Lately I’ve been thinking about the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. He fasted for 40 days and was hungry. During this time in the wilderness the devil tempted him three times. The first temptation had to do with Jesus’s hunger. The second temptation, as I understand it, was connected with the human need for validation in the eyes of other people. But the third temptation was something else altogether. Matthew chapter 4, verses 8 and 9 imply that the ‘devil’ has the power to bestow ‘the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,’ if we will only worship him. Jesus’s resistance to these temptations represents the justice of the rupture.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them:
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4: 1-10)
The Cosmic Tyranny
In recent years I’ve begun to think of the earth as surrounded by a closed system and ruled by a sort of cosmic tyranny. I imagine at the head of this cosmic order sits the ‘prince of this world.’ You can call him whatever you want–Matthew called him ‘the devil’. So, when Jesus resisted the devil’s temptations, he was waging a cosmic resistance. According to the article cited below, this cosmic resistance represents the justice of the rupture. If I understand it correctly, this remains the central drama of mortal life. It is the fundamental necessity of the entire human race–the only path to freedom.
This Identifies the Christian God as the Same God Worshipped by the Jews
I believe that this is what the Christians mean when they say their God is the same God worshipped by the Jews. There is a cosmic order that wields power over the Earth and her inhabitants. But there is another power directly opposed to the cosmic order. (Hopefully it is obvious that I am not talking about Jewish or Christian esotericism and the loosely related secret societies that capitulate to the cosmic order.)
Unfortunately, the major religions of our day have taken on much of the lore of the cosmic order. This happened quite early in Christianity’s journey through history. Also unfortunate is the fact that the so-called Christian ‘reformers’ failed to recognize this problem. This is doubly unfortunate because it is not only the central problem of religion. Again, it is the central problem of mortal existence. The failure to recognize this fact taints everything, including the current political environment.
The Cosmic Resistance
J. Leavitt Pearl sees this cosmic resistance in the scripture that tells of Jesus’s baptism.
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy spirit.” In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:4-11, as quoted by J. Leavitt Pearl)
For Pearl the key phrase is, “He saw the heavens torn apart.” It is too easy to pass over this phrase. This may be due to what followed it. It is followed by the dramatic description of the Spirit descending like a dove and a voice coming from heaven and saying to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” But according to Pearl, “The tearing open of the cosmic order is the descent of the True Justice of God, waged against the empires of this world who rule under the banner of ‘order and justice,’ but whose ‘justice’ is always only violence and oppression.”
An Apocalyptic Text
Pearl calls the gospel of Mark an apocalyptic text and describes John as an apocalyptic figure, but his focus is on what happened in the heavens. “…the tearing apart of the heavens is a locus classicus of apocalyptic imagery, found in both…Isaiah 64:1, and…Revelation 6:14.” (To risk belaboring the point, the heavens of the cosmic order are not exactly friendly to this tearing apart.)
The heavens of the Biblical world were not only a spiritual domain and the home of God and other spiritual beings. “…they were equally the heavens above–the skies, the vault across which the stars moved in their predictable patterns. Thus, the heavens were the domain of order and regularity. And despite their extreme complexity, their interpretation could be mastered by a skilled astrologist.” But apparently, cosmic order and regularity can be challenged.
When this domain is torn open with Jesus’s baptism, it indicates a “rupture, a radical inbreaking of something genuinely new. But, this arrival of the new necessarily takes the form of a disruption of the delicate harmony of the cosmos, epitomized by the heavens.”
Pearl goes on to explain that these two opposing forces–the cosmic order and the order represented by Jesus–represent two kinds of justice: the Justice of the whole and the Justice of the rupture. To further explain his argument, he cites Slavoj Zizek’s book, The Fragile Absolute, and Zizek’s description of the cosmic order represented by paganism:
Against the ‘pagan notions of cosmic Justice and Balance,’ wherein ‘an individual is ‘good’ when he acts in accordance with his special place in the social edifice…and Evil occurs when some particular strata or individuals are no longer satisfied with this place, ‘Zizek contrasts Christianity, which ‘asserts as the highest act precisely what pagan wisdom condemns as the source of evil: the gesture of separation, of drawing the line, of clinging to an element that disturbs the balance of the All’ (118-121, as quoted by Pearl)
Comparing the Capitol Insurrectionists
Those who supported the recent insurrection at the Capitol, would like to tell us that theirs is a worthy cause. But what exactly were they fighting for? What were they fighting against? Wasn’t their leader supporting the status quo disguised as a rebel? They were fighting against the justice of the rupture.
This may not be obvious on the surface, because their type of conservatism is not American. The American system doesn’t belong to European conservatism. In contrast to Europe, it is the prototype of a rebel. The American system was enabled by a rebellion. So, the insurrectionists were fighting against a phenomenon that was perfectly legal under the American constitution. They were fighting against the results of a free election.
Pearl tells us that the pagan as described by Zizek is no different from (conservative) Edmund Burke in his Reflection on the Revolution in France, or white moderates who condemned Martin Luther King Jr.’s tactics as ‘extremist’. This type of character is also no different from Fox News pundits who bemoaned the ‘disruption’ of Black Lives Matter protests. They call these revolutionary tactics ‘evil’ because they disrupt a stable order.
The Conservative Path of Supposed Safety
Pearl admits that the rupture represents a risk but, alternatively, the path of supposed safety leads to the Justice of the whole, as exemplified by the philosopher Martin Heidegger who interprets ‘justice’ as ‘Compliance–that is harmonization.’ In fact, Heidegger elevates compliance and harmony to ontological principles. The writings of Heidegger were influential in the rise of Nazism.
Pearl contrasts Heidegger’s justice with an alternative account of justice, a justice of the rupture. For this he cites Jacques Derrida, for whom justice is the domain of the future.
Justice emerges as a call or a demand for responsibility to the Other. It cannot be calculated or anticipated, because justice, if there is such a thing, is always a risk, as Derrida notes in, “The Force of Law.” (947)
The prophet Isaiah, (64:1-2), and the Book of Revelation (6:12-15) each describe a similar view of justice as that of Derrida. It is a justice that casts down the powerful, the oppressors. It is a justice that destroys the class and caste boundaries that order our world, so that ‘everyone, slave and free’ find themselves on an equal footing. For John, any social, political, or economic order that is built on oppression, built on the backs of ‘slaves–and human lives’ (Revelation 18:13) is an order that must be torn open.
Conclusion and Caution
(I don’t want to end this article without mentioning Pearl’s examples of the risks involved in the justice of the rupture. These include the Terror of the French Revolution and the Stalinism that resulted from the October Revolution. I don’t think any of us are willing to risk such things if we can avoid them, and there are things that must be understood if we want to make these kinds of failure less likely. The challenge to the cosmic order represented by Jesus’s response to his temptations in the wilderness are central to this understanding. We must know which order we serve and which order we fight. Otherwise, failure is almost certain. The cosmic order stands ever ready to creep in and take over from those who remain unaware.)