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Acts 11:19-26: "19 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.  20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.  21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.  22 The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.  23 When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose,  24 for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.  25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,  26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians."

The Gospel in a Multi-Ethnic City

I happen to be Kaleo's token Asian on preaching staff, not by design, just happens to be that way.  I'm going to be talking about the gospel as it relates to a multi-ethnic city like San Diego.  One of the things that really excites me about Kaleo is that we're not seeking to buy a huge building (should we buy one we will keep it no larger than this service) or even make a great church, but to build a great city.  One of our theme verses comes from Jeremiah 29:7 "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."  We are seeking to be a movement of churches across San Diego, powered by the gospel.  We believe that the gospel causes not only personal conversion and renewal (ie - making us better husbands, wives, fathers, mothers), but it also causes community formation (people from various walks of life with nothing in common but Christ), renewed social concern (it makes us better neighbors who just care about making the city better), and reconciliation between races and classes in a way the world can never provide. 

 I was having a discussion with someone in my missional community when they stopped me and asked, "What do you actually mean when you say multi-ethnic?"  My initial reaction would normally be, "Isn't it obvious?  Multi = many and ethnicities = races, what's the confusion?"  But the person asking me happened to not only be an extremely intelligent guy but also is one of our missional community leaders, Tim Yarbrough, so I took it seriously.   He told me that whenever he hears me or the other elders use that word to him it means "less Caucasian."  Recently at a Resurgence conference, John Piper (a renowned Reformed theologian and Pastor) publicly declared that he didn't care if some Christians label him as pro "Affirmative Action", he and the elders of Bethlehem Baptist were committed to hiring multi-ethnic leaders, this despite the fact that 80-90% of his congregation is white.  If several eligible and qualified candidates for eldership come up from his congregation, they are willing to pass them up in favor of a multi-ethnic leadership.  Other Acts 29 pastors, like Mike Gunn of Harambee Church in South Seattle, are doing the same.  He is in the processes of installing an older Chinese gentleman on preaching staff; there are already two other Asians and one African American on staff, making him the only Caucasian.

Racism and Reverse Discrimination

When Tim told me what "Multi-ethnic" meant to him I realized, not only was it a legitimate question, it was the first time I had ever witnessed reverse discrimination.  Reverse discrimination is when someone from majority culture feels discriminated against by minority culture.  If you are Asian and live on the West Coast this is something you may encounter much more frequently.  If you're a college student you know what I'm talking about.  On almost every UC campus, Asians are becoming a majority of the student body.  What has long been true of Berkley, UCLA, and UC Irvine, in the last few years has become true of UCSD: Asians make up around 50-55% of the school. 

But I didn't grow up on the west coast; I was born and raised in the Midwest, Detroit Michigan.  I feel qualified to speak about discrimination, not only because I've faced discrimination from majority culture, but also from within my own minority culture.  Most importantly the gospel has revealed racism in my own heart, and worse than that, a deep seated classism I didn't know was there. 

Detroit is very proud of its black heritage.  We had one of the earliest and longest running black Mayors, the honorable Coleman A. Young.  We have monuments to black history all over the city, like the birthplace of Mo-town records.  In the center of town there is a monument to Joe Louis the boxer that is just a giant black fist suspended in air.  In Detroit even white guys like Eminem think they're black.  As a result Detroiters are fiercely anti-racist when it comes to whites and blacks, but Asians are fair game.  I got into race-related fights growing up in Detroit; often in whatever school I attended I WAS the Asian population, or at least 50% of it.  I was in three major fights growing up, one resulting in a broken arm when 12 of my classmates jumped me at once (and this was in a Christian school).  This was a discrimination I expected, what I was surprised by was the discrimination I received from my own ethnicity. 

Koreans have a fierce ethnic pride.  If you are Caucasian and try to speak Korean, even if your accent is horrible most Koreans will treat you like you have given them a great honor.  However if you are Korean and are not completely fluent they treat you like you are a disgrace to their people.  I speak no Korean, so when I walk into a restaurant and have a conversation with a friend in English, I'll get a lecture from my waiter, even in America. 

