The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything

by Brian D. McLaren

In God’s kingdom, he said, the last are first. One’s status in the kingdom is determined by how one treats little children and “the least of these” (Matthew 5:19). Amazingly, according to Jesus, in the kingdom of God, notorious sinners are loved, welcomed home, forgiven, and reconciled—not rejected. Who is rejected in the kingdom of God? Those who are heartless and merciless toward these often-rejected people!

Religious people can become “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:27).

For the ancient prophets, judgment didn’t mean that people would be thrown into hell. Rather, it meant that their evil would be exposed and named, and they would suffer consequences of their evil in history, in this life.

Judgment

A new day is coming—a new earth, a new world order, a new reality, a new realm—in short, a new kingdom. In that new reality, the poor and rejected will be embraced and valued and brought back into the community. In that new era, what will count is what is in the heart—not merely what is projected, pretended, or professed. In that new realm, evil in all its forms will be exposed, named, and dealt with. In that new kingdom, justice, integrity, and peace will overcome.

Boiled down message

Here’s the scandal: not just that Jesus speaks of the new kingdom (although his image of the kingdom is unique and powerful), but that he says the kingdom is at hand , available to be grasped, knocking at the door—not just someday in the future, but here and now . Here and now!

Kingdom here and now

Everyone thought that the kingdom of God could not happen now; it could only happen then—later , after the Romans were ejected or eliminated, which in turn couldn’t happen (for the Zealots) until later , after the Jews were militarily mobilized and led by a great military liberator (or messiah), which couldn’t happen (for the Pharisees) until later , after all the prostitutes and drunks and other undesirables were either reformed or otherwise eliminated. Put together, these conditions were so hard to imagine actually occurring anytime soon that they were considered (by the comfortably adjusted Herodians and their similarly comfortable friends, the Sadducees) completely improbable, no, practically impossible. The kingdom of God? Maybe in some distant someday. At hand, here and now? No way!

Why here now is a scandal

it is a story that gave meaning and shape to life. It was the story Jesus found himself in. Central to the story are seven characters: God, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, and David.1

God constitutes a “crisis response team” in the form of a family—a lineage of people who will, through the generations, remember their Creator and their original purpose and who will seek to bring truth, blessing, wisdom, and healing to all people so that God’s creation can be rescued from human evil.

God begins with an elderly couple, Abraham and Sarah (about 2000 BC), who miraculously conceive in their old age and give birth to the people who will be known as the Jews, people with a special vocation or calling to know God and make God known, to be enlightened and blessed by God, and to enlighten and bless everyone else. (We could call this third episode Calling .)

God calls a man—Moses—to lead them to freedom (about 1400 BC). But how can Moses help Abraham’s descendants reclaim their high and holy calling? They have been degraded and humiliated through generations of abuse and slavery; how can they be restored? Moses receives from God and gives to the people the Law or “Torah”—a wise way of living that will shape the people individually and as a community, restoring their dignity so they can rise from slavery’s degradation and fulfill their original purpose in the healing of creation. As we’ve seen, the prophet-leader Moses is joined by Aaron the priest, who will pioneer a priesthood to help the people be instructed and trained as a holy, healthy, and exemplary people. As we’ve seen, the work of the priests will be supplemented by the prophets and by others (including poets, philosophers, and political leaders) who will carry on a conversation across generations with and about God and about their special relationship—or covenant—with God. (We could entitle this fourth episode in the story Conversation or Covenant —or perhaps Conflict, because remaining faithful to God and God’s calling involves great struggle with both internal and external antagonists.)

Finally, they reach a time of stability and peace under the leadership of King David (about 1000 BC). Will they now fulfill their original calling to bring light to all peoples? Sadly, the kingdom of David slowly deteriorates, and two generations later, the kingdom flounders under foolish, arrogant leadership.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19). Then Jesus dramatically rolls up the scroll, returns it to the attendant, and sits down—sitting being the posture of a teacher in those days. Everyone’s eyes are on Jesus, as they wonder what comment he will make on the passage he has chosen. His comment anticipated what he would say about the kingdom being at hand now: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).

