The Cruelty: It Burns

September 24, 2009, 8:47 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 13

I am not sure how far I will get in this chapter.  Three major topics are repeated here: service, love, and betrayal.   In hindsight John writing this Gospel sees the importance of love in the message of Jesus.  He shows an example of love and the commandment of love that Jesus gives his disciples.  In the example of love service plays a part.  Since they are interconnected, one cannot have one without the other.  Jesus also shows two predictions (again written in hindsight).  The first is Judas’ betrayal of Jesus to the Jewish leaders.  The second is Peter’s own betrayal of Jesus.  If Jesus knew in the future betrayal of these two men…they had no freewill.  To know something will happen is better than predicting; it indicates that something is planned.

The dialog between Jesus and his disciples (notice that John does not use the word Apostles) and especially Peter shows how important service to others is to being Christian.  But not just any type of service, Jesus made it clear that it should be of the most humble and menial form.  Yet somehow Christians have completely forgotten this most important teaching of Jesus.  They neither serve each other (showing love to those that love them) nor do they serve the non-believer, so that we know that they are disciples of Jesus.  In fact, it is the exact opposite today!  Christians attempt to take the highest position possible…that of governance.  Governance is neither menial nor humble; it is the most important form of work here on earth.  Without governance nations would crumble, bloodshed would be rampant, and humanity would never have crawled up from subsistence living allowing for science, arts, and technology.  But when religion attempts to govern we see things like the Inquisition, the Dark Ages, the subjugation of women, and even intolerance of minorities.  (And before any one might claim that Hitler was an atheist please read mein kampf and his speeches – where the Bible and Christianity are cited over 75 times).

But Jesus teaches love is the most important action that Christians can take.  This form of love has two effects.  As I just mentioned it means doing the most humble and menial of tasks for others (not just other Christians – see Matt 5:46-48) but also this love will be felt by others and will prove a person is truly a follower of Jesus.  Christians today, who demand new laws be written to punish/subjugate minorities (taking rights away from homosexuals), who vocally call for bloodshed of innocents (war against the Middle East), and demand government money be spent on religious symbols – instead of taking care of the poor, are truly showing the non-believer that Christianity has failed to follow the example of Jesus.  In fact, even wasting money on attempting to get science to be watered down with Creation “Science” in the classroom is just another form of this lack of love.  Should not Christian’s time, effort, and money be going to loving their neighbor by helping the poor, the orphan, and the widow?  Instead we (the USA) have the super right wing conservative fiscal party (the Republicans) gathered with the super right wing religious!  The “godless” Democrats are the one actually showing love to the poor!  What complete irony.

Jesus does on other thing in this chapter.  He prophesied the betrayal of two of his disciples.  The concept that Judas was a disciple is rather complicated to explain to those who believe that Judas was the Betrayer, but let me just point to a few verses (Matt 10:12, Matt 26:14, Mark 3:19, Mark 14:10, Mark 14:43, Luke 16:6  – he is named as one of the Apostle).  But more important is that Jesus knows that someone (from his inner ranks) must betray him – Matt 26:24, Mark 14:21, Luke 22:22).  In fact this verse is worth noting:

John 13:27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.  “What you are about to do, do quickly,” Jesus told him, but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him.

Jesus knew that Judas not only was going to betray him, but that Judas had to betray him.  There was no freewill in this action.  Remember if Jesus had not been betrayed the crucifixion would never have taken place!  Judas may have done the most important act that any Christian could perform, preparing the events that lead to religion known as Christianity.

But Jesus did not stop there.  He also prophesied that Peter would deny him three times within the following 12 hours.  Again, freewill is removed from Peter at this point.  For Jesus to know in advance that Peter would deny knowing Jesus can only have occurred if Peter did not have freewill.  In both of these cases, both Judas’ and Peter’s, we are shown that humanity is completely helpless in making freewill choices.  We are forced to take the actions that are required to fulfill YHWH’s plans for each one of us. 

This realization leads to troubling outcomes.  The divided Church would indicate that YHWH plans to send billions to hell.  Not only the ones that “choose” to sin (the non-believer) but also the ones who have been taught by the Traditions of Men that they are saved!  But with this being the case, then YHWH is not a loving supreme being.  He has planned the suffering of untold billions (if not trillion and quadrillions) in hell.  Worse is that it is a hell of his own creation!  So now we have a vicious circle…how can a loving god allow so many to go to a hell he created without allowing them to chose?  But we know that untold millions had no choice, prior to the conquest of the European Christians during the 15^th and 16^th centuries (at least 1400 years after Jesus died) only a small fraction of the world’s population even knew the story of Jesus.  At that time the population of Japan was 1,800,000 people, the population of China was well above 100,000,000 people, the population of India was 35 million people, in North America the population was as much between 8 and 112 million people, and that does not include Australia, South and Central America, Africa, or the Pacific Ocean nations.  To say the least estimates put the total population of the world at the beginning of the 16^th century  435,000,000 people.  It is quite obvious that these people did not have freewill to chose to worship YHWH!  What a loving YHWH, allowing nearly 300,000,000 million people to go to hell because he allowed them to be born in countries that had not heard the Word of God!  And that was only the beginning of 15^th century…hell certainly will be a crowded place with many innocent people sent there without freewill.  We can only hope that the Mormon’s are right and Jesus was sent to the Americas!  Otherwise, YHWH is a cruel and unworthy being to worship.

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