Matthew 26 - Part 2

 

Read Matthew 26

The time had come.  Judas accompanied by those who would seize Jesus arrived in the garden.  The signal that would identify Jesus would be he was the one whom Judas would kiss; hence the term Judas kiss.

It seems amazing that for the trouble the religious hypocrites said Jesus had caused, they needed someone to single him out of a handful of men.  You think that his face would have been on a wanted poster as much as the Pharisees wanted him dead.

Those who followed Judas to this place seized Jesus.  One of the disciples grabbed a sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest.  Jesus put a stop to this and answered some questions that surely many must have had.

He was not leading a rebellion.

He could have summoned legions of angels to put a stop to what was about to happen.

He allowed himself to be taken so that the scriptures could be fulfilled.

Neither a rebellion—which surely many thought was what the Messiah would lead—nor commanding legions of angels would bring about the atonement that humankind needed so desperately.

The disciples scattered just as foretold.  They would come back together later, but at this point they are to the winds.

Jesus was brought to Caiaphas the high priest.  The Teachers of the Law and other religious hypocrites couldn’t get their act together and fabricate any charge with any merit.

Finally, one man said that Jesus said he could destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days.  The words of Jesus had been distorted and taken out of context, but that wasn’t important.  If you are fabricating charges, facts don’t matter.

Jesus remained silent to the frustration of those present.  Finally, the chief priest exercised his authority.

“I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

Jesus said yes.  The manner in which he said it taunted the chief priest and surely elicited the needed reaction. 

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy.  What do you think?”

“He is worthy of death,” they answered.

The kangaroo court had achieved its objective.  They had a charge that they believed worthy of killing Jesus.  Little did they know that they were the pawns needed to take the Son of God to become an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Concurrently, Peter was having the worst few hours of his life.  He denied Jesus 3 times.  The last time he vehemently denied him and then the rooster crowed.

Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

It’s a story that we have heard many times.  It’s the epitome of a kangaroo court.  It’s injustice in its purest form.  This was just wrong, but it was exactly what was prescribed.

Jesus had to get to the cross.  It would not be by suicide.  Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice that would atone for our sins, once and for all, but men—sinful men—would carry out the execution.

Why is this fulfillment of prophecy important?

We are to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understanding, so why not just have the Son of God pop in and make his sacrifice and be restored to heaven.  Would that not meet God’s requirements for divine blood to be shed for the remission of sins?

Why all the drama?

Why the story that had to be followed?

Why prophets in the first place?

Why?

We must understand that man has been making his own gods for most of the time that humankind has been on this earth.  People made their own gods and made their own rules and made their own reasons why the gods they made didn’t meet their needs.

When the gods don’t meet your needs, maybe you need to sacrifice a baby instead of a sheath of wheat.

When the gods don’t meet your needs, maybe you need to get some more gods.  Don’t throw the old ones out, just make some more.  There’s got to be power in numbers, right?

When the gods don’t meet your needs, find someone to blame.

The insanity of man-made gods being able to take care of the ones who made them never sinks into the realization of those who put their faith in false gods.

When you make your own god, you make the rules, change the rules, ignore the rules, or exempt yourself from the rules because deep down in the very being of the person whom the one true God made, you know that the god you worship was made in your image.

We need to understand that the one true God made us in his image.

We love the word Emanuel, especially at Christmastime.  God with us has a ring to it, don’t you think?

We need to understand that God—the one true God—has always been with us.  He walked in the garden.  He led the people through the wilderness.  He manifested himself in the Holy of Holies, and he spoke to his people through the generations through his prophets.

How do we know that we worship the one true God?  He is the only God and he has spoken to his creation since the beginning.  His story has been told though the prophets and the prophecies validate the things that could only happen by the will of God.

Why then, before the life of baby Jesus was in jeopardy did God sent Joseph to Egypt?  There would have been places in Galilee where Herod would not look.  The search area was Bethlehem, right?  Prophecy must be fulfilled.

There is no way the Son of God would come to serve and not be served; yet he did, and not only serve but live as the suffering servant. Prophecy must be fulfilled.