He is claiming to be a new David.

In talking of liberation, he goes back further, evoking the memory of Moses. More, in speaking of a “new commandment” (John 13:34 ESV) or in repeating, “You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you” (Matthew 5:21–48 NRSV), he is identifying himself as a new Moses, a new lawgiver who gives the people a new law.

In refusing to draw or respect racial, religious, moral, ethnic, economic, or class barriers, in welcoming non-Jews and treating them with kindness and respect, in eating with both Pharisees and the prostitutes hated by the Pharisees, Jesus shows his primal kinship with all people—a kind of second Adam who seeks to bring people together after so many centuries of distrust and division.

These are not the words and ways of a polite teacher, no matter how brilliant. They go far beyond the claims of a typical priest, poet, or philosopher—and even beyond the bold words of a normal prophet or reformer. These are the primal, disruptive, inspiring, terrifying, shocking, hopeful words and ways of a revolutionary who seeks to overthrow the status quo in nearly every conceivable way. Jesus’ words indicate that what has been known as impossible is now becoming not only possible but actual

Against that backdrop, perhaps we can now imagine an obscure Jewish carpenter without credentials or status, without army or militia or even a weapon, without nobility or wealth, without even land or a home. With a handful of unimpressive and diverse male followers and a substantial entourage of supportive women as well, he travels from village to village, speaking to rustic peasants and the urban poor, having a special attraction to the unemployed and the homeless, the disabled and the disadvantaged, the social outcasts and the marginalized children and women.

Why no weapons? Why no well-oiled political machine? Why live in constant vulnerability? Why not identify a scapegoat, an enemy, a target of hatred? Because, Jesus says again and again, this kingdom advances with neither violence nor bloodshed, with neither hatred nor revenge. It is not just another one of the kingdoms of this world. No, this kingdom advances slowly, quietly, under the surface—like yeast in dough, like a seed in soil. It advances with faith: when people believe it is true, it becomes true. And it advances with reconciling, forgiving love: when people love strangers and enemies, the kingdom gains ground.

The radical revolutionary empire of God is here, advancing by reconciliation and peace, expanding by faith, hope, and love—beginning with the poorest, the weakest, the meekest, and the least. It’s time to change your thinking. Everything is about to change. It’s time for a new way of life. Believe me. Follow me. Believe this good news so you can learn to live by it and be part of the revolution.

On the other hand, what other kind of revolution could possibly change the world? Perhaps what’s crazy is what we’re doing and pursuing instead—thinking, after all these millennia, that hate can conquer hate, war cure war, pride overcome pride, violence end violence, revenge stop revenge, and exclusion create cohesion. Perhaps we’re the crazy ones!

The revolutionary image of Jesus didn’t come to me in adult church either. There, Jesus was someone whose main job was to die so my sins could be forgiven and I could go to heaven (no small thing, of course!), of great value “in my heart” and outside of this world and history, but not terribly important as a public, historical, present factor in relation to the status quo and the powers that be. Or else he was a teacher whose words would be quoted to condemn people our church or denomination didn’t approve of. (I’m sad to have to say this; I wish it weren’t true.) But Jesus wasn’t presented as someone whose message would overturn our thinking as well.

So here, “eternal life” means knowing, and knowing means an interactive relationship. In other words, “This is eternal life, to have an interactive relationship with the only true God and with Jesus Christ, his messenger.” Interestingly, that’s what a kingdom is too: an interactive relationship one has with a king, the king’s other subjects, and so on.1

a life that is radically different from the way people are living these days, a life that is full and overflowing, a higher life that is centered in an interactive relationship with God and with Jesus. Let’s render it simply “an extraordinary life to the full centered in a relationship with God.”

