Much of modern spirituality focuses on personal happiness and well being, but the gospel is not about that. It is the record of a man executed by the Roman Empire for the crime of sedition, a political charge. At the heart of the Gospel is the call to give one's life for the welfare of others.
We often view the crucifixion in the light of God's plan for salvation, but how does that work? We often point out how Jesus suffered on our behalf, but why did he have to suffer? Most people don't like to talk about martyrdom but by all accounts, Jesus was a martyr.
A Martyr is defined as "someone who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs." Martyrdom became popular among early Christians who viewed with scorn those who ran rather than be killed for their faith Today Christians don't like to speak of Jesus as a martyr.
The idea of martyrdom distasteful, and it reminds us of religious extremism rather than as a sacrifice. Even Jesus prayed that the cup of martyrdom be taken from him. Jesus didn't want to die (Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42).
On today’s show we read Revelation 1:4b-8. In this text, John calls Jesus Christ “the faithful martyr. We will examine the text in its context and then turn to our panel for answers to these questions.
Our panel of commentators today include:
Professor of Philosophy, Joseph Dowd
Author of “Subversive Wisdom: Sociopolitical Dimensions of John’s Gospel,” Bert Newton,
The Author of a series of books on the Book for Revelation who goes by the name Phoenix,
Professor David Westfall, and
My Father, the Reverend Carl Procida.
My name is Rich Procida, and I write about Progressive Christianity, Politics, and the supernatural at Modernlectionaries.blogspot.com.
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