Simply Jesus, by N.T. Wright

Chapter 13 – Why Did the Messiah Have to Die?

1.  Once again, N.T. Wright challenges us with an incredibly rich and substantive chapter.  None of us breezes through this one!  Wright begins with a barrage of questions thrown at Jesus by those he encounters.  Jesus directs questions back to them…and even to God.  He clearly fulfilled the multiple roles of Messiah, Rabbi, Priest, and Prophet…only adding to people’s confusion and fascination.  All of these facets of Jesus coalesce like three great rivers coming together to form his “messiahship” and his sense of vocation. 

Imagine, if you will, what it must have been like for Jesus to eventually arrive at his conclusions of both his identity as God’s son and his vocation as the suffering servant, destined to die on the cross for the redemption of the world.  

What do you suppose went through his head, and what must it have been like to grasp this enormous reality and responsibility?

2.  “Jesus understood his baptism as the moment when he was ‘anointed,’ like Israel’s kings long ago, for this task.  Israel’s God was acting through him, in him, as him.”  As a royal figure, the servant, and God himself, Jesus unifies these three themes into one vocation: “to be Israel’s Messiah and…to suffer and die.”  Together, they are the means by which God would decisively launch his kingdom on earth as in heaven.  

Why would the disciples and others prefer a different kind of messiah?  How does the expectation of a “Superman” Jesus miss the boat?

3.  Jesus would usher in the New Exodus…“redrawing the messianic themes of battle and Temple into a radical new configuration around himself.”  He would defeat death itself through his own voluntary death.  God’s new creation flows out of his sacrifice.  

Where do you identify the parallels between the original Hebrew exodus and the one Jesus initiates?  How are they different in both scope and purpose?

4.  Jesus shifts the embodiment of God’s presence from the Temple to himself.  By stepping into the storm, Jesus moves from the past to the future…taking the full brunt of God’s judgment so that God’s people might be rescued.  “Jesus is innocent, but he is dying the death of the guilty.”  This is how the work of healing must be accomplished and for God’s kingdom to reign.  

What does this say about the role of leadership?  How did Jesus “lead?”  How is his leadership unique in a world of ubiquitous quasi-leadership?

5.  Jesus methodically moves toward the inevitable…his crucifixion.  His grand entrance into Jerusalem for Passover is both symbolic and intentional.  The sharing of the Passover meal with his disciples likewise points toward lasting purpose and meaning.  Here, the great Exodus themes are re-visited and re-lived in order to set a new course for human history. 

Jesus is executed as the “king of the Jews.”  Like the echo of Genesis upon the completion of creation, Jesus declares, “It is finished.”  Once again, God had completed a new creation…this time through the work of atonement.  “How then can we interpret Jesus’ death?”  First, Jesus’ death is exemplary in love.  Second, Jesus represented his people and the whole world.  And third, is a massive sense in which Jesus’ death is penal…taking the full weight of God’s judgment upon himself. 

Jesus understood the battle he was fighting and against whom: the Accuser.  Thus, the Accuser allows Jesus to stand accused on multiple charges from every angle of corruption and sin.  Representatively, he takes all of these accusations “against the whole human race and has borne them in himself.”  “Jesus’ own mind, heart, and body would be the battlefield on which the final victory would be won.”  Ultimately, Jesus did represent his people as their king.  And in the same manner, Israel is representative of the world.  Love prevailed…Jesus was raised from death…the Accuser has been defeated.  Whew!

So…why should we take the role/work of the Accuser seriously?

What does Jesus’ victory on the cross demonstrate for us?