Jesus’s uniqueness and beauty is on display if his followers respond with grace when he is reviled.
When adherents of Islam counter the mocking of their central figure
with outrage and violence, they provide “another vivid depiction of the
difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means to follow
each,” says John Piper.
Piper concedes that not all Muslims approve the violence, but notes
that a profound lesson still stands: “The work of Muhammad is based on
being honored and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. This
produces two very different reactions to mockery.”
A Deep Difference Between Jesus and Muhammad
Jesus is unique. And Christians believe there is a divine beauty in
the mocking that he willingly subjects himself to by becoming man —
because it’s a mocking and reviling and bruising and dying that is for
us and for our salvation. Piper continues in his 2006 article, “Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ’s Work, Not Muhammad’s”:
If Christ had not been insulted, there
would be no salvation. This was his saving work: to be insulted and die
to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Already in the Psalms the path
of mockery was promised: “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at
me; they wag their heads” (Psalm 22:7). “He was despised and rejected by men . . . as one from whom men hide their faces . . . and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3).
When it actually happened it was worse than expected. “They stripped
him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of
thorns, they put it on his head. . . . And kneeling before him, they
mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on him” (Matthew 27:28–30).
His response to all this was patient endurance. This was the work he
came to do. “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep
that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Continue at David Mathis
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