But this pales in comparison to the discrimination that half Koreans face.  Some of you may remember Hines Ward; he was the MVP of Super Bowl 40.  Sports Center told the tear-jerking story of how his mother fled Korea due to discrimination when he was two.  Hines Ward's mother was Korean and his father an African American G.I.  While walking down the streets of Seoul with her half black child, his mother would get spit on by random strangers.  In America he wasn't fully accepted by blacks because he was too Korean, he wasn't accepted by Koreans for being too black, and whites didn't accept him because he was too Korean and Black.  He grew up with great bitterness that fueled his drive to succeed.  When he was awarded the game MVP, Korea accepted him with wide arms.  He was bestowed the key to the city, he was given lavish gifts, and everywhere he went he was treated like royalty, they even accepted his mother.  This was touted as a story of reconciliation but in truth, had he not been awarded the MVP, Koreans would have continued rejecting him for not being Korean enough.  It was only when he reached national fame that Koreans finally accepted him, because of course it was the Korean side of him that enabled him to become successful, his acceptance was pride-based. 

Is Multi-ethnicity a Gospel Issue?

It's legitimate to ask if this is even a gospel issue.  Some would say no, like Barry Kosmin, a research professor in public policy and law and director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.  "Secular people still believe there's sin, judgment and punishment, says sociologist It's just a different list of sinners than religious traditions teach. What is unacceptable has changed," Kosmin observes. "Racism and sexual harassment, which were not sins in the past, are now. Adultery and addiction are just bad or sad behavior. And commercial sex is a no, but breaking the bonds of marriage is not."   He says it's a recent concern that has taken the place of more tradition Judeo-Christian values. 

If we think of multi-ethnicity as embracing any or all ethnicities, then the opposite is not mono-ethnicity but racism, which would be excluding any or all cultures but your own.  If that's true, then it becomes a valid question because that seems to be true for a part of the Old Testament does it not?  It really seems like if your ethnicity happened to end in either "tine" or "ite" (i.e. - Philistines, Amorites, Hittites, etc.) God had it in for you! God's instructions to the Israelites were often to destroy them all, even their livestock.   Most Christians treat the Old Testament as if God was in His moody- teen years back then and in the New Testament He grew up.  So today I'm going to ask three simple questions.

Does the Bible talk about racism? 

Does it contain any answers to the problems of race and class? 

How can we apply them today?  

I believe the bible does contain answers, particularly as it relates to the gospel when it encounters a multi-ethnic city, answers which at no time since the first century have they been as applicable in our world.  I won't be able to answer all the questions that race and class bring up in the bible, I will however begin by showing you how the gospel from beginning to end had multi-ethnicity in mind.

I.  Does the Bible talk about racism? 

Many of us are familiar with Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 American classic "The Ten Commandments."  I watched it almost every Easter.  For many of us, Charlton Heston is Moses.  It had a cast of 1000's, lavish costumes, beautiful sets, and most of all state-of-the-art special effects for its day.  As wonderful as this movie is, it also has many quirks.  For instance, Edward G. Robinson (known for playing gangsters in the 1930's) is an Egyptian task master who oddly still sounds like a Chicago gangster.  It also depicts a love triangle between Moses, Zipporah, and Pharaoh's daughter.  The hot Egyptian temptress is not in the book, but there is a potential love triangle.  The actress who played Moses' wife was Yvonne De Carlo (most famous for playing the mom on the TV show "the Munsters"), who plays a Midianite Shepherdess.  The first part is true: they meet in the dessert as shepherds try to run the seven daughters of Jethro away from a well.  Moses charges in and saves the day, even watering her sheep.  They run back and tell their father all about it to which Jethro's response is "and you left him there by the well?! Go back and bring him!"  They have a feast and he marries Zipporah the eldest daughter.   Zipporah was a Midianite; Midianites were a Semitic (Middle Eastern) people, meaning they were descendants of SHEM. 

In Exodus 4 we come to a scene that for obvious reasons (it's a bit graphic) was not in the movie.  It takes place after Moses encounters God in the burning bush, he and his family are on their way to Egypt when God strikes Moses with a sickness and threatens to end the campaign before it has begun.  We're not told why but Moses had not performed the rite of circumcision (the sign of the covenant) upon his sons.  Zipporah grabs the stone knife, circumcises her sons, grabs the foreskins and throws them at Moses feet saying (v.25) "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!"   After which we never hear from Zipporah again.  In the mean time in Numbers 12 we hear about an anonymous wife who is a Cushite.  Cushites came from Northern Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia.  The question is what happened to Zipporah? 

