Master or Servant?

For many years, I have felt bothered by the resurrection of Jesus. Not by the fact that it occurred (or didn't), but by the fact that it didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the story. For some 30 years, there was a poor man living in Palestine; after he died, he became the Lord of the Universe, for ever.

Obviously, people’s situations change, and the phrase “rags to riches” is in common use, but what seemed odd to me was that the message of the first 30 years (or the two to three years of ministry which we are presented in the Gospels) seemed very different from the Lord of the Universe, seated at the right hand of God picture which is running now and for ever. The first thirty years were ones of service, the suffering servant and so on. The rest of forever, is one of dreadful majesty. This seemed quite a contrast.

Now, one can of course rationalise and explain this, and the Church has spent the last 2,000 years doing so. But, just in terms of a pre-rationalized set of images, the before and after are very different, and they send very different messages. In the context of ruling for ever, a few years slumming it with the poorest seems a little like a gap year working in the third world,  between public school and a place at Oxford. It looks good on the C.V. but, thankfully, it is over now. The experience was had, but now one can get back to the serious business of taking one’s rightful place and ruling the universe. The service was real, but it wasn’t forever. What is, forever, is the ruling.

Now, how does this present itself to the human mind? Is God, “Lord” or is God “servant”? I would suggest the former rather than the latter. Assuming that Jesus had a message, which he delivered during his ministry, it wasn’t really “Lord”. So, what has gone on here? And have we perhaps ended up with the wrong message and the wrong Jesus?