Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

(Matthew
     13:47). It is a meadow choking with both weeds and wheat. When the reaper comes, he
     will harvest the wheat. But the weeds he will bundle together and toss into the fire
     (Matthew 13:24–30). And the reaper is nearly here. God’s will is about to be done
     on earth, just as it is in heaven. So then, take your hand off the plow and do not
     look back, let the dead bury the dead, leave behind your husband and your wife, your
     brothers and sisters and children, and prepare yourself to receive the Kingdom of
     God. “Already, the ax is laid at the root of the tree.”
    Of course, none of Jesus’s obfuscations about the meaning and implications of the
     Kingdom of God would keep him from being seized and crucified. Jesus’s assertion that
     the present order was about to be reversed, that the rich and the powerful were going
     to be made poor and weak, that the twelve tribes of Israel would soon be reconstituted
     into a single nation and God made once again the sole ruler in Jerusalem—none of these
     provocative statements would have been well received in the Temple, where the high
     priest reigned, or the Antonia Fortress, where Rome governed. After all, if the Kingdom
     of God, as Jesus presented it, was in fact a real, physical kingdom, then did it not
     require a real, physical king? Was not Jesus claiming for himself that royal title?
     He promised a throne for each of his twelve apostles. Did he not have in mind a throne
     for himself?
    Granted, Jesus provided no specifics about the new world order he envisioned (though
     neither did any other royal claimant of his time). There are no practical programs,
     no detailed agendas, no specific political or economic recommendations in Jesus’s
     teachings about the Kingdom of God. He seems to have had no interest at all in laying
     out how God’s reign on earth would actually function. That was for God alone to determine.
     But there is no question that Jesus had a clear vision for his own role in the Kingdomof God: “If by the finger of God I cast out demons, then surely the Kingdom of God
     has come upon you.”
    The presence of the Kingdom of God had empowered Jesus to heal the sick and the demon-possessed.
     But at the same time, it was Jesus’s healings and exorcisms that were bringing the
     Kingdom of God to fruition. It was, in other words, a symbiotic relationship. As God’s
     agent on earth—the one who wielded God’s finger—Jesus himself was ushering in the
     Kingdom of God and establishing God’s dominion through his miraculous actions. He
     was, in effect, the Kingdom of God personified. Who else should sit on God’s throne?
    No wonder, then, that at the end of his life, when he stood beaten and bruised before
     Pontius Pilate to answer the charges made against him, Jesus was asked but a single
     question. It was the only question that mattered, the only question he would have
     been brought before the Roman governor to answer before being sent off to the cross
     to receive the standard punishment for all rebels and insurrectionists.
    “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Chapter Eleven
Who Do You Say I Am?
    Two years have passed, more or less, since Jesus of Nazareth first met John the Baptist
     at the lip of the Jordan River and followed him into the Judean desert. In that time,
     Jesus has not only carried on his master’s message about the Kingdom of God; he has
     expanded it into a movement of national liberation for the afflicted and oppressed—a
     movement founded upon the promise that God would soon intervene on behalf of the meek
     and the poor, that he would smite the imperial Roman power just as he smote Pharaoh’s
     army so long ago and free his Temple from the hands of the hypocrites who controlled
     it. Jesus’s movement has drawn to him a corps of zealous disciples, twelve of whom
     have been given the authority to preach his message on their own. In every town and
     city they enter, in the villages and the countryside, great crowds gather to hear
     Jesus and his disciples preach, and to take part in the free healings and exorcisms
     they offer to those who seek their help.
    Despite their relative success, however, Jesus and his disciples have for the most
     part restricted their activities to the northern provinces of Galilee, Phoenicia,
     and Gaulanitis, wisely keeping a safe distance from Judea and the seat of the Roman
     occupation in Jerusalem. They have cut a circuitous route through the