Prayer: Intimacy with God

From our "Living the Questions" Bible Study

• many people approach prayer in a way that makes God into a cosmic vending machine: insert prayer into slot, make your selection, and if you're good, Viola!
• many people perceive the Divine to be in the reward and punishment business, when prayers are not answered, people beat themselves up with guilt because they're obviously not good enough or faithful enough for God to answer in the affirmative.
• prayer is deeper than a "conversation" with the Divine, perhaps best understood as simply being open to the Divine.
• prayer is the testimony to humanity's striving toward a relationship with that unknowable yet inescapable sense of "the more".
• Pray as if everything depended on God, pray as if everything depended on you

Invitation to prayer:

• cut out two news articles and secure them in an area where you will see them often or near where you can carve out time for prayer.
• when praying with this news, pray only these two questions
• God of love, what would you have me learn?
• Merciful God, how can I offer you compassion? 

The Crowd and the Crucifixion

What a great day - the sun is finally out after the rain! I'm now able to blog and jot down my ideas for everyone to read! I will find time to blog and see how this will enable me to continue writing instead of watching TV! Ok, just kidding.

Bible Study: First Light, Jesus and the Kingdom, participant reader by John Dominic Crossan (DVD based)

Today we discussed chapter 10: The Crowd & The Crucifixion

"Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified." Josephus, Jewish Anitquities 18.63-64

"Christus ... had undergone the death penalty in the region of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus." Tacitus, Annals 15.44

Jesus was protected by the crowd from the high priests (who accused Jesus) from Sunday through Wednesday.  The high priests almost gave up because they couldn't get Jesus out of the crowd due to fear of riots.  But Judas came along and made it possible for them to find Jesus away from the crowd.

The crowd on Friday that came to support Barabbas was always believed as the same crowd that followed Jesus.  However, this is a different crowd of about 6 - 12 people who came to Pilate to request  the release of Barabbas.  It is like having few senators going into the President's office, no more than 20!  This is based on Mark's Gospel because it's the earliest in all the Gospels, but in Mathew, Luke & John the crowd becomes crowds and increased in numbers depending on their respective contexts.

Jesus was non violent yet a threat to the Roman Empire and its high priests collaborators and the very reason for them to find ways to execute Jesus.  The execution of Jesus by Pilate was a public statement to the rest of the followers not to become threats to Imperial Rome and religious collaborators.

Interesting to note that Crossan watched the Oberammergau Passion Play in 1960 for the second time and realized that there were two different crowds - one who followed Jesus and the one that requested the release of Barabbas.  Hitler on the other hand watched this play in the '30 & 40s and admired the Roman Empire and hence despised the Jews and we know from history that's what happened.  He became the "Roman Empire" and executed the Jews.

Crossan wants to set history right to prevent antisemitism and those who take the biblical messages literally like Hitler!