Why was Jesus executed?

(Written by Jerry Folk, Sunday Assembly member, for submission to Weekly Wisdom)

John Dominic Crossan, an historical Jesus scholar, believes Jesus’ execution was not about martyrdom or atonement but about nonviolent resistance. 

Dom Crossan proposes that Jesus stepped into a tradition Jewish leaders had been developing for decades. Relying on the writing of first century Jewish historian Josephus, he describes a remarkable development in Palestinian Judaism between two violent revolts against Rome in 4 BCE and 66 CE. During these 70 years, Jewish religious leaders experimented with programmatic, strategic and deliberate nonviolent resistance to Roman power and oppression. 

This nonviolent resistance took two forms. The first Crossan calls “Prophet reenactments.” Leaders took people out into the desert to reenact God’s liberating acts of the past – the Exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Jordan, the walls of Jericho falling – as a way of tapping into God’s  liberating power. The second type was mass nonviolent protests. The most stunning example of this occurred in 40 CE, when the Emperor Caligula ordered his statue to be set up in the Jerusalem Temple. Thousands of Jewish farmers left their fields at harvest or planting time and sat in protest. They told the Roman governor, Petronius, “If we cannot prevail with you, we offer ourselves for destruction. We gladly put our throats at your disposal.” 

Crossan believes that Jesus took up this tradition of nonviolent resistance, staging acts of protest throughout his ministry. His defiant healings on the Sabbath, his friendship with lepers, blind, deaf and poor people, his meal fellowship with prostitutes, tax collectors and other disreputable persons, and his interactions with foreigners are examples of such protests. Though the immediate “target” of these protests was the oppressive Jewish theocracy, indirectly they “targeted” Roman authority, the power behind the local Jewish theocratic government.

Jesus’ acts of protest came to a climax at the Passover in Jerusalem in two demonstrations. The first was Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. On that day, the radical contradiction between the Commonwealth of God and the Empire of Caesar was publicly and dramatically revealed in two processions. Jesus entered the city from the east on a donkey surrounded by peasants from Galilee and Judea singing his praise while Pontius Pilate entered from the west riding a war horse surrounded by armed Roman legions in an intimidating demonstration of Roman power.

This is not the only demonstration Jesus staged that week in Jerusalem. He also symbolically shut down the Temple, which had become the Jewish theocracy’s power center rather than a house of prayer for the people. Following this protest action, he took over the Temple, teaching there daily, surrounded by crowds of Jewish common people spellbound by his words. These acts of nonviolent resistance led directly to his arrest, trial and execution. 

Jesus’ execution was about nonviolent resistance. Jesus also called and continues to call his followers to continue this practice of nonviolent resistance against Empire’s oppressive power. In the end, 11of his 12 closest disciples answered this call and were killed or exiled because they did so. Followers of Jesus who take up that call today are not likely to forfeit their lives, but must expect to pay something if they resist the power of empire.
 
May God give us courage to practice nonviolent resistance to Empire and help us love those whom we are resisting as we do so.