Why did there need to be a betrayer?  The religious hypocrites had already decided to kill him.  Why 30 pieces of silver and why bury Judas in what would be called a potter’s field. Ask Zechariah the prophet.

There is no way that Jesus could be sentenced to death based on the poorly fabricated evidence presented before the chief priest and his collaborators.  But he was.  It was necessary to fulfill what he was sent to do.

There is no way that Jesus would be hanged on a cross.  Stoning was the prescribed method for Hebrew executions at that time. But as he was crucified, he must not remain overnight.

Why did he die before sundown?  So that his bones not be broken as foretold.

Even the casting of lots for his clothing was foretold.

There are so many things that when they were written may not have made any sense to most people but for the person looking for the truth, they become so clear in hindsight.

For those of us who live on this side of the resurrection, we have evidence galore of not only the existence but the love of the one true God.  He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, and he has given us clear evidence to that fact.

We have not seen Jesus, yet we have believed. Our belief was not a haphazard guess.  God left us evidence of his existence and his love.  The more we believe, the more we have eyes to see.  Prophets and prophecies help us in our belief.

We are to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, and understand that God has always been with us.  He has always loved us. That must become our understanding so there is no dichotomy between trusting in the Lord and our understanding.

In the illogic of the story of the Christ’s journey to the cross is the fabric of God’s love revealed to us over the ages.

It is important that we know the one true God—God who is love.

He loved us to much that he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that atoned for our sins.

Prophets and prophecies help us to see.

As we continue in 2021, how can we live as God wants us to live?

Seek justice

Love mercy

Walk humbly with your God.

So as we continue into 2021, let’s love mercy, be generous towards God, have Christ as the cornerstone in our lives and be ready to learn from him, not relying upon our own understanding.

Let’s walk humbly with your God.

Let’s live as he told us to live and in so doing be ready for his return.

Let’s take whatever the Lord has entrusted to us and put it to work without delay so as to produce a good return for him.  We all long to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Let us trust in the Lord even more now than ever before.  Let our understanding of his holiness, his righteousness, and his love be affirmed all the more by believing the prophets and seeing so many prophecies realized.

Let there be no dichotomy between trusting in the Lord and our own understanding.

Let our own understanding be so clear that it reinforces our trust in the Lord.

Amen.

John 18 - Part 2

Read John 18

Jesus was arrested and bound and taken to the father-in-law of the High Priest.  Annas had been High Priest and then was succeeded by Caiaphas during the year of the Lord’s birth, but Annas seemed to still be referred to and considered the High Priest in many ways.  It’s as if there are two high priests.

We don’t really know why he went to Annas first but it appears that what took place was in the courtyard of Annas’s home.  Peter had to wait outside the courtyard gate until another disciple came to get him.

Then the kangaroo court is called to order.  The charges are read.  Bail is determined. Counsel is assigned to the defendant.  Wait!  I said, this was a kangaroo court.  It looked nothing like our modern justice system.

The high priest Annas questioned Jesus about his teaching and disciples.

Jesus replied that he had done everything openly.  Why not call some witnesses to what he said and taught and who followed him?

Someone struck him for saying this to the high priest.  Jesus again responded by asking what offense he had given that would warrant being hit.  He held his ground.  If I have done something wrong, let someone testify.

Jesus was then sent to Caiaphas, the serving High Priest.  We don’t get an account of this encounter but do know that Jesus was to be taken to Pilate.

No charges.

No testimony.

No witnesses.

No counsel (in defense of the religious leaders, this is a modern concept).

No official setting.  This was in the courtyard of the high priest.  Of course, it was the middle of the night.

No public witnesses.  Only the conspirators and their collaborators and servants were present.

No propriety whatsoever.  It was indeed a kangaroo court.

So, let me note once again, not done during normal or appropriate working hours. This was zero dark thirty.  How do we know what time it was?  We get a good indicator at Peter’s last denial of Jesus.

It was a kangaroo court.  Put such events in the same category as a cabal, a coup d’état, vigilante justice, and other forms of lawful authority being ignored or overthrown or supplanted in some way, at least in the moment.

It was a kangaroo count.

