Lent Review: The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus Final Week in Jerusalem

I might as well admit (confess?) it: This Lent has been badly acknowledged and participated in by this writer. I made the mistake of buying and moving to a new house just a few days before Ash Wednesday. For the first time in memory, I did not participate in the imposition of ashes. And all Sundays so far have been spent trying desperately to get the remnant of my books and clothes out of my former apartment before the lease expires on March 31st. It seems that what I have given up is Lent itself!

Still, I am in the book business and I buy and read books obsessively, even during such a stressful time as a move. So when I saw the attractive cover of a book by theologians Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, famous for their work on the historical Jesus, I layed down the money, bought and read it. Without any prior planning, the reading of this book has become my de facto Lenten exercise.

The book is titled The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem (San Francisco: Harper, 2006). Crossan and Borg trace the narrative of Jesus's last week, beginning with the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, based on the Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the gospels. The crisp prose and the unsentimental, yet nuanced, "working over" of literary and historical materials provides a fresh and challenging view of what happened to Jesus and those around him during his last week.

I won't try to rehash the flow of what Crossan and Borg develop. But I will lift up three insights that provide me with new keys to understanding the original events of Holy Week.

First, the authors portray the leadership of Jerusalem, especially the culture and structures of the Temple, as constituting a sort of collaborative government representing the Roman Empire. Borg and Crossan call this a "domination system" in which religious content and structures legitimate imperial and elite interests. Over against this, Jesus represents a non-violent Kingdom of God that cannot be tolerated by the Roman Empire and their Jewish representatives in Jerusalem. This frank political analysis of what was happening at the Temple and in Jerusalem enrich my understanding of Jesus' confrontation with the authorities and his resulting death.

Second, the authors demonstrate that atonement theology surrounding Jesus (i.e. Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who must be given up to atone for the sins of the world) is alien to Mark. They comment that Jesus did not die for the sins of the world (we repeat during the Eucharist "Agnus Dei who takest away the sins of the world") but he died because of human sin, limitation and frailty. I have never understood atonement theology but I definitely understand the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark: Declaring a kingdom of God with values opposite to those of the Roman kingdom or empire and being sentenced to death as a criminal because of his passionate espousal of these values.

Third, the authors address a question that I have had for a long time: Did the events of Holy Week have to happen? The idea of God foreordaining the death of Jesus has always been repugnant to me. The authors simply state that events converged in such a way that Jesus was executed. Something else could have happened. But as we look back on the events in retrospect, we can see God's hand in them.

Whew! Just when I thought that I had come to terms with many traditional theological concepts I bought and read this book. It brought to the surface some of my doubts and addressed them in a way that actually strengthens my faith.

In my bedroom is a wonderful ebony crucifix that I purchased some years ago in Mozambique. I look at it often and often focus my prayers and meditations on it. Now, having read Borg and Crossan, I can bring some new understandings to these moments.

And, yes, I definitely recommend the book to the readers of The Blue Ogee.