Scotch College

G3 - God goes Global

In Jewish homes at Passover a son enquires, 'Why is this night different from other nights?' These familiar words initiate a well-worn retelling by the father of Israel's story.

He begins with Abraham: 'A wandering Aramean was my father', but the story culminates with the Exodus, the annual reminder of Israel's liberation from slavery in Egypt and the birth of the nation.

Their reluctant hero was Moses, who led the descendants of Israel to Sinai and the threshold of the Promised Land.

In The Age this Passover (14 April 2001) according to Teresa Watanabe, Rabbi David Wolpe preached a startling sermon to his two thousand two hundred strong congregation. He minced no words in informing them that 'virtually every modern archaeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.'

It is interesting to see that deference to the consensus of modern scholarship can be an issue for Jewish as well as Christian people.

We might have supposed, for instance, that the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, in 'blackballing' Jesus' miracles, thereby reducing the New Testament gospels to 'believable' dimensions, represented a peculiarly Christian issue. This is not so. Anything that doesn't fit nicely into contemporary categories is jettisoned.

For Rabbi Wolpe the rescue of the nation is repudiated. Instead we need to think of 'the intellectual vanguard of a new nation that called itself Israel'. These were people who stressed social justice and freedom. It is these core values which have endured in Israel and inspired the world.

I think Maxwell Miller, Professor of Old Testament at Emory University provides informed comment. He writes: 'When scholars disagree on matters pertaining to the history of ancient Israel, and there is both widespread and radical disagreement at the moment, it is not because they have different 'facts' at their disposal, but because they interpret the available information differently.'

The consensus of modern scholarship suggests the oldest part of the gospel is the passion narrative, the account of the death of Jesus.

At the beginning of that narrative we have Jesus' last meal with his friends. It was a celebration of the Jewish festival of Passover. At least we have a check on the Passover at two thousand years ago!

However Jesus changed the ritual. Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood'. (Luke 22:19, 20)

Jesus changed the significance of this meal by putting himself on the table. He is the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. His suffering raises this meal's significance to a new level; a level above the underscoring of core values, and beyond national salvation.

Israel's God was always interested in the whole world. This was embryonic in the ancient covenant - to bless all the nations through Abraham (Genesis 12:3). In Jesus the vision becomes full bodied. In the new covenant Jesus invites us all to God's table. His actions erase national boundaries. Here we, and the rest of the world, can be nourished.

This vision is what the Gospels call 'the kingdom of God'. In Christ, God goes global. Jesus establishes the first multinational. It is intended to be the premier service organization. Have we embraced his vision?

Rev. Graham Bradbeer, Chaplain