Jesus came to bring good news to the poor.
Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted.
Jesus came to proclaim liberty to captives.
Jesus came to release the prisoners.
All this proclaimed by Jesus, as He read from the Book of Isaiah standing in the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of His public ministry.
And then, as the days of His time on the earth began to unfold it became clear that Jesus also came to reveal God. He did this through what He said (John 12:49) and did (John 5:19). Making this as clear as He could, Jesus said, “Whoever has seen Me, has seen the Father. (John 14:9)” and “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).
A particular aspect of God, revealed by Jesus was God as Father. “The idea of God being a heavenly Father was not a popular or common concept among the Jews,” wrote Dennis Pollock, evangelist and teacher for Spirit of Grace Ministries, McKinney, TX. “There are a couple of Old Testament references to God as Father, but this idea had never really caught on with the Jews. God was too holy, too strict, too remote, and too distant to think of Him as Father. And yet Jesus insisted this was how we were to begin our prayers, reminding ourselves at the outset that we were in a loving relationship with our divine Maker.”
Jesus taught that God is a loving Father. (1 John 3:1). Jesus taught that our Heavenly Father is very generous. (Matthew 6:25-26). Jesus taught that our Father is intimately involved in and aware of us and our circumstances. (Matthew 10:29).
An added element of Jesus’ ministry, one that gets little attention from biblical teachers, is that He came to reveal the condition of man. In other words, He came to reveal us to us.
That this gets missed more often than not, is surprising given the fact that the human condition is what Jesus talked about and pointed out, a lot. Every parable, every teaching, every sermon is primarily about how we treat each other, how we think, how we act.
Unfortunately, too many times we don’t see clearly when Jesus is describing our human condition and mistakenly attribute what He is saying to how God thinks and acts.
This is especially problematic when the human-based parable characters are interpreted as Jesus painting a caricature of God the Father. The father in the Prodigal Son story is one of these often misinterpreted characters. The father in the story displays some God-like characteristics (he is extremely forgiving, long suffering, and loving), but he is still very human-like in many ways and stops short of being an accurate portrait of our Heavenly Father.
It might be a little easier to accept this about the nobleman in the Luke 19 Parable of the Ten Talents. Suggestions that Jesus (God) is the nobleman in the story, paints a wrong picture of the Heavenly Father whom Jesus came to reveal. In the story, the servants who invested the master’s money risked disappointing him by making unwise investments. Fear reigns in the story as the nobleman is described by one servant as a “harsh man” and then he proves the truth of this statement by ordering his enemies be slaughtered in his presence.
It isn’t hard to imagine the agreement, among Jesus’ audience, of the nobleman’s actions. This is how they did things. This is what they probably believed was right and just.
Our perspective of the story, however, should be influenced by what comes before and after it’s inclusion in the Bible. Just before the Parable of the Ten Talents, Luke 19 opens with Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector. As a tax collector for the Romans, Zacchaeus, a Jew, was considered “a sinner” by the Jews at that time. (Luke 19:7)
But Jesus ignores Zacchaeus’ reputation and his position of authority and purposes that he “must stay” at the tax collector’s house. And, as Luke unfolds the story, we quickly see Jesus being about His Father’s business. Close to Zacchaeus and his family, Jesus announces that “salvation has come to this house” and restates His primary mission given by His Father, “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
Luke’s two stories following the parable of the Ten Talents both describe Jesus acting in accord with His intention to “reveal the Father.”
In Luke 19:28-40, God the Father is revealed as Jesus humbles himself riding a young horse through the streets of Jerusalem in order to get eye-level with His hurting children. And in Luke 19:-41-44, Jesus reveals the compassion and love of God the Father as He weeps over the coming destruction of Jerusalem and it’s inhabitants.
Jesus often applied “God-like” characteristics to the king or master or lord or nobleman characters in his parables. But no matter how good or wise or merciful He made them, none are accurate representations of our all-wise, all-loving, and all-forgiving God. If we are honest with ourselves, we can see that it is us and our behavior reflected through the parable characters.
Jesus didn’t need to talk about God the Father in allegory as a way to reveal Him to the world. The world had Jesus standing right in front of them as the actual, bonefide flesh and blood representative of His Father. “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5)
What Jesus showed through His parables was the best and worst of what humans can be and do under law. This is an important point to get since, as Paul explained in Romans 3, the law was purposed by God to expose sin and show that even perfect adherence to law cannot bring righteousness. “In order that the blessing (promise) given to Abraham might come . . . through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” (Galatians 3:14)
Through the parables, Jesus was telling us “this is what you do” but then pointed to the more excellent way.
It is important that we allow the mirror (Jesus holds up through the parables) to reflect back to us our true human condition. Then we can see the ways in which are we oppressed and brokenhearted, captives to our condition, and how desperately we need a Savior.
Illustration from Chabad.org.
Catholic Apostolic Group 