people in the rural areas, the peasants, was one of extreme suffering. Their survival was constantly threatened. Such a suffering was highly concentrated in the Galilean area. And when the harvest was bad due to natural calamities, etc., many peasants were forced to abandon the rural areas and become robbers.

The political system and apparatus built on this kind of economic relations could only be oppressive. The dominating forces

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of Palestine thoroughly suppressed the resistance of the peasants. In Galilee, the center of peasant resistance, Arkelaus executed over 2,000 peasants through crucifixion.

The temple was responsible for sanctifying this oppressive and exploitative system. In consolidating the implementation of laws governing purity and the observance of the Sabbath, the temple contributed to the division of society and people, enabling a more effective domination. The temple was responsible for consolidating the ideology of domination suppressing the alternative ideology of resistance of the peasantry. For example, the movements of popular prophets and the radical eschatological ideologies were declared heretical by the temple. Furthermore, through the laws governing purity, the temple was able to monopolize the power to differentiate what was clean from what was unclean. The temple was able to determine those who were supposedly unclean as sinners and those who, because of their occupation, could not uphold the laws governing purity (e.g. tanners, leather workers, animal butchers, etc.) as sinners. These people were forced into alienation and became subject to the disdain of society. This is a paradigm of the divide and rule tactics. It was a powerful method of integrating the people into the system. Indeed, Phariseeism was a powerful ideology of divide and rule.

The temple system was, therefore, at the center of the oppression, exploitation and alienation of the dominated people by the ruling class. Those who had a shared interest in maintaining the temple system united strongly among themselves and did not permit any challenge to the authority of the temple. The royal court of King Herod, the priests of the temple, the priests-aristocrats, the Pharisees and regional landlords were organized as a holy alliance around the temple system. They were the enemies of the minjung and, thus, the forces hostile to Jesus, friend of the minjung.

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Bloody demonstration (Bangkok) Courtesy: Surakit

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Some Resistance Movements

There were also powerful sects who were differentiated from the ruling forces and who were engaged in actions of resistance outside Jerusalem, the center of domination and exploitation. They included John the Baptist, the Essene sect, and the broad forces of the Zealots. They were all hostile to the ruling forces based in Jerusalem although they differed in their orientation.

Let us focus on the Zealots. The activities of the Zealots were not so noticeable during the period of the life of Jesus. However, they were responsible for the resistance in 6 A.D. centered around "Judea of Galilee." The Zealots were the motivating force of the Judean War from 66-70 A.D. and the final war of resistance against Rome in 135 A.D. The center of their activities was Galilee. Their membership was diverse but the peasants made up the great majority of this movement. They called for the absolute sovereignty of God. And as a means to realize this, they called for independence of Palestine from Rome and for the return to the society of equality of ancient Israel, During the Judean War period they refused to accept the corrupt Jerusalem system and called for the purification pf the temple. They struggled to build a government, which could implement their demands.

Although one cannot equate the Jesus movement and the movement of the Zealots, one cannot just ignore the following facts: the center of the Jesus movement was Galilee and Galilee had a powerful tradition of the struggle of the Zealots. The minjung of Galilee had a strong memory of ancient Israel when the land was distributed through drawing of lots. And the strong eschatological consciousness embraced by the peasants was the basis of their call for the Kingdom of God, a call which was directly related to the equal social relations of ancient Israel.

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When Herod Antipas arrested John the Baptist, Jesus went to Galilee and declared the nearing of the Kingdom of God. Jesus began the movement of the Kingdom of God among the minjung and, together with the minjung, he declared the Jubilee year (Luke 4:16-17), healed the crippled (Matthew 11:4-6), drove out Satan, and shared meals with the poor minjung and the "sinners" (Mark 2:15 ff; 8: 1ff). Finally, together with the minjung, he entered Jerusalem and challenged the temple system. It is widely accepted that the event undertaken by Jesus in the temple was the climax of the Jesus movement. The temple event was deeply related to the realization of the Kingdom of God, which Jesus undertook together with the minjung,

Jesus entered Jerusalem together with his disciples and the minjung of Galilee. The poor minjung of Galilee, amidst the extreme repression and alienation they suffered, aspired strongly for the realization of the Kingdom of God. The realization of the Kingdom of God signified the abolition of the monopoly of power, wealth and goods, and a return to the free and equal social relations of ancient Israel. The demand of the minjung, in view of the situation of the Palestinian society, was for a very realistic – close to their very reality of survival – demand. If Jesus was to respond to the ardent aspiration of the minjung, or if he, as an integral part of the minjung, aspired to recover the Kingdom of God, then the confrontation with the Jerusalem temple system, which was the embodiment of the monopoly of power and goods, would have been inevitable.

However, the challenge against the temple system brought about the death of Jesus. Understanding Jesus' confrontation with the temple as mainly religious in motivation is to look at only one aspect of the event. The eschatological aspiration for the Kingdom of God cannot be isolated from the realistic demands of the poor and oppressed minjung. That Jesus was executed, framed as the King of Judea, shows that he died as a political criminal.

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Yet this historical fact has been shoved into the back of our consciousness and the cross has been so transformed that it is now devoid of its historical context. That our faith has become depoliticized, idealistic in an ahistoric manner and isolated from the concrete reality is a result of the loss of such historical nucleus.

Suggested Procedures

1. Describe briefly what the significance of the cross to each one is. This may be done by completing the sentence, "For me the cross is ___."

2. Proceed with the Bible study presentation. For the scripture reading, some re-enactment may be done to get a feel of the situation, and then some discussion may follow on the following:

a) How did you feel acting as Jesus? As the Pharisees? As the temple authorities? As the merchants at the temple? As mere believers-onlookers?

b) What is the relationship between Jesus' cleaning the temple and death by crucifixion?

3. As church people, particularly as SCMers, how do we affirm the historical meaning or significance of the cross in our time and situation.