In Exodus 18 we find out that she never went to Egypt, she never stood by her man as depicted by the movie.  She went home with her sons back to her father Jethro.  In Exodus 18 we see Moses stopping by his Father-in-law's to give testimony of the great deliverance God had given, and he gets some fatherly advice from him about how to care for all the people.  There are four theories, two are possible and two are ridiculous.  The first theory is that Moses got a divorce, the Hebrew phrase used here (v.2) "sent her home" is nearly identical to the phrase used to signify divorce.  This is plausible.  We find in the New Testament (Matt 19:7) that a certificate of divorce originated during the time of Moses.  The second explanation is the Mormon interpretation that he had two wives at the same time making Moses was a polygamist, but there is no validity to that claim.  The third is the most far fetched: that both wives are the in fact the same woman, that Jethro had somehow adopted a Cushite as his eldest daughter.  This is only mentioned in passing and not really a plausible answer.  The last option is that she simply died and it wasn't central to the story so it just isn't mentioned.  Both the first and the last are plausible answers.  Cushites were a Hamitic people because they were descendants of HAM.  Cush being the eldest son of Ham, Cush is considered the father of the African nations.  There is no dispute on this because Cushites still exist today.  The Cushite language is still spoken today by several African tribes, so this anonymous wife was most definitely black. 

In Num 12:1-2 we see a clear case of racism.  It says, "Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.  ² And they said, ‘Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?' And the LORD heard it."  What follows is God's response.  He tells them to meet Him outside the tent of meeting; someone is going to the woodshed.  A Pillar of cloud envelops them and when it recedes Miriam is stricken with leprosy.  We're not told why Aaron is not; it could be that Aaron was just listening to Miriam complain and his silence equates to agreement.  We don't know.  At this point Aaron and Moses intercede on behalf of Miriam, and ask for God to relent in His wrath, and Moses forgives his sister.  God eventually does but still requires Miriam to be sent outside the camp for ceremonial uncleanness as required by law. 

Q.  What is the sin that God deals with?

A.   The question of authority not racism.  Correct.

Q.  But what does v.1 say is the true heart reason behind Miriam's complaint?

A.   Because she was a Cushite.

This brings up a very important point.  Racism is easily masked.  Although God deals with the question of authority, the inerrant word of God tells us not just once but twice the true reason behind the problem was because she was a Cushite woman.  We are given her internal dialogue, which she may not even have been aware of herself.  We still do this today; we mask our racism through other pious and legitimate concerns.   

Center City Development Corp. (CCDC) has been largely responsible for the revitalization of San Diego's downtown area.  They also care about making the city great and use many of the techniques we see in Antioch such as relocation and redistribution; but for redistribution they use another word: gentrification.  Gentrification is the displacement of the less desirable downtown homeless, pushing them further east so that a higher class of San Diegans can move into newly developed high rise apartments and condos.  The issue is revitalization, but isn't this merely racism and classism masked by forward progress?  Miriam was basically being the disapproving older sister, fronting what seemed to her to be a noble and legitimate cause to hide her disapproval of her family Gentile inclusion.  But we should neither be surprised by her ability to mask racism nor the fact that Moses had a Gentile inclusion.  Every Gentile inclusion in the Old Testament points to the future fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham, that through him all nations would one day be blessed.  In the genealogy of Christ given in Matthew there are Jews who are omitted and Gentiles who are strikingly included like a Gentile prostitute, and a Moabite widower.  These early Gentile inclusions ultimately point to what happens in Acts 11.

II.  Does it offer any answers to the problems of race and class?

The spread of the gospel to Antioch was a result of Jews fleeing the persecution (v.19) that followed the stoning of Stephen.  Up until this point the gospel had only gone out to Jews (Acts 11:19b).  On Pentecost they had seen their largest conversion where 3000 men enter the Kingdom, a direct inversion of the 3000 that perished at Sinai when Israel first received the law from Moses.  But since that day they had not seen a mass conversion.  Though many languages were spoken, these were ethnic Jews, like the Hellenists, who had more in common culturally with the Greeks.  What happened in Antioch not only shocked the leaders in Jerusalem, but modern historians, sociologists, anthropologist, and church growth experts and theories today because it went against all perceived wisdom of the day.  Their understanding of growth of the Kingdom mirrors our own today.  

