After Dark

I went to an evangelical event called After Dark tonight. I wish I had been able to see the whole thing two weeks ago so I would have been more excited and bold in asking my classmates to go. I knew it would be cool, but I did not know how exactly it would differ from other presentations of the gospel. They promoted it all week on campus. I saw black and yellow t-shirts, balloons, and fliers everywhere I went.
My favorite part was the introduction to the gospel message. The main speaker, Joe White, told us he was going to talk about an important historical figure who we had never heard of and who had probably never been the subject of any book or movie- the soldier who built Jesus' cross. In the flashy video introduction, the text mentioned that he was living in the midst of a "great empire" at "a turning point in civilization." Then we saw Joe hacking chunks of wood off a beam to create a slit in which would rest the smaller beam of the cross. Debris littered the stage. While he hacked away, Joe, speaking for the soldier, told us about the brutal execution procedure and what he thought about Jesus. He said that he only knows about one Son of God, and that is Caesar, but people say that Jesus Christ will rise from the dead on Sunday, and if that happens, then he will believe. Then Joe broke character and, with clips from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ playing behind him, described Jesus using many words but in the end decided that just one of them fit: indescribable.
This is the first time I have ever heard the gospel presented in a way that explicitly put it in the context of the Roman empire- at least the first time I can remember. I was happy to see it. This is a blog I have been meaning to write for a long time. After Dark was the push I needed.
A couple months ago I finished a book my dad gave me called Jesus for President. He loved it and thought I would too. I was not disappointed. It really brought a lot of things into perspective. I am currently reading The Politics of Jesus, which JR Woodward of Kairos first recommended to me at Colorado LT in 2007. Several other books I have read draw from it. There is a page or two in Jesus for President about what the cross meant in Roman times- it was the way to execute anyone who questioned the empire's authority and supremacy.
This brings me back to Joe's role playing exercise. As Joe was attacking the beam, I reflected not only on Jesus' sacrifice, but also on the meaning of the cross itself. Its brutality was displayed publicly to discourage dissension. When Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 16:24, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me," He was not speaking metaphorically, as I originally thought. He was telling them that they could be put to death for what they stood for. Many of them actually were martyred. That makes the Christian life in the United States today look easy, not to say that going against the grain is encouraged here either.
In some ways, whether we realize it or not, we have adopted a mindset eerily similar to the empire that killed Jesus. When somebody criticizes our government or way of life, we do not nail him to a cross, but very rarely is dissension viewed as constructive criticism. The most popular terms include "anti-American" and "communist." The same goes for religion- the world often calls us Christians "bigots," "close-minded," or worse. The intolerant Romans wanted to show Jesus and His first followers who was boss. Then Jesus turned around and showed them. But he did it by rising from the dead and ascending to heaven. There is no record of Jesus encouraging his disciples (or us) to retaliate with violence, hatred, or name-calling because He wanted us to be very different from the Romans who killed Him. Let's remember that every time we see the cross.