By Tommy Airey

Over the next three weeks, the Christian season of Lent will overlap with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started yesterday at sundown. Yesterday. When a billion Christians read the Gospel text where the radical rabbi Jesus tells the wealthy and powerful Nicodemus that Jesus himself must be lifted up on a cross – just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Jesus was giving a little sermon on the story in the Hebrew bible about the post-exodus Israelites getting bit by poisonous snakes. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake, put it on a pole and raise it up whenever someone gets bit – so they can look up at the snake and be healed. Jesus says that he is now playing the role of the bronze snake.

In the Gospel story, Jesus will inevitably be lifted up on a cross. Because he paved a path that threatened those who clung to their privilege, power and wealth. Radical Christian spirituality roots salvation in gazing at Jesus up on that imperial cross.

Continue reading “Lifting Up Our Gaze to Gaza” →