Who Was this Man?

[An imaginary letter from a Jewish observer to his Greek friend]

He was in his early thirties, I would guess, when I met him. He stood out in the crowd. Or rather, he stood apart from the crowd, as he seemed to set his own agenda, and where he led, the crowd followed. He had plenty to say – and the crowd was hanging on every word. He spoke engagingly, and I appreciated the absence of rant or other tricks of crowd-manipulation. He seemed to respect his audience.

What first caught my attention was not anything he said, but rather his demeanour. He was so poised – confident, certain of himself, indeed quite relaxed. I was yet further impressed when I realised that the crowd included a number of critics from the religious establishment, who were openly hostile to him. (In fairness it needs to be said that he subjected them to scathing criticism, relentlessly pointing out inconsistencies in their practice of the faith.) The prime example was how, in close debate with a crowd of sceptics, he calmly said that God (who he referred to as his Father!) was – to quote him: “always with me; he is never far from me, for I always do what he wishes”. He was able to make these claims in the same poised manner; to read these words you could think him delusional or blasphemous, but to one present as he said them he was straightforward, matter-of-fact and, frankly, convincing – nor was I alone in this: I saw a fair number of people align themselves with him as he said that.

As I began to listen to him, I found what he said quite riveting. He spoke on a wide range of topics, of which the connecting thread had to do with how to live life properly, and gain favour with God. This latter was a big one for him; his gist was simply that we had better make sure of being in God’s favour, as not to do so would result in the most terrible of punishments (he did not shrink from calling a spade by its real name!), while life in a right standing with God would be rewarded by what he called “eternal life” that would continue after physical death.

There was much more besides, and particularly interesting was the way he spoke in story form, leaving us to figure out the meaning. I found some reasonably accessible, but others frustratingly obscure.

Once, while he was speaking I was astounded to see him cure a man of some terrible disease. It happened quite quickly, and if I had not been paying attention I could easily have missed it. In a moment the sick man was there before him, and after a brief discussion, he was cured. No dramatics (except the healed man’s delight!). It seemed almost ordinary, as if he were doing no more than restoring the man to the way things ought to be, and it had a great impact on me. I gather he performed hundreds of these miraculous healings over about three years.

With all this in mind, imagine my shock to learn that he had been arrested. I was quite hooked by this time, and did not want to have to believe that he had turned out to be a charlatan. So I attended the trial, which was open to the public. I could not make out the exact charges against him, and no line of testimony seemed very consistent. It began to look like a set-up – the main accusers were the religious bigwigs, and to be honest, I was startled at how, well, unsavoury they looked. As I said before, he had frequently criticised them; towards the end this criticism escalated into prolonged, impassioned verbal lashings. I think they were finally driven to ‘do something’ about him – either heed him and change their ways, or else silence him. And, if you will excuse the cynicism, who ever heard of those with the political power changing their ways?

He had been badly beaten up in the course of proceedings, and he looked quite terrible most of the time. Yet, despite this, he did not lose that demeanour that had been so striking out on the roads doing his teaching. He still had that sense of assurance, to an extent that amazed me. It seemed to get to his accusers, who became steadily angrier, and, I thought, less coherent. Someone near me muttered, only just loudly enough for me to hear: “You could wonder just who is on trial here!”

It got late, and I didn’t stay to the end. I heard later that the trial had gone on right through the night. Next day it was obvious who had won. I followed a procession outside the city, and watched his public execution. I could never convey the impact it had on me. I was utterly horrified and outraged. This was no trickster or rebel. How could anyone have failed to recognise what a magnificent human being he was!

The shock of the spectacle without was suddenly matched by one from within. I was suddenly assailed by a perverse desire to get nearer so that I could join in the shouting of insults at him as he hung on the gibbet. I remember recoiling in horror at myself; I had, frankly, loved and admired the man from my safe distance, and I did not know where this feeling came from. Such was the intensity of this diabolical sense that I almost felt that, had circumstances been different, I might even have found myself taking part in the beatings. This train of thought appalled me, and I banished it from my mind – but it comes back to me as I write, and harsh honesty drives me to include this shameful part of my story. What was this strange, hideous thing in me which, arising from unknown depths, would wish to hurt this man?

I left the scene; and over the next few days wondered about it. Goodness knows, there was no getting it out of my mind. On occasion I would wonder if it had been a rotten dream. But no: there was no escaping the recollection of it all. And the freak darkness that had suddenly fallen at midday – no-one could forget that. Its terror lay in its unnaturalness. Firstly, it had occurred at midday, and persisted for three hours. And there was its intensity – ‘pitch-black’ if ever anything was pitch black: so utterly impenetrable, with a heavy thickness about it. I heard no-one speak. After an hour of it, with no suggestion of change, I actually wondered if this might be the end of the world; it was now much too long for an eclipse. There was no telling how it would all end. I can tell you, when the light returned – not gradually, as in an eclipse, but suddenly and startlingly, the relief was enormous! But I tell you of what you know for yourself, for we all alike witnessed it. I presume your experience was much the same. Perhaps I had an advantage in being able to link it to the execution, as did most of us who were there.

