Motivated to be killed

Do you enjoy biographies? What about auto-biographies? With auto-biographies there’s a real risk that the world being described by the writer is not the real world but instead the world which shows him or her in a good light. The world described may well attribute failure and evil to others for that same reason.

Does that apply to biographies as well? Not really. The problem with biographies is different. It’s that the biographer may never really have been able to work out the motives of the person about whom they are writing. Are motives important for our understanding of people?

Look with me then at the incident above from Matthew’s first century biography of Jesus the Anointed One. Immediately before, Jesus has been teaching that he must go to Jerusalem, must suffer many things from the political and religious establishment there, must be killed - and on the third day be raised.

Not only that but, in this 17th chapter of 28 in this biography, Jesus is teaching that his followers must all, similarly, deny self and take up a cross to do that.

What’s the motive for that? What has made Jesus decide to allow those things to be done to him? What does Matthew the biographer say is driving Jesus to this willingness to die?

 

Matthew records this about motives. Apparently, Peter, one of Jesus’ followers, challenges Jesus about this death idea. But Jesus ticks him off and tells him that his mindset is a man-centred one – whereas he should be setting his mind on the things – the ways – of God. Matthew has provided Jesus’ motive for saying he must be killed. It’s because this death is the mind of God.

Can that be right? Can it be true? Has Matthew got it wrong? Is Jesus’ death on a cross God’s idea?  

Six days later Jesus takes with him Peter, James and John and climbs a high mountain with them. Up there he is metamorphosed before their eyes. He is transformed, his face shining like the sun, his clothes as white as light. Two ancient men join him there - Moses, who lived around 1300 BC and Elijah who lived around 800 BC.

Peter quickly responds. “This is really good, he says, if you wish I can make three dwellings for you here on this mountain. You could all dwell down here”.  

Was Peter’s mindset still a man-centered one? Was he still thinking like a man? Should he not be setting his mind on the things – the ways – of God? Six days earlier Jesus has said that he must be killed in Jerusalem. Could Jesus ever dwell down here – even on the mountain?

The response to Peter’s suggestion came from above. Matthew’s biography records it: He was still speaking when, look and see, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is the loved-in-action Son of mine, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 

 

Listen to him. Not to anyone else. Jesus then spoke - in actions and in words.  Jesus came and held onto them, saying, “Rise up, and don’t fear.” He is teaching them what is his motivation – the persuasive (to him) reason why he must be killed. He had come to hold onto them, to cause them to rise, to bring them to the place of “no fear”. 

He didn’t come to dwell on earth.  He came so they could rise and dwell above. That was also the motivation of the voice from heaven.