Born anew or born again , like eternal life , is another frequently misunderstood phrase, one that many people make equivalent to saying a prayer at the end of a booklet or tract, or having an emotional experience at the end of a church service. It often signifies a status achieved through some belief or experience, so that it becomes an adjective: “I’m a born-again Christian.” But it’s clear that Jesus isn’t just talking about a religious experience or status Nicodemus needs to acquire like some sort of certification. No, Jesus is saying, “Nicodemus, you’re a Pharisee. You’re a respected teacher yourself. But if you are coming to me hoping to experience the extraordinary life to the full I’ve been teaching about, you are going to have to go back to the very beginning. You’re going to have to become like a baby all over again, to unlearn everything you are already so sure of, so you can be retaught.”

In a story told by Luke, Jesus has a conversation with a man identified as rich, young, and some sort of political official (Luke 18:18–25). He asks Jesus how he can experience “eternal life”— again, not to be confused with “life after you die.” He is rich, young, and powerful, yet his life is empty; he’s searching for more. Jesus spars with him for a few minutes, questioning the way he has phrased the question. Then Jesus answers his question with a question: “What do you think?” The young ruler gives his answer, and Jesus says, “Good answer. Do that. That will work.” The man is confused, because, he says, he’s been doing this all his life. Then Jesus gives him a shocking reply: “Liquidate all your wealth, and give it all to the poor. Then come and be my disciple.” The man goes away sad, and Jesus is sad as well: you get the feeling he saw real potential in this fellow and liked him a great deal.

Parables entice their hearers into new territory. If the goal is an interactive relationship (which is at the heart of terms like kingdom of God and eternal life , as we have seen), a parable succeeds where easy answers and obvious explanations couldn’t.

boom

In this way parables have a capacity that goes beyond informing their hearers; parables also have the power to help transform them into interactive, interdependent, humble, inquisitive, and persistent people.

Why parables

Maybe then, we have some beginning of an answer to the disciples’ question, and ours. Why did Jesus speak in parables? Why was he subtle, indirect, and secretive? Because his message wasn’t merely aimed at conveying information. It sought to precipitate something more important: the spiritual transformation of the hearers.

Spiritual transformation

It helps form a heart that is humble enough to admit it doesn’t already understand and is thirsty enough to ask questions. In other words, a parable renders its hearers not as experts, not as know-it-alls, not as scholars . . . but as children.

Now do some of the most famous sayings of Jesus begin to make more sense—about the kingdom of God belonging to children, about needing to become like a little child to enter the kingdom, about needing to be born again? Children are dependent, not independent. They can’t learn unless they ask questions of people they trust. Their thirst for knowledge expresses itself in an unquenchable curiosity, a passionate inquisitiveness.

So if the problem is that too many of us are too independent, too self-centered, too set on stubbornly sticking to our own self-determined path . . . if the problem is that too many of us are arrogant know-it-alls, closed-minded adults, overconfident non-thinkers, and altogether too grown up—then the parable renders us into exactly what we need to be: teachable children. No wonder Jesus decides to make his message a secret! No wonder he hides it in metaphor and story!

Simply put, the parable excludes them. In fact, the parable exposes them. In that sense, while parables bring some to childlike, humble rethinking, they bring out the arrogance, anger, impatience, and ugliness of others.

The religious leaders who felt their turf being threatened by Jesus got the meaning and hated it because, according to Luke, “they knew he had spoken this parable against them” (20:19). Their response was to become more dedicated to their own hostile schemes.

We might wish Jesus’ parables could have won over even the Pharisees. (A few, by the way, were won over—including Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and later, a Pharisee named Saul, better known to us as Paul, who became a leading apostle in the early Christian movement.) But if it’s the heart that counts, then hearts can’t be coerced; nobody can be forced. They can be invited, attracted, intrigued, enticed, and challenged— but not forced. And that, perhaps, is the greatest genius of a parable: it doesn’t grab you by the lapels and scream in your face, “Repent, you vile sinner! Turn or burn!” Rather, it works gently, subtly, indirectly. It respects your dignity. It doesn’t batter you into submission but leaves you free to discover and choose for yourself.

Human kingdoms advance by force and violence with falling bombs and flying bullets, but God’s kingdom advances by stories, fictions, tales that are easily ignored and easily misunderstood. Perhaps that’s the only way it can be.

he also communicated the message secretly through signs and wonders.