If you're seeking to grow a church, where should you plant?  In the city where there are so many social problems, urban decay, and a lack of ample parking?  Where there are liberal elitists, people who are not only skeptical but are also deeply irreligious?  Or do you plant in the suburbs, where there's plenty of land and parking, where there are parks and safe places for families to live and grow up, where there are social conservatives who are religious?  The suburbs are where churches grow, surely not the city. 

Church experts say the fastest way to grow a church is to be mono-ethnic, rather than multi-ethnic.  And by this they don't only mean Caucasian: German communities plant German churches, Hispanic communities plant Hispanic churches, etc.  Why?  For the same reason people naturally pick their friends and acquaintances.  Ask yourself why you hang out with the people you do?  Why do singles hang out with other singles, married couples with kids with other married couples with kids?  Affinity, we gravitate towards people like ourselves with common interests, going through a common life stage as we are.  It's a form of self-centeredness.  We like to hang out with people like us because it affirms our identities (who we are).  It is therefore a form of self-worship.

In the Jerusalem church, they believed the best way to grow a church was around an apostle or great speaker, like Peter or Barnabas.  That's exactly the way American churches grow today.  Ministries are built around a superstar, a personality instead of a community.   If I say the name "Madonna", "Bono", or even "Paris" people instantly know who I'm talking about, I don't even need to say a last name.  If in an evangelical setting I say the name "Rick", "Joel", or "Miles" people often know immediately that I mean Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and Miles McPherson.

As the gospel went from rural and mono-ethnic Jerusalem to Antioch, a multi-ethnic city 15 times its size, no one expected it to succeed the way it did.  Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire.  Behind Rome and Alexandria you had Antioch, which would be like the Chicago of its day.  In 1850 there were only three cities in the world with a population over a million, Rome had over one million citizens and Antioch was not far behind.  Each had a population density that makes ours pale in comparison.  In modern New York City the population density is roughly 100 persons per square acre, and that's with over 95% of its buildings more than seven stories tall.  Modern historians tell us that Antioch had twice that, it had 200 persons per square acre with no high rises.  Rome tripled that with 300 per square acre, no high rises, no plumbing, no sanitation. 

Antioch was built by Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great's generals.  He named the city after his father, Antiochus.  When he built the city he knew because of its proximity to trade routes it would be an international city.  We know there were Persians, Indians, Arabians, Chinese, Africans, Greeks, Romans, and Jews there.  He built a wall around the entire perimeter to protect it from invaders, but he also built walls within the walls, as many as 15 different ethnic quadrants.  Seleucus knew what we are hesitant to admit today, that every culture and race considered themselves greater than the others.  He built walls within walls to protect violence from erupting between the ethnicities; all it would take is a blow up in a public market place to incite ethnic violence to erupt in the city like a powder keg.  So Antioch was a global city the likes of which we are only now catching up to.  It had deep socio-economic troubles, entrenched classism, urban decay, and deep racism.  Into this multi-ethnic, pluralistic, globalized city entered the gospel and it was in a city this urban and troubled that Christianity had its best day ever.  How can this be?

There are three things that characterized the church of Antioch: relocation, redistribution, and reconciliation.

1.  Relocation - For what reason, we're not sure, but unlike the other Apostles, Barnabas was able to stay in Jerusalem.  In vv. 22-24 we find Barnabas sent up to Antioch to verify what God was doing there.  Though Barnabas had not been scattered by the persecution, he willingly went and stayed scattered. As far as we know Barnabas spent the rest of his life there in Antioch. 

