{"id":2627,"date":"2023-05-18T07:24:39","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T11:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2627"},"modified":"2023-05-18T07:24:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T11:24:39","slug":"graffiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/18\/graffiti\/","title":{"rendered":"Graffiti"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
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Hollywood\u2019s love affair with Indiana Jones launched an international passion for archeology.\u00a0
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Who wouldn\u2019t want to crack open the door of a long-forgotten temple \u2013 unseen by human eyes for centuries \u2013 in order to search for priceless treasures?\u00a0 OK, maybe crack open the door of a long-forgotten temple without all the cobwebs and snakes and poison arrows.
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College-level archeology classes exploded in popularity at the end of the 20th<\/sup> century, and many of the men and women who are currently digging into the past acknowledge that George Lucas\u2019 films are what first ignited their interest in the field.\u00a0
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Real-life archeology, of course, rarely involves the kind of \u201cloot and scoot\u201d adventures we see on the screen. \u00a0\u00a0
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Archeologists spend much of their time taking notes and taking pictures.\u00a0 They painstakingly work their way through piles of broken pottery.\u00a0 They are far more likely to find a few scraps of papyrus or a piece of bone than an amulet worn by a queen.\u00a0 We may consider contemporary graffiti a nuisance or even a desecration, but archeologists are always fascinated to see what people in ancient times scrawled on their walls.
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One such graffito (that\u2019s the singular of graffiti) from a wall in ancient Rome has attracted considerable attention.\u00a0 \u00a0
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In was discovered in 1857 when archeologists unearthed part of the imperial palace of Caligula, one of the most notorious of the early Roman emperors. \u00a0Historians believe the property became a boarding school for the messenger boys of Roman nobles.\u00a0 It appears that one of the boys was doing what boys tend to do in every generation \u2013 pick on another kid.\u00a0
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A photograph of the graffito appears in the left panel above, with a rendering of its simple lines on the right. \u00a0Someone has drawn a crude picture of a man being crucified.\u00a0 Instead of a human head, the victim bears the head of an ass.\u00a0 A smaller figure stands to the left, with one arm extended toward the cross. \u00a0Underneath, scrawled in crude Greek letters, are the words, \u201cAlexamenos worships his God.\u201d\u00a0
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No one knows the back story of this picture.\u00a0 But we can guess.\u00a0
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A boy named Alexamenos was a Christian.\u00a0 At least one other boy decided to mock him.
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The graffito can be dated somewhere between the first and third centuries A.D.\u00a0 It\u2019s well known that the pagans of the Roman Empire dismissed the worship of Jesus as absurd.\u00a0 Paul wrote to the church at Corinth (just after A.D. 50), \u201cWe preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles\u201d (I Corinthians 1:23).\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0What made \u201cChrist crucified\u201d foolishness?\u00a0
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Crucifixion wasn\u2019t just capital punishment.\u00a0 It was the most humiliating thing to which a human being might be subjected.\u00a0 Roman citizens, by law, could not be crucified.\u00a0 The cross was reserved for traitors and slaves. \u00a0Depictions of this form of punishment were considered deeply objectionable. \u00a0That\u2019s why the cross didn\u2019t begin to appear with regularity in Christian art until the sixth century.\u00a0
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Marcus Cornelius Fronto, a second century Roman orator, declared that \u201cthe religion of the Christians is foolish, inasmuch as they worship a crucified man, and even the instrument itself of his punishment.\u201d
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Pagans could not fathom the idea that someone who was nailed, naked and alone, to a couple of wooden planks was worthy of honor and respect.\u00a0 The cross was intended to subtract<\/em> all honor and respect.\u00a0 On top of that, the suggestion that a divine being would come to earth and suffer ignominious defeat \u2013 and then be worshiped as the one who alone could defeat evil \u2013 was simply laughable.\u00a0
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So Alexamenos was jeered.\u00a0 Have fun with your Holy Ass god.\u00a0
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We need to understand that this was normal during the first centuries of the church.\u00a0 Jesus even warned his disciples that if he was going to be mistreated and misunderstood, they were also going to be mistreated and misunderstood (see John 16:1-4).\u00a0 That\u2019s not what we would prefer, of course.\u00a0 But it\u2019s part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus. \u00a0
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A strange idea, however, sometimes gains traction in places where Christianity, over time, becomes the majority religion.
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It goes something like this: Jesus ought to be respected.\u00a0 In fact, he must<\/em> be respected.\u00a0 Christians should never have to put up with ridicule. \u00a0Those who mock Jesus should be held accountable. \u00a0\u00a0
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The movement called \u201cDominion Theology\u201d has captured the imagination of some American churchgoers.\u00a0 It\u2019s not subtle.\u00a0 Our country must be \u201ctaken back\u201d for Christ.\u00a0 Christianity shouldn\u2019t be one among many options on the spiritual smorgasbord. \u00a0The government should be reconstructed in such a way that Christianity alone<\/em> is given religious entitlements.\u00a0 The Constitution might be useful, but only to a point.\u00a0 Why not treat it as merely a vehicle for implementing biblical principles?
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Perhaps we should let Paul have the last word.\u00a0 A few sentences later in the same letter to the Corinthians he writes, \u201cBut God chose\u00a0the foolish\u00a0things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.\u00a0God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things\u2014and the things that are not\u2014to nullify the things that are\u201d (I Corinthians 1:27-28).\u00a0
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Jesus never said, \u201cI can\u2019t wait for my followers to elect enough officials and pass enough laws to require<\/em> their whole society to acknowledge me.\u201d\u00a0
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Should we work and serve and pray as earnestly as we can to influence everyone we know to love God and love each other?
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Of course.
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But we should never be surprised that Jesus isn\u2019t everyone\u2019s cup of tea.\u00a0 Some people \u2013 perhaps many people \u2013 will always see him, as Paul puts it, as foolish, weak, shameful, and despised.
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Nor should we be surprised if someone scrawls a graffito that says the very same things about us.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0Hollywood\u2019s love affair with Indiana Jones launched an international passion for archeology.\u00a0\u00a0Who wouldn\u2019t want to crack open the door of a long-forgotten temple \u2013 unseen by human eyes for centuries \u2013 in order to search for priceless treasures?\u00a0 OK, maybe crack open the door of a long-forgotten temple without all the cobwebs… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,599,587],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archeology","tag-dominion-theology","tag-rejection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2629,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions\/2629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}