The world used to be a pleasant place. Occasionally trouble would arise—a plague, or a disaster, or an invasion. But men instinctively knew how to deal with all such events—they would find the one responsible, whether he was responsible or not, take him outside the city limits, and stone him there. The pile of stones over the body formed their first pyramid, and thus the people came to celebrate the founding murder. All pagan cultures are nothing more than impressive tombs, decorated mausoleums.
You might think that this is unpleasant, not pleasant, but men also knew how to draw a veil over such troublesome murders, and celebrate them in a way that was decent and fitting. The victim who died for the people was honored and deified and praised, the murder duly memorialized and forgotten.
This process of forgetting murders and exiles is the heart of all pagan mythologies, and in the history of the world, Jesus came to tear the veil off all such mythologies, making the world, in this respect, an unpleasant place.
The world was like Jacob, and God came down and wrestled with him. Jacob said that he would not let go unless God blessed him, and God answered his request by touching him on the hip, putting it out of joint. And so, from that day forth, Jacob limped in his blessedness. Unpleasant, but blessed nonetheless.
This is the world’s blessing. This is the world’s limp. Jesus came, and the respectable and worldly-wise among us saw that it was time for another founding murder. But Jesus, by His resurrection from the dead, and through the Holy Spirit’s work through the four evangelists, insured that no veil could be drawn over it. The curtain was stuck, open, and from that day forward, men would always have to deal with the Crucified One.
This is why, from that day to this, no empire has been able to recover the serene self-confidence of the ancients. We limp. We build nations, and empires, but we still limp. We have impressive economies, but we limp. We can no longer resort to the pagan means of acquiring a clean conscience, which is to lie about the founding murder. We cannot lie about the murder because Jesus is always and forever the Crucified and Risen One.
The world used to be a pleasant place, before Jesus came and put everything out of joint. The world used to be lost.