But here's the scoop. I can either take what they own by force, or failing that, I can wait to inherit their stuff after they pass away and go to be with Jesus. This concept of inheritance is one that crops up in an awful lot of the mystery novels my mother is fond of reading. For those who are paying attention, I've mentioned her terrifying mystery novel covers before, but in case you're new here (and if you're new here, then welcome, Billy), here's another particularly terrifying one. But here's the plot of a lot of murder mysteries: Someone has something of particular value. You want that item. You off that person, and get their item. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But wait! This is how the perp in question ends up getting busted: it's not too hard to work out that if you inherit the sum of ten thousand dollars money shortly after your great-aunt Agatha has been bludgeoned to death with a golf trophy, you may come across as a bit suspicious. If you've got something to gain from the murder of another party, and you subsequently gain that item, then it's a wee shade suspicious. Now, that's the problem with inheritance. It's the problem that lurked at the heart of the 'monkey's paw' story, which says that your wishes to have more money come at a terrible price: the death of someone you love.
Now, let's extrapolate this to Jesus, because guess what: his story is one of inheritance and murder. Just because murder is accomplished through judicial means, that doesn't make it any less of a lynching sometimes. When Jesus is arrested, it's in the garden of Gethsemane, where he had been praying with his sleepy disciples. And the crowd who comes to arrest him is from the temple authorities, bringing him back to the temple courts. And what gets decided there? Only that Jesus gets railroaded, and that he has no defense. But the temple authorities, legally, can't execute anyone. They don't have authority under Roman rule to carry that out, for good reason. The Roman government didn't get to be the leading empire of the world for five hundred years by allowing two parallel legal systems to run at the same time. So they have to take him before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who is well aware that Jesus has not committed any crimes against the Roman state. If he's blasphemed against the Temple, or against the majesty of God's holy house, what problem is that for the Romans, who worship Jupiter, Apollo, and Uranus? So Pontius Pilate is being asked to crucify Jesus of Nazareth for breaking laws that the Romans don't even have. This is what I mean when I call this a judicial murder: just because you kill someone through ostensibly legal means, doesn't mean it's not murder.
Now, this is where the story gets kind of funny. Remember in the reading from Sunday where the rich young ruler asks
"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And he said
to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. If you wish to
enter into life, keep the commandments." He said to him "Which ones?" And
Jesus said "you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery,
you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and
mother. Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
The young man said to him "All these things I have done from my youth. What more
do I lack?" Jesus said to him "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell
your possessions, and give the money to the poor, then you will have
treasure in heaven. then come, follow me."
When the young man heard this, he went away grieving, for he had
many possessions.
Matthew 19:16-22
"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Well, honestly, what do you to to inherit anything? Normally, you wait until the person who has what you want dies. Sometimes you kill them. But hold on for a moment, because the story gets even stranger. The vast majority of people who had assembled to execute Jesus Christ, the vast majority of people who assembled themselves to shout for the crucifixion of Jesus, they had no idea what they were getting into. Pilate tries to set them up for it, by saying to them
So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot
was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before
the crowd, saying 'I am innocent of this man's blood. See to
it for yourselves.' Then the people as a whole answered
'His blood be on us and on our children!'
So He released Barabbas for them, and after flogging Jesus,
he handed him over to be crucified.
Matthew 27:24-26
Pilate tells them as clearly as he can that he's not responsible for the death of Jesus that they crave so badly. He's committed no crime, and can't be punished by Roman law. But Pilate is savvy enough to know what happens when people riot, so he allows them to have their wishes, and turns Jesus over to be crucified. So everyone's complicit in his killing. Pilate lets it happen even though he knows that Jesus is innocent. The Roman soldiers nail him to the cross, thus actually striking the fatal blows of nails and spear. The crowd is responsible for calling for his death, and threatening riots all over the place. Nobody gets a pass on this one. Nobody gets to say that they had nothing to do with the execution of Christ, not even us. Even now, if you've botched anything in your whole life ever, it was sufficient for Jesus to go to his death. Even if you were the only one.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the
unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.
1 Peter 3:18
You're as involved in the death of Jesus as anyone else, because you helped to make it necessary. Remember what Jesus says to the rich young man: If you want to be perfect, if you want to have life, then you have to keep everything perfectly, and live a life of wiling service. And we don't really do that that often. But as I say, this is the really strange twist of fate: The people who killed Jesus, calling for his execution, crying for his blood, meekly allowing him to die, nailing him up, whatever, what they didn't realize was that they were killing someone who had willed them the greatest inheritance ever. They were murdering someone who has a pearl of great price, beyond anything else that could be purchased, a treasure hidden in a field, something worth more than anything else, he had this. And the only way they could get it was to have the person who owned it die. And they did that through killing him, taking away everything he had, and leaving him to die on a block of wood somewhere in a middle eastern desert. And as he died, Jesus had this to say:
Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.
Luke 23:34
He died. And upon his death, what he owned, that is, his right to stand before God, his sinless life, his righteousness and holiness and grace and perfection, not to mention eternal life, is what we inherited.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave,
though he is the owner of everything, but he is under
guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the
same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the
elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had
come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem
those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as
sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of
his Son into our hearts, calling "Abba, Father!" So you are no
longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.
Galatians 4:1-7
We are inheritors of the greatest prize of all time, from someone we murdered. And if that isn't crazy enough, take a second to go back to the story of the monkey's paw that I included earlier. First wish, they wish for money. For that to happen, the couple's son has to die in a horrific accident. Then they get the compensation that they required. Second wish, they wish their son back to life. But he doesn't come back to life just right. He comes back, presumably, as a terrible zombie, smashed by his accident, and having been buried for a number of days. So they have to wish him back to being dead. And thus are their three wishes. End of story. With the story of Christ, he has something we want. We kill him. We inherit his life and grace and eternity, as the rich young man asked for. And then he rises from the dead. Not as a zombie, not as the walking dead, not as something less than human, not as an abomination, but as a resurrected being, put right again. Not just dead flesh walking around, but a living body, risen to die no more. And that's the inheritance we all get too.
Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Kill the one who has it, and find out that he willed it to you. And now, you are children, and heirs of the promise, and of the life won for you by Christ Jesus. Through inheritance of what he has that we want. Life. Everlasting.
PJ.
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