The Shadow of Vespasian

Propers: The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, AD 2024 B

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, wear an iron ring. Not gold, not silver, not encrusted with precious stones. Iron: the stuff of the plow, and the [sword], and the bit in the mouths of the mules [that] my father and grandfather bred. Emperor Nero of late, a patrician of august family, he wore gold. He built the Domus Aurea, the grandest house ever to be built, on land he stole from his citizens.

I, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, will tear down that Domus Aurea, stone by stone. And in its place, I shall build an amphitheater, not for the masters of this city, but for the entertainment and pleasure of the citizenry—the men of iron whose blood and toil built this, our city of Rome.

Such are the words attributed to the Emperor Vespasian in a drama entitled Those About to Die. I think they sum the man up rather well. Vespasian was a soldier, a general, of equestrian background; which is to say, an aristocrat, but not a noble; a second-tier élite. In the seventh decade of the first century—within a single biblical generation of Jesus’ Crucifixion—he crushed Jerusalem, in what Romans called the First Jewish War, and what the Book of Revelation refers to as the end of the world.

It was Vespasian who fulfilled Christ’s prophecy that not one stone would be left upon another. His troops burned the Temple where Jesus had taught. His son sacked the City of David. And all this occurred at about the same time that the Gospels were first written down. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all four preaching in the shadow of Vespasian.

As a general, he came down to Judea to crush the revolt in AD 66. An early battle netted him Flavius Josephus, the famous Jewish resistance fighter turned chronicler, whose history offers a treasure trove to anyone interested in the time of the New Testament. While Vespasian waged the war abroad, Rome back home fell into chaos. The mad Emperor Nero, who famously fiddled while Rome burned—the Beast of Revelation, whose name marks 6-6-6—committed suicide, inaugurating the Year of the Four Emperors.

Vespasian saw his chance. Leaving his eldest son Titus to mop up in Judea, the general secured the grain supply of Alexandria, capital of Greco-Roman Egypt and breadbasket of the Empire. He then sent his armies to conquer Rome, killing even his own rival brother. Vespasian now ruled as both Caesar and Pharaoh, thus doubly divine. He took Jewish slaves and treasure from his conquests, and built of them the Colosseum, an orgiastic temple of suffering and death to glut the endless bloodlust of the mob. And his people loved him for it, worshipped him for it.

Keep in mind that Romans knew very well the biblical prophecies of the Messiah. They had some sibyls of their own who foresaw a world-reigning Christ arising from Judea. Vespasian claimed all these expectations for himself: he was the son of a god; he was the prophesied christ; he fulfilled the hopes of Jews and pagans both alike.

Then he had to spit upon a blind man.

From the very First Dynasty, some 3000 years before Vespasian or Jesus, Egypt had a sacred cult of bulls. The Apis bull, son of the bovine goddess Hathor, served as intermediary betwixt the gods and men. Here we likely have the Golden Calf of Exodus; you see, it all ties back into the Bible. When the bull was sacrificed, a calf would be selected as Apis’ reincarnation. Thus Apis soon syncretized Osiris, the god of the dead. Once the Greeks took over Egypt, after Alexander the Great, Osiris-Apis then became Serapis. Savvy?

But it didn’t end there. The Greeks identified Serapis with Helios, the sun; and then with Zeus, the king of the gods; and soon Serapis became all the gods in one. He was in Alexandria the One God, the God of classical monotheism, God with a capital G. And when Vespasian was in Egypt, a blind man had a dream from Serapis, a dream from God, that his vision could be restored if Vespasian would spit on him. Spittle, like blood, was thought to be the lubricant of life, possessing the vitality of the one who spat.

In Egyptian mythology, God creates the world through the breath and the spit of His mouth, much as the Hebrews understood Creation to proceed from His Spirit and His Word. Spit can heal, if a person is divine. Suetonius and Tacitus, two of Rome’s most famous historians, report that this succeeded: that Vespasian, though reluctant to do so, spat on the blind man and his sight was restored—excellent propaganda for a Caesar of ignoble birth.

And at the same time—at the same time that this story about the divine Emperor arising from Judea to rule all the world in his justice, restoring sight to the blind, is circulating all throughout the Mediterranean—Mark tells the story of Jesus’ miraculous spittle working exactly the same wonders, only earlier. In Mark 7, He heals a deaf man. In Mark 8, it’s a man born blind. He spits and they’re restored.

And I know that this seems weird to us today; unsanitary at best, a sort of superstitious folk-medicine. But people hearing this Gospel would know exactly what Mark meant. They would know that the true Emperor, the true Christ, the true Son of God would bring salvation and healing and wholeness through His touch, His word, His mouth. The Emperor in Rome claimed to be the Christ, yet here instead is Christ revealed as the true Emperor, true Savior, true King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Yet Jesus seeks no propaganda, no justification for His rule. To the contrary, He says, “Don’t tell anyone.” So naturally we cry it from the rooftops. Jesus tells the deaf man not to speak. He tells the blind man not to go into his village. He does all these things in secret, works His wonders in secret, never for Himself, always for the ones He came to save. Yet the Spirit ever witnesses His glory.

We cannot understand the Gospels without understanding Rome. Nor can we understand ourselves until we realize that we still are Rome. We still yearn for political saviors. We think violence a glorious thing. We still send Western armies into the Middle East so that commerce and freedoms may flow. And when religious zealots interfere, well, we don’t use crosses anymore. But we do have drones, and they have cameras.

My point is simply this: we are always trying to reshape the world through violence and power and will; to make a desert and call it peace; erecting economic empires atop the bones of all who may get in our way; and to always use religion as excuse. But Christ has come to gather us to a Kingdom that’s not of this world, in which a sacrificial King offers His life for us all; where enemies are pardoned, the poor are honored, and the dead are raised up from their graves.

Put not your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. Evade the siren song of tribe and blood and soil. There is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for all are one in Jesus Christ. And He does not rule by the sword! He does not build Colosseums on the backs of those He conquers. And the only Blood He sheds shall be His own.

To hell with the thrones of this blood-soaked world! To hell with all Caesars and kings! They spill gore and call it glory. Turn instead to Jesus Christ, in whom there is no variation nor shadow due to change. Find His strength perfected in weakness. He is Lord of Love and Prince of Peace, the Lamb who stands as though slain. And from the heights of highest Heaven to the gaping pits of Hell, none at the last shall escape from His mercy, from the white-hot fires of inexorable grace.

Love wins, terrible as that may seem. Reject the ring of iron. Embrace the Crown of Thorns. And know that by His Cross the King has won.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout
Blog: https://rdgstout.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RDGStout/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqiJiPAwfNS-nVhYeXkfOA
X: https://twitter.com/RDGStout

St Peter’s Lutheran
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064841583987
Website: https://www.stpetersnymills.org/
Donation: https://secure.myvanco.com/L-Z9EG/home

Nidaros Lutheran
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074108479275
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nidaroschurch6026