Before Jesus was sent to Pilate, we also see Peter’s three denials.  One was outside the courtyard; Peter couldn’t go in.  The other disciple—probably John—was allowed in because he was known to the high priest.  That disciple came back to get peter.  The girl at the gate asked Peter, “You’re not one of his disciples, are you?”

There’s denial #1.

I don’t like to bring too much from the political world into my messages.  Elsewhere, I will cuss and discuss politics to your heart’s content, but not so much here.

Here is my exception.  I was watching a video of an AOC town meeting.  A woman in the crowd had the microphone, presumably to ask a question, but she kept going on and on about how we had to eat our babies to survive.  They were using up too much oxygen and we have to eat them. 

This went on for several minutes and AOC was helpless to stop her.  I can make fun of AOC as well as the next guy, but my thought was there were at least 30 other people there, maybe more.  Nobody there said a word.  Not one word of rebuke or counsel or just someone with enough awareness to say, “enough.”

Why would I bring this up?  We focus on Peter’s first denial.  Jesus said it would happen and it did, but what about the other disciple?  Did he say nothing?

“C’mon Peter, that’s our Lord in there.”

“This is no time to wimp out now.”

“What gives.  Don’t you remember all of your boasts about never deserting Jesus?”

We see none of this, but we also know that this other disciple did not have to state his allegiance to Jesus.  He was known to the high priest and got in on those credentials.  So, while Peter gets the wrap here, the other disciple deserves no accolades.

 This is followed by the next two denials.  Peter was warming himself at the fire, obviously not part of the main action, but one of the straphangers asked him if he was a disciple.  Peter denied following Jesus.

Again, a relative of the man whom Peter had attacked with a sword, asked: “Were you not with him in the olive grove?  I’m sure that I saw you.”

Again, Peter denied this and the rooster started his wakeup calls.

Imagine the chills that went through Peter.  This was exactly as Jesus said it would be and Peter was denying the very person who told him what would happen. I’m not sure if that’s irony or paradox, but I’m glad I was not in Peter’s shoes.

So, we have a kangaroo court that ultimately gets Jesus before Pilate and the words of Jesus about Peter fulfilled in short order.

Much will fall into place with Jesus before Pilate.

Amen.

John 11 - Part 4

Read John 11

It’s back to a familiar story.  Jesus kept doing incredible, unbelievable works, and some believed and some felt threatened.  The Sanhedrin met to discuss the matter.

Jesus had become more than a disruption.  He threatened the security of Israel as this ruling council knew it.

If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.

The religious leaders were worried about their status with the Roman Empire.  If the religion of the region did not threaten the security of the state, then the Romans considered them harmless and generally let them go about their business.  If you throw in an occasional, Caesar is god or Caesar is king, you had some job security.

This was their predicament.  If this Jesus movement kept growing, the Romans might consider it a threat and put it down violently.  On the surface, that sounded exactly like what the ruling religious leaders wanted, except they would all lose their jobs.  The Sanhedrin would be considered incompetent and unnecessary.  The Romans would tolerate them only as long as they kept the peace.

Nobody in Jerusalem really liked the Romans but they were tolerable in the current arrangement.  People complained about them and their taxes and their pagan ways, but they were tolerable.  If the Sanhedrin could not stop the build up of these followers of Jesus, the Romans might just take matters in to their own hands.

Listen to the words of the Chief Priest.

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all!  You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

It was better for one man to die for many than it was to let the growing support for Jesus continue.  Jesus had to die.  It was for everyone’s good.

While it seems that Caiaphas framed this statement in purely political terms, his words were in effect prophecy.  God sent his Son to die for our sins so we would not perish. Caiaphas said more than he realized.  Finally, he got to speak the words of God.

While bringing Lazarus back from the dead may have been the tipping point in the thinking of the religious leaders that they had to kill Jesus; this meeting set the plot in action.  The Sanhedrin issued a BOLO for Jesus.  If you saw him, you were to report him to the nearest Pharisee.

It was time for Jesus to keep a low profile, at least until the Passover.  His time had almost come, but there was still much more for Jesus to do in these last few days.

Amen.