Have I Been Wrong About Jesus?

Just the other day I had this horrible thought:

What if I have been wrong all this time about Jesus’ nonviolent approach to life?

What if I have been wrong about nonviolence being the core meaning of his message?

What if I totally misunderstood his mission of nonviolence? 

What if I misunderstood that Jesus came to usher in the kingdom of his Father through nonviolent love rather than by violent force?

I then tried to imagine what Christianity might look like if in fact I have been wrong, that is in the way I interpret his message concerning the nonviolent power of the Gospel. 

Would we evolve (devolve) into a religion somewhat similar to radical Islamists?

If I am wrong about Jesus’ penchant for nonviolence then what would the church look like? Would it become an exclusive social club reserved for members determined to protect themselves on Sunday morning by their own might?

Could I be so wrong in believing that the power of the Gospel was actually fueled by nonviolence? 

There is a story told in all four Gospels of Jesus being arrested in the garden. The time of his crucifixion was drawing near and he was with his disciples praying in the garden when soldiers, temple police, and others bearing arms came to arrest him.

This was one of those dangerously explosive moments in Jesus’ life that would have tempted the best of us to respond with our own form of violence. Well, one did. Peter was carrying a sword and when the attempt was made to apprehend Jesus he drew his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus (a slave of the High Priest). 

So Jesus responded by healing the severed ear and saying: 

“Put your sword away for the sword will only lead  to your death.” Okay, I paraphrased the verse. 

This was Jesus’ response to the threat of violence used against him and his disciples. As we all know he was soon thereafter executed on the cross.

As I reviewed this story in all four Gospels I concluded that I had not been wrong about Jesus’ use of nonviolence in a incurably violent world. The world has always been a dangerously violent place in which to live. There seems to be a streak of violence lying just beneath the surface of all of us.

What would it take to spark such violence within us? Yes Evil is real. It is dangerous. It is life-threatening. It is bent on having its way by turning humans into violent perpetrators of its will. Indeed many have become convinced that violence is our only option in response to violence. I can understand this but I do not believe this would have been Jesus' approach.

Perhaps the Apostle Paul hit the nail square on the head when he wrote to the Christians at Ephesus:

“For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”

No I do not think I have gotten Jesus wrong after all. I do not believe that I have misread the Gospels portrait of a nonviolent and all loving Messiah who came to start an upside down revolution called the “kingdom of God!” 

A nonviolent kingdom in which the self-sacrificial love of Christ serves as our mandate to perpetuate Jesus’ original mission.

Perhaps this is what faith is really all about, not so much as a means to get us into a postmortem heaven,  but rather to live according to the values of God’s kingdom on earth in real time.

Just maybe of course this is what lies behind the prayer petition Jesus taught us to pray:

“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

No, I don’t believe I have been wrong about Jesus’ nonviolent mission to usher in God’s kingdom on earth. More importantly we all share in this mission of nonviolence.

Thank God!