Lent Week 2: Wednesday | Matthew 11 (1-19)
Blessings, Duffy.
I am running late today because I spent too much time researching the US-Israel conflict with Iran (which some experts say is a proxy war with China). Now it is 5:08 PM and I have just finished my reading for the day in the 1962 Roman Missal, in Matthew Chapter 11, and in N.T. Wright's commentary on verses 1-19. I am struck by the reading from Esther 13 in our Missal, which speaks so clearly of God's protection over ethnic Israel on this Shushan Purim.
I am even more struck by Matthew 11:12.
There seem to be at least two very different ways of translating this verse. Here is the first:
"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it." (NIV)
And here is the second:
"And from the time John the Baptist began preaching until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people are attacking it." (NLT)
This is how Wright interprets the verse:
"When Jesus says that the kingdom has been breaking in violently, and that violent people are trying to snatch it, what he seems to be saying is that God's kingdom had indeed been decisively launched in his work, and that those bent on violent revolution were trying to get in on the act" (p. 40).
I am wrestling with an alternative exegesis.
On the one hand, it seems to me that we are passing from the Age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius, and that the Kingdom of Heaven has been advancing forcefully into earthly reality in this new Aquarian age through the modern state of Israel, which is symbolic of John the Baptist, especially in its vegan and vegetarian leadership role, and also through the worldwide Christian Church, which is Jesus in the flesh. But violent people have been persecuting the state of Israel and the emergent Aquarian Christ-body ever since.
On the other hand, this new age Aquarian Christ-body concept is very mystical, as well as controversial. Are we really looking at the resurrection of the Aquarian Jesus in 2033 AD? Maybe this is completely wrong, and I have fallen into exactly the trap that N.T. Wright is warning about, namely, misreading the profound pacifism at the heart of Jesus' kingdom as a case for just war, i.e., for the lawful military defense of the state of Israel in the geopolitical context of a covenantal American-led world order. From this lens, at its most cynical, the Sadducees are in power in Israel right now, America is the new Roman Empire, and I am still not getting Jesus' full message. Like one of his confused disciples, I haven't fully grasped that only non-violent resistance can be used to advance the true Kingdom of the Messiah.
The fact that there are two credible ways to translate Matthew 11:12 doesn't help me decide what to think here!
Gemini agrees that both translations of the text are plausible but says that most modern scholars lean toward the pacifist translation, which is contrary to both Wright's reading and the NLT version:
Peace and grace.
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