Dear Theophilus

Much ink has been spilled to talk about the the crowds who, on Palm Sunday, laud Jesus as savior and on the next Friday call for his crucifixion. Suggestions have been put forward: maybe the Greek interpretation of "crowd" will show that the crowds are different on those days, or the people are just fickle, or even that it was God's will and so the people had to do this to fulfill scripture/will. For me, Palm Sunday makes sense. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. The moment is pregnant with meaning. He simultaneously mocks the current political system, calls into question humanity's reliance on power, politics, and violence, and points to himself as the true king. Anyone can understand this. There are a million stories just like it. It is a powerful archetype. The newest prequel to The Wizard of Oz called Oz: the Great and Powerful is based on this exact premise. A nobody from no-where shows up, seemingly fulfills the long-awaited prophecy, challenges the...

Jesus' unique calling for a unique people! The language mentioned earlier comes a couple pages before. Mentioned earlier are: Kingdom, Gospel, Messiah, Son of God, Ekklesia, Savior, Faith, Lord, Emmanuel, and Worship. All these words had duel meaning in that they were used by the existing, non-Christian States and then Jesus politically and spiritually hijacked them for the Kingdom he was going to build. The numbers are the points I want to highlight. "But it wasn't as if Jesus, in using such language, wanted Rome's power or wanted to gain a foothold in the culture war's of his time. He didn't want to climb Caesar's throne [1]. This political language doesn't harmonize with the contemporary church project of 'reclaiming America for God [2].' Precisely the opposite: Jesus was urging his followers to be the unique, peculiar, and set-apart people that began with Abraham. He didn't pray for the world in order to make the governments more relig...