2.  Redistribution - Secondly there was a redistribution of personal and corporate power. 

At this point in church history, Barnabas was more famous than Paul; he was most likely the best speaker they had ever heard, with a profound knowledge of the scriptures.  He could have made a name for himself there, but instead he does something surprising.  In v.25 it says he went to Tarsus to get Paul.  Rather than make a name for himself, Barnabas sees the needs and says, "I know someone who is even better."  There was also a shift from personality to community.  Other churches had been established by the ministries of big names, but who had started Antioch?  Luke doesn't tell us, they remain anonymous.  Acts 11:20: "But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus."  We know Barnabas was the first big name to arrive and he was sent to verify God's hand that was already with them.  The reason we have no names is because there were no names associated with the gospel witness.  What stuck out was not personalities but the community.   In Acts 13:1 we find that when they appointed leaders they did not install a mono-ethnic Jewish leadership like the one in Jerusalem, what we can tell is that the five leaders were representative of three different continents and four different ethnicities.

3.  Reconciliation - Lastly we know that what started in Antioch continued to be the pattern of every church plant that followed, so that by 313 A.D. 56% of cities of every Roman city had become Christian.  Antioch was the starting place where for the first time in human history people crossed the walls.  People of differing backgrounds were becoming friends; they were crossing the walls to worship with each other.  There was, for the first time in history, a real solution to the problems of race and class that Rome in all its wisdom could not comprehend, nor can we today through mere education and diversity training duplicate.  Later on in history one of the last pagan Emperors of Rome, Emperor Julian, tried to revive paganism.  To his dismay he attributed his failure to the damnable charity of the Christians.  In a personal letter he wrote that the Jews take care of the Jews, the Greeks take care of the Greeks, but Christians take care of everybody.  It is the reason why in v.26 we are told they had to come up with a new name for followers of Christ.  Today people often attribute religion to an ethnicity.  "I'm Roman Catholic because I'm Hispanic," "I'm Presbyterian because I'm Scottish," "I'm Hindu because I'm from India," that makes sense to people.  Here for the first time in history here was an experience with God that transcended all cultures.  It was not a mere product of culture, therefore they couldn't just say, "You just believe in God because you were raised a Jew."   The citizens of Antioch for the first time called them "Christians." 

III.  How can we apply them today?

So if cities in the last couple hundred years have only recently caught up to the multi-ethnicity, plurality, density, and strategic importance of the first couple hundred years since the birth of Christ, then that means that the answer to the problems of race and class are more applicable than ever before or since that time.  How do we do it?   First off, we have to see the walls.  Just as Antioch had walls outside as well as inside, so we in San Diego have walls that keep us separated. 

Q.   What is a literal wall San Diego has as a border town? 

A.  The Mexican border, and county line border check along the 5 north freeway.

True, those are the obvious ones that are set up by our government.

Q.  What are the walls within San Diego put up by society?

A.  HOA, Informal Racist Real Estate system, Suburban Gated Communities, Urban Apartment Security gates.

I've lived in Mission Valley for seven out of eight years of being married.  Recently we moved to a lower income neighborhood to become missional.  I had never realized how HOAs are really a masked form of racism until I had moved there.  For the first time I have people picking through my garbage every week.  To my surprise they aren't homeless, they are my actual neighbors.  There are walls we erect ourselves, whether it be school districts, where we shop, or clubs we join. 

The three R's of first century missionaries still apply.  We can't love various people groups and classes of society if we don't RELOCATE to be in the position to demonstrate gospel community.   For this you don't have to move downtown; there are walls in every part of San Diego.  In east county that wall may be illegal immigrants.   Secondly through REDISTRIBUTION.  We've already given some contemporary examples of redistribution of personal and corporate power within the church.  We need to be willing to embody the gospel inclusion not only within our congregation but also within our leadership.  That brings us to the final R, which is RECONCILIATION.  This is the most difficult of all because we can do the previous two without the spirit of God, but you can't force or fake reconciliation.   As we've seen the first two have mirrored secular versions within CCDC.  What will cause real and lasting reconciliation between races and classes?  Even if we do all these, it still doesn't answer the real question, which is "What caused them to cross over the walls?"  All other methods of dealing with race and class work by jury rigging the system.  We find our identity in not being a racist or a sex offender, therefore we have to hate certain people because they threaten our identity.  We teach our kids a mixture of pride, guilt, or fear.  We say "Racism is ugly, and it's below you, you don't want to be ignorant now do you?"  If our child is the one guilty of racial discrimination we say "How could you do that?  I didn't raise you that way!"  Suppressing racism in this way is like trying to keep a beach ball under water.  You can only do it for a period of time before you lose grip and it surfaces somewhere else.  If you're from majority culture you will tend towards elitism, if you're from minority culture you will tend towards bitterness and the need for justice.  But what will cause you to love a racist or a sex offender? 