The next couple of days passed without incident, and I had time to consider what had happened. So did everyone else; it was the only topic of conversation I heard. The entire city was gripped by this thing.

Strange, terrible, compelling as all this was, I suppose I would not be writing about it had it not been for what happened next. There was suddenly a new buzz in the city, this time that of a general gasping disbelief. There were rumours all over to the effect that the man was no longer dead. At first I dismissed them; he had died, alright, as I had seen for myself. I had stayed around long enough to see the Roman soldiers lance him in the side just to make sure. Even if by some fantastic chance he had not died then, those injuries could have had only one possible outcome. I must mention that his body had been placed in a guarded cave, which, of course, would not have been conducive to resuscitation. No, he was dead; I was certain of that, and dead people stay dead.

Yet the rumours persisted, and for more than a month they went on, firming into claims, with no-one able to prove anything either way. It would have been easy, of course, if he had simply appeared, and demonstrated himself to us all. But that did not happen – at least not in my presence. Likewise, I thought, the authorities needed only to produce the body and end the rumours at a stroke. But they did not, and indeed, they kept a remarkably low profile. Not a single statement was issued to contradict all the stories -and the stories themselves did not just go away.

Rumour culminated in fact for me some six weeks after the execution. Several of his key followers suddenly began declaring publicly that he was indeed alive, and that they had seen him themselves. For all the fantastic nature of what they were saying, I found them believable. For one thing, if it were otherwise, they would have no reason to make such a claim. They would have had little to gain and much to lose. The more so, as the authorities suddenly came to life and attempted to threatened them into silence. Their failure to nip the claims in the bud by putting the body on display when the stories began to circulate counted heavily against them now. By now I felt that they would have done so if they had been able, but that they simply had not been able.

So I became convinced that there was indeed something to all this. However, I was bothered by some of the things his followers said. The most difficult was their insistence that he had been the Son of God; God in human form. This, apparently, he had claimed for himself. I struggled with that one for days. But the alternatives, as I saw them, seemed even more difficult: either that he was a con-artist attempting a mass deception, or else that he suffered serious delusions about himself. Having seen and heard him myself, I knew that both these were quite untenable: he was much too sane, too fully human. Indeed, I had heard him making this claim on one occasion, though I had not recognised it for what it was. His words were: “Before Abraham was, I am”. This had been one of his sayings that I had not been able to fathom. If pressed, I would have said that besides the grammatical slip (it should have been “I was”?), the reference to Abraham was too obscure for me. But though the words had been lost on me, I had noticed how, well, together he looked and sounded as he said them. And since then the penny has finally dropped: “I AM” is the holy name of our Jewish God, Yahweh. And yes, I have become convinced of him as God himself in human form as the only possibility that fits the available facts.

All this has brought about a great change in me. I was never particularly religious before, but now following this man is the single most important thing in my life. Obviously, there is an awful lot more to learn, but I feel pretty sure about the main issue: The execution was somehow tied up with making it possible for people to relate to God. It seems that where his activity in the previous three years was concerned with demonstrating what a life in good standing with God might be like, his death somehow made such a relationship possible. It has dawned on me that I have all my life been morally blighted in the sight of God, (don’t we all feel that?) and destined for his judgment. No God worthy of the title could take a casual view of the wrong that exists in us, so my protests about a loving God overlooking our peccadilloes died before they could fly.

And now I have this made-over view of things: the world at large, people I come into contact with, myself on the inside – everything. I know I owe it all to him. Two things have changed me for ever, and made me want to write this not only for you, but also for any who will read it. They are:

• That man was the Son of God; and
• That man died for me.

In my view there are four essential requirements for a religion to be convincing and satisfying. These are: meaning in life (what is the purpose of my life?); an answer for death (what lies beyond death – is there hope?); an answer for suffering (there is so much injustice and pain of all kinds – why, and again, is there hope?); and the quest for love (we all need it – without love we are less than human).
The way that man (Yeshua is his name – the Greeks have called him Jesus) suffered and died, and then returned to life, answers the second two. The prospect of living the rest of my life in relationship with him, and doing as he directs, is the perfect answer to the first. And everything he seems to have said and done just swims in love. For me he is the God-man who loved me, and actually gave himself for me.

On this last point, I have a feeling – a private theory, if you will – that even if I had been the only one who had needed this self-giving death to gain that ‘eternal life’, that he would have done it. Imagine, if you can, how incredibly special it makes me feel! And I also think that such was the extent of his suffering, that what he has done is sufficiently effective for anyone to benefit, however bad he might be. Alexander the Great and some of his successors like Antiochus Epiphanes come to mind.

I have written this for you because I think it is important for you to know about these events, so that you can make your own evaluation. I would very much like to hear what you think.

I hope you and your family are well –

Matthias.