Hi First Presbyterian,
Last week I wrote about how quickly it feels that time is passing as we get older. Can you believe it’s already August?! Did you know that August used to be called “Sextillia” because it was the sixth month in the original Roman calendar? Its name was changed during the first century BC by the Roman Emperor Augustus, naming it after himself. Why did he name the month after himself? Consider the meaning behind some of the other names of the months. Many of them are named after Roman gods and goddesses: January (Janus), March (Mars), May (Maia), and June (Juno). Augustus (like his adoptive father Julius Caesar, who renamed the month of July after himself) wanted to put his name among the gods. Augustus, like his father, believed he was divine.
On the Roman tribute pennies during the time of Jesus, there was an image of the Emperor Tiberius (the adopted son of Augustus) along with the inscription: “Emperor Tiberius, Son of the Divine Augustus.” (By the way, this is the “denarius” Jesus told the Pharisees to get when they asked him whether or not Jews should pay taxes to Rome, cf. Mark 12:13-17.) During the time of Jesus, the phrase “Son of God” was highly politicized. Specifically, it was understood as a reference to the Roman Emperor. It is not an accident that the Gospel of Mark begins: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). Not only is Mark using this highly politicized phrase “Son of God,” he’s also calling the news about Jesus the “gospel.” Did you know the Greek word for “gospel” (euaggelion) was a widely known word long before Christians used it to describe the story of Jesus. Originally, the word “gospel” was highly politicized and was used to describe the Roman Emperor in propaganda aimed at convincing people that having an Emperor was good for them. Combine this with the fact that people were told to believe that the Emperor was a son of the gods, and the message coming out of Rome was clear: "Be grateful that Caesar is your king! You can trust him. He is the son of the gods after all!"
From the perspective of first-century Judaism, the Roman Empire stood for lots of things: pursuit of power, violence, greed, and more. Jesus came to the earth in order to show us that God is diametrically opposed to all of that! Mark begins his Gospel the way he does in order to make a very clear point: “There is a new sheriff in town… and it isn’t Caesar!” Wow!
Here's a principle that is generally true: God's ways are not the ways of the world. Here's what I mean by that. The way that Jesus showed us how to live is often radically different to the way that comes naturally to us. Jesus teaches us to be generous in giving what we have to others; we naturally want to keep what we have for ourselves. Jesus teaches us to forgive our enemies and pray for our persecutors; we naturally want to react, retaliate, and protect our egos. Jesus teaches us to welcome and include the outsider; we naturally are afraid and suspicious of people who are different than us. Jesus teaches us to be last; we naturally want to be first. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we live in the radically selfless ways that Jesus taught us, we find peace, the kind of peace that only Jesus can give us (John 14:27). The kind of peace that we find when we realize that we only truly find our lives when we give them away (Mark 8:34-35).
Friends, I pray you enjoy the month of August. More importantly, I pray you discover the peace that comes through following Jesus.
Peace to you,
Pastor Neff