How the gospel provides the motivation for real change

In Antioch it didn't matter if you were part of majority culture or minority culture, the gospel provided a resource for reconciliation that transcended both.  For the first time it didn't matter what your background was.  The gospel provided both a deep humility (that mere jury rigging can't accomplish) and an unshakable confidence (impossible to achieve) at the very same time.  Let me illustrate this through two stories. 

I was in Clairemont at a McDonald's with my family and another family, the Fines who live not far from there.  Our kids were playing in the Playland when I noticed a little boy on the other side of the fence had captured the attention of my two kids.  I couldn't see what they were doing because my kid's backs were to me and the boy was just out of eyeshot.  I moved closer and realized that the Caucasian boy was making fun of my kids by slanting his eyes and making Chinese faces at them.  My kids not recognizing racism were doing it back.  You may laugh at this but I didn't find that to be funny in the slightest.  In fact it hurt more deeply than any amount of racial discrimination I had ever experienced growing up.  It hurt more than my arm being broken because these were my children, and anger swelled in my heart that I didn't expect.  I thought to myself, "Don't you know how much I love my children?  Can't you see I'm standing right here and I can see you mocking my son?  Don't you know how beautiful my son is, he has a capacity for love that amazes me, that he would even offer friendship to you in a heartbeat?  But all he's worth to you is a laugh."  I wanted to slap the smug smile off his little racist face, and would've felt justified in doing so.  I wanted to see the racist parents who had raised an ignorant racist son, and let them know my son didn't deserve that.  It took me awhile to gospel my heart.  Why was I so angry?  I realized that I had made my identity the fact that I wasn't a racist, which made me unable to love a racist.  As much as it hurt, I realized I'm an imperfect dad, who makes mistakes in judgment.  I sometimes discipline the wrong child, I make wrong decisions but I still love my son.  God, on the other hand, never makes mistakes.  His judgments are perfect, and He is the perfect dad who also loved His son.  Whatever I felt by watching my son being discriminated against, God must have also felt times His perfection.  He not only had to watch His son being mocked and spit at, but He watched as we beat Him, tortured Him, accused Him falsely and crucified Him.  While we so easily mask our racism by subverting it to classism, we as the human race are at the same time guilty for the ultimate act of genocide.  For Jesus was the ultimate minority, the only one of His kind, He was the God-man, fully God and fully man, sent to earth and we esteemed Him not.  The cross is man's ultimate discrimination against God, which levels the playing field, for God watched as the greatest act of human injustice fell upon His son who alone deserved not our scorn but our praise and worship.  It alone provides TRUE HUMILITY so it doesn't matter whether you're from majority culture or minority culture. 

But at the same time the gospel also offered an UNSHAKABLE CONFIDENCE that the world could not provide.  A few years ago there was a little testimony in Time Magazine by an African American woman by the name of Joanne Terrell.  As a child growing up in America she had witnessed the murder of her mother by a man of another race, a Caucasian.  It filled her with a deep bitterness.  It wasn't until she was older and taking a graduate class going over the main tenants of Christianity, as they were talking about His trial and crucifixion that she came to a sudden realization.  She has long been taught that Jesus died for us, but for the first time she "realized that Jesus didn't just die for us, He died with us."  As an African American woman she realized Jesus had been lynched.  Jesus Christ had been lynched by a corrupt justice system.  He knew what it was like to be under the lash, yet He suffered willingly for us.  In Isaiah 53:4-5 we are told, "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  ⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed."  John Stott once said, "I could never believe in God if it weren't, for the cross. How, in a world filled with such injustice, could we believe in a God who was immune from it?"  Only in Christianity do you have a God who wasn't; only in the gospel do you have a God who not only dove down into our brokenness but He also died for His very enemies so that He might be our reconciliation with the Father.  The gospel is not only just for personal conversion, but community formation, renewed social compassion, and reconciliation between races and classes that the world cannot match.