A worldview is a way of seeing. It’s not just what we see, but how we see everything else. It’s the lens through which we see— a lens of assumptions, beliefs, images, metaphors, values, and ideas that we inherit and construct from our family, our teachers, our peers, our community, and our culture.

Most of us in the modern West—religious or irreligious— have inherited a worldview that was formed largely in the seventeenth century. In this perspective, our world is best compared to a machine. God, if God exists, created the universe like a huge clock: the complex mechanism was designed and wound up in the beginning, was set in motion, and has been ticking away ever since, slowly winding down through a process called entropy. Or it could be compared to brightly colored billiard balls racked up on a green felt table: in the beginning, God arranged the table and hit the white cue ball, and ever since, balls have been bouncing into balls as the universe unfolds in a closed chain of cause and effect.

But Jesus lived long before clocks, billiard tables, or complex machines of any kind. His worldview, his model of the universe, was very different—more organic, less mechanistic. In many ways it was simpler, but in many ways it was grander, more alive, freer, subtler, and more dynamic: God was neither absent and outside the universe nor trapped inside it. Rather, God was connected to the universe, present with it, and intimately involved in it. So the universe was less like a machine and more like a family, less like a mechanism and more like a community. The very word kingdom suggests as much: kings are relationally involved in their kingdoms. They are present, active, participatory, and engaged. They aren’t simply a part of the kingdom—one part among many—but neither are they apart from it.

In this universe, God gives us space and time to live our lives. We have a measure of freedom, but our freedom doesn’t eradicate God’s freedom. God has freedom, but God’s freedom doesn’t extinguish ours. As we’ve said before, it’s a universe in interactive relationship with God. (In this light, Jesus’ invitation into the kingdom of God was an invitation into the original universe, as it was meant to be.)

Jesus stops on the sidewalk, looks back at the reporter, and says, “This was a sign, a wonder. As a sign, it signifies the reality and nature of the kingdom. As a wonder, it fills you with wonderment . It makes you think. It breaks all of your categories of what is possible and impossible. That’s how the kingdom is. What is impossible with humanity is possible with God.”

First, they involve healing rather than destruction.

Second, they are related to faith. The relationship is complex, because sometimes Jesus’ miracles occur in response to faith and at other times they occur in order to stimulate faith. Interestingly, Jesus often minimizes his own role in the process by saying, “Your faith has made you well” not, “I have made you well” (see, for example, Luke 8:48; 17:19; 18:42).

Third, as we’ve seen, signs and wonders have a symbolic or secret meaning.

Fourth, Jesus generally tells people to be quiet about signs and wonders.

Fifth, it’s clear that Jesus’ signs and wonders aren’t in themselves the point. Rather, like road signs, they point to the point.

I have become convinced that Jesus’ worldview is better than ours. It’s not that an external intruder is fiddling with the laws of nature. It’s not that the mechanism is being tampered with from the outside. Rather, it’s that the universe isn’t a machine at all; it’s more like a family, a community, or a kingdom . And God isn’t positioned outside of the universe, reaching in occasionally, but rather God is here, in it with us, present, near.

In fact, this is in large part what I believe the signs and wonders of Jesus are secretly telling us: that God, the good King, is present—working from the inside. The King is in the kingdom, and the kingdom is among us here and now—for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The King is present in the mess and chaos of everyday life on earth, bringing healing, sight, perception, liberation, wholeness, wholesomeness, movement, health, fullness, nourishment, sanity, and balance. The incursion of the kingdom of God has begun. We are under a gentle, compassionate assault by a kingdom of peace and healing and forgiveness and life.

If we leave questions of factuality suspended, in the end I believe we will agree on this conclusion: for Jesus’ secret message of the kingdom to be realized, it must first expose the evil of all alternative kingdoms or regimes or systems or ideologies. And for that evil to be exposed, it must be drawn out of the shadows, where it hides in secret.

At one point, he says plainly and stunningly, “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20).