Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Result: the first petition of the Our Father, which, because it is placed first of all, Jesus apparently regarded as the most important and most urgent in the prayer of his disciples, has a precise meaning, its content clearly outlined: it is a plea for the eschatological gathering and restoration of the people of God. That is exactly the way in which the Name of God will be hallowed.

The Choice of the Twelve

Thus Jesus has his disciples pray in the Our Father for the eschatological gathering of Israel. But he not only asks them to pray for it. He acts. Jesus chooses for himself—probably from out of a larger group of disciples—twelve whom he will send out in pairs to proclaim the reign of God throughout the land. They represent the gathering of Israel:

[And he goes] up the mountain and [calls] to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he [created] twelve to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. [And he created] the Twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. (Mark 3:13-19)

“He created” points to a unique event at a particular place and a particular time. Jesus, with a demonstrative gesture that must have impressed, constituted a circle of twelve disciples. The number twelve can only refer to the twelve tribes of Israel.

But reference to the twelve tribes touches a central point of Israel’s eschatological hope, for although the system of twelve tribes had long ceased to exist, people hoped that in the eschatological time of salvation the people of the twelve tribes would be fully restored. The end of the book of Ezekiel describes, in broad strokes, how the twelve tribes, brought back to life in the end time, will receive their definitive shares in the Land (Ezek 47–48). Against the background of this living hope Jesus’ creation of the Twelve can only be seen as a deliberate sign of eschatological fulfillment. The Twelve exemplify the gathering and restoration of Israel as the eschatological people of the twelve tribes that is now beginning with Jesus. They thus embody the growth center of eschatological Israel.

Places of Jesus’ Activity

The theological program revealed in the call to decision in Matthew 12:30 (“whoever is not with me”), then in the lament in Matthew 23:37 (“Jerusalem, Jerusalem”), then in the first petition of the Our Father, but above all in the creation of the Twelve, corresponds precisely to Jesus’ actual presence on the scene. He restricted his activity to Jewish territory. Nazareth, Nain, Cana, Capernaum, Chorazin, Magdala, and Bethsaida were places long occupied by a Jewish population.

There is not a single reason to believe that Jesus ever left Jewish territory to teach in the presence of Gentiles. When it happened that he entered Gentile territory (Mark 5:1; 7:24, 31; 8:27) the reason may have been in part that he sought out marginal Jewish groups in boundary zones. The relevant texts, strikingly enough, do not say that he entered Gerasa, Tyre, or Caesarea Philippi. They speak, instead, of the rural surroundings of each of these ancient cities.

Obviously Jesus could meet Gentiles everywhere, even in primarily Jewish territory. In several such encounters he also healed Gentiles. But such healings were consciously related in the Synoptic tradition as exceptions. In the story of the centurion at Capernaum (Luke 7:1-10) the relationship to Israel is explicitly established: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith” (Luke 7:9). The same is true of the story of the Syrophoenician woman and her sick daughter (Mark 7:24-30). When the woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter, Jesus at first refuses: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27). Obviously the purpose of this image is not to show that Gentiles are dogs. Instead, it is about the Bible’s principle of salvation history: first Israel must be saved, and only then can the Gentiles also be convinced of God’s salvation.

It is still the time when salvation must transform Israel. The hour in which the Gentiles’ hunger can be satisfied has not yet come. That Jesus then, nevertheless, allows himself to be persuaded by the quick-witted woman—she simply turns his saying back on him—shows his openness and respect for the Gentile world. Jesus does not let himself be bound by rigid strategies, but fundamentally his concern is with Israel.