2. Let’s Get to Know the Historical Context

John: Palestine is the place where Jesus lived. It consisted of Galilee in the north, Judea in the south, and Samaria in the middle. Being under foreign dominion, the people suffered in every possible way. They were overtaxed, and they didn’t have freedom to live as human beings. Those who revolted against the government were captured, brutally tortured, and murdered. The government authorities were always in fear of mass riots, and there were spies among the people. The presence of spies could have been a reason why Jesus spoke mostly in parables and riddles.

Due to such political oppression, the economic situation got deteriorated steadily. Over-taxation drove more and more people to poverty. A lot of people had to sell themselves as slaves to stay  alive. These factors contributed to starvation, sickness, and mental illness. There were lepers roaming around singly and in groups. There was a pool in Jerusalem where a great number of hopeless sick people such as the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed waited for a movement in the water to jump hoping to get healed.

In such a miserable situation, the religion of the land had the responsibility to rise and take the leadership leading and guiding the people like a good shepherd. However, the religion had gone blind. How could the blind shepherds lead the blind sheep? Rather than assisting the people with their life, the religion imposed even more burdens upon them. The people were like sheep without a shepherd. Many shepherds approached them claiming to show them the right way. But instead of showing them the right way to green pastures and streams, they led them to deserts and wolves. Often religious leaders proved to be wolves disguised as shepherds.

In this miserable condition, one prayer rose from the depths of their hearts: God, save us! That is all they could do! In the midst of such pain and suffering, the world of Jesus eagerly hoped and wished for a miracle-- a heaven on earth. They were in hell, and they dreamed for a heaven.

Ananda: It seems that the suffering made them believe that God was no more in power. How can the world be in such bad shape if an all-knowing and all-powerful God is in power?

John: Exactly. They assumed that God was not ruling the world, and they wished for the reestablishment of God’s rule. They related the world to an empire, and God to its emperor. The earth, a province of this empire, had been mismanaged at that time because of the irresponsibility of the governor appointed by God to manage the earth. This governor was a responsible angel to begin with. The earth was originally a part of the mighty Kingdom of Heaven. In those days earth was a place of love, joy, and peace. All the inhabitants of the earth lived like a family caring for one another. Poverty and sickness were unheard of. The earth was a blessed place of plenty and prosperity. However, later when the angel turned irresponsible, a huge wall of enmity rose between heaven and earth. Also there arose among the earthlings the walls of prejudice and hatred in the names of race, color, caste, gender, and class. Thus the earth, which was once a part of Heaven, became a hell. People were hoping that someday God would replace this governor by a responsible one. The present irresponsible governor was called Satan (rebel), and the new one was called the Messiah in Hebrew and Christos in Greek.

Thus Jesus’ world was eagerly looking for the messiah, who was going to descend upon the earth and put an end to the terror of Satan. Some of them believed that the messiah was going to arrive directly from heaven accompanied by the angels of heaven, but some others believed that he was going to enter the earth as a human child.

According to this view there was nothing much the people could do; God had to intervene, and change the governor. But why does God take so long to act? Is there anything people can do to encourage God to act? Anxiety was mounting!

The imagination of their poets and storytellers got fire. They began to describe how the kingdom of God would be like and also the various steps that would lead to the establishment of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God would be a perfect world with righteous people living a righteous life. Any unrighteous people or any unrighteous deed would be unheard of in that world. Therefore, a process of selection must precede the establishment of the Kingdom. The Messiah would assemble all people before him, and classify them into righteous and unrighteous. The unrighteous would be thrown into a huge furnace, and the righteous would be allowed to be the citizens of the Kingdom.  

The coming of the Kingdom presented with a mixture of both joy and fear to the common people. It was good to have a kingdom of peace and justice on earth. But the simple question of “Will I be there?” created a lot of anxiety in each and everyone. The question was answered differently by different people.

Some people thought that Jews were a privileged people because of their great forefather, Abraham. According to them, just by being a Jew, one could be in God’s Kingdom. Thus Jews had nothing to worry about, whereas, non-Jews had the option to accept circumcision and become Jews.  

Some others were not happy with this view. They asserted that it was not enough to be a Jew because there were both righteous and unrighteous people among the Jews. One has to be a righteous Jew in order to be in the Kingdom. This view sounded more sensible. However, it led to more questions about what makes someone righteous.  

One group of people called the Pharisees argued that the righteous people are those who followed the religious ritual rules strictly. They would keep themselves righteous by keeping themselves clean and holy, and by keeping themselves away from all people and things that made them unclean and unholy. The Pharisees prescribed a large number of silly rules of how to observe Sabbath, such as how many feet one may walk, and how many pounds one may lift on that day. They also classified people into righteous and sinners according to how seriously they observed these rules. The majority of the common people, who couldn't follow the intricacy of the rules, were branded sinners by the Pharisees. 

Another group of people argued that the observance of religious rituals won’t make anyone righteous. What matters is how we live our everyday life and how we treat our fellow beings.  Also it is not enough to appear to be righteous. One has to become really righteous inside out. John the Baptizer was one such teacher who gained wide acceptance and popularity. He asked people to change their minds and their lives. As a mark of the change, John invited them to accept a ritual bath in the river, Jordan. The Israelites had crossed this river to enter their land under the leadership of Joshua. Immersing in the same river was the symbol of becoming a new Israel. John claimed to be someone paving the way for the coming King, and accepting the baptism from him provided a certainty to the people of their status in the coming Kingdom. A lot of people accepted John’s invitation to be baptized and change their lives, and thus they got rid of their anxiety.

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