When Myth Comes Alive

Jerusalem is a virtual circus now. Passover is a little more than 4 days off. The late arriving Pilgrims are clamoring for Services. Their currency needs to be changed. They need items the Sacrificial Laws require. Prices are being raised hourly and they know it. They protest vehemently. Comfortable accommodation has been fully occupied some time ago. Prices for what’s left, greedily raised, are exorbitant. More and more visitors are running out of options.

Among those travelers are some Greeks. They’d “come to worship at the Feast.” Likely converts to Judaism, they want to see Jesus. Could it be that they, too, have heard He could be the long anticipated Messiah?

When Jesus learns they are asking to see Him He is ecstatic! “Times up.” He says. “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified!”

What was there about inquisitive Greeks that excited Christ so?

For one thing the ancient prophets said that Messiah would bring “light to the Gentiles.” “’Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, road to the sea, over Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – crossroads for the nations – people sitting out their lives in the dark saw a huge light; Sitting in that dark, dark country of death, they watched the sun come up.’ This Isaiah-prophesied sermon,” wrote Matthew, “came to life in Galilee the moment Jesus started preaching.” (Matthew 4: 12 – 17)

In these final hours they are coming to Him; coming to the light; hoping that in Him will be the fulfillment of things they’d learned from the ancient Hebrew traditions. He is the “light” they are seeking. And He is thrilled at the prospect of unveiling the purpose which He’s about to fulfill.

Beyond this He knows the Greeks. He’s grown up in the hub of Commerce; where cultures intersect and intersperse. Greeks are curious folks. Later observations noted that the Athenians – citizens of the City that formed the center of their Society – “would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” Unlike His Hebrew Brother, they listen. Their immersion in nature cults and the Mythology that grew among them prepared them to receive things Jesus taught; important truths the Rabbis and legalists of Israel rejected out of hand. For example the idea of a human becoming a god was common to Greek and Roman myth. Looking on these events as modern citizens of the 21^st Century World we can read into them modern insights. C.S. Lewis, for example, writes about glimpses of truth found in ancient mythology. “It is not accidental. In the sequence of night and day, in the annual death and rebirth of the crops, in the myths which these processes gave rise to … in the strong … feeling that man himself must undergo some sort of death if he would truly live, there is already a likeness permitted by God to that truth on which all depends.” Jesus recognizes that “likeness permitted by,” the Father. He know these Greek Seekers will understand it. Their Fertility Rites and Myths surrounding the Cycles of Vegetations have prepared them for that “truth on which it all depends.” To now be given the opportunity to explain it to them energized Him. “Listen carefully,” He said. “Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.”

“It is not accidental!” Creation reveals that death can multiply life. Nature Myths feature dying gods. When the One and Only God, living here as one of us; lays down infinite life; and is buried, the Myth springs to Life in that Divine Act. The Living, Eternal God, Creator and Lord of Life Himself, “reproduces (Himself) many times over.” As many times as mortals embrace Him and the immortality He, “the Resurrection and the Life,” offers. The “dying God” brings Life that never ends to a death bound race.

The deeper root of all of this, for us, is in Jesus next words, “In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.”

RECKLESS ABANDON TO LIFE AS THE LORD OF LIFE LIVES IT … THE WAY ON WHICH MYTH IS ILLUMINATED AND COMES ALIVE!