Trapping Jesus ...

If you accept that there is a lesser of two evils; you have already lost the war.  Throughout our lives, we are from time-to-time presented with a choice, where both outcomes are bad.  We are asked to pick the one that is the least bad, and then expected to make that choice.  To refuse to choose is often an outcome by itself that may be worse than actually doing anything.  It is called a no-win situation.  And so often it is presented, with us falling into the trap of trying to decide how to do the least damage with what we pick.  This trap is not new.  But it represents a lie told by Satan whose premise is quite insidious.  He tells us through these situations, that “you” must control your fate by making a choice where all the options are bad.  The reality is, that while every option “we” could pick is bad, “we” still have another choice … take it to God in prayer, sit back, and watch the power of God at work.  For while humans truly are limited in their choices, God is not, and what God can do can truly amaze.

None-the-less the Pharisees had been very angered by the 3 stories Jesus had told regarding the state of church leadership, and how they might still be redeemed.  The Pharisees believed they were already good enough and had no need of redemption, especially by this upstart with no formal acknowledgement by the system of religion they managed.  This message of light from the outside was not welcome in their tightly concocted inner sanctum.  So they responded by creating three traps of their own, one by each of the main groups or sects of their religion.  This would insure fairness among them, as well as diversity of thought, so that even if one line of thinking failed there would still be another to attempt to catch Jesus up in what He said.  But underlying all their attempts would be the common premise of presenting two choices where no matter what He picked, He could be embarrassed in front of the people.  Their problem was they reasoned as men, and forgot, or refused to admit, Jesus reasoned like our God does.

The first trap would come from the Pharisees who considered themselves preeminent among their peers.  These masters of the Tora would seek to catch Jesus up in a popularity dilemma.  The topic was taxes, just bringing up the very word “tax” to an Israelite at that time, was to kindle anger of the deepest variety.  They may have picked this particular topic, because Matthew, the author of this very gospel to his Hebrew contemporaries, was a former agent of Rome collecting taxes from his brethren.  Tax collectors had earned a reputation lower than harlots or sodomites in this day and age.  They were in effect traitors to their people, doing Rome’s work, and then profiting off of it besides.  If Caesar demanded a single penny from a farmer, the tax collector may very well take two, and keep one himself.  This made the process even more onerous, and the tax collector more hated, perhaps rightly so.  So the Pharisees figured there would be no way to discuss taxes with an honest Jesus and not embarrass Him immensely.

Matthew begins in chapter twenty-two picking up in verse 15 saying … “Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. [verse 16] And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. [verse 17] Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?”  Nothing was left to chance in setting this trap.  The Pharisees sent Herodians with their disciples to act as witnesses for the state, in the event that an otherwise honest Jesus decides to get hinky with an unpopular topic like this one.  The Pharisees feared Jesus may just bow to the will of the people on this, so they actually sent government spies to watch in case He did.  They also used a proxy, that is, they sent their disciples to execute the trap so no one could ever directly accuse them of any impropriety in trying to spring a trap like this one.  Perhaps they used disciples Jesus had never met, so He would not see any connection back to themselves.

Then to disguise the trap, the disciples use the highest form of false flattery upon Jesus, first calling Him Master.  Then proceeding to compliment Jesus again on how He ALWAYS teaches the truth.  If they really believed this, they would not be there trying to spring a trap on Him.  They would have joined His ranks and become true disciples of the Most High God.  But they did not believe this, so their words were lies as they crossed the lips of those who did not mean a word of it.  I wonder, do we do the same?  Do we compliment our God in our prayers, bragging about how good He is, and how He is good all the time; yet the minute adversity blows our way, we crumble and blame God for it.  Then our true beliefs emerge as we blame God for every horror that happens on earth, casting Him as an angry God, who is looking to punish us for our deeds, instead of redeem our hearts from them. 

Or worse, we cast Him as a God who just does not care enough to save us from the horror that has come our way.  Never once acknowledging what we do, or sin, or a devil bent on our misfortune as the cause of what we stumble into.  Cancer was not put here by God, it exists because evil exists.  No disease was ever intended to exist.  It is the very presence of evil in our world that permits diseases to become part of our knowledge of good and of evil.  We were intended to be ignorant of them.  But instead we chose to become familiar with them.  This is the knowledge our God thought it best we never understood let alone encountered.  Breaking trust with God resulted in all of this.  But this was not God’s idea, and His number one job is to redeem us from evil, and extinguish the effects of evil on a permanent basis.  Not as a punishment for those who embrace it, but as salvation for those who want no more to ever be a part of it.

Beyond the lies they believe about what Jesus’ preaching includes, the disciples also compliment Jesus on being no respecter of persons – essentially that Jesus would talk to Caesar the same way He talks to a beggar in the street.  This further false flattery is not something they believe, but they are taunting Him into staying true to this course in order for Him to answer the trap badly.  And so after meticulously laying the trap, they spring it – asking Jesus if it is lawful to pay taxes.  Notice they do not make reference to which law.  They could have been talking about the law of Moses, or of Herod, or of Rome, or of God.  They leave this reference unclear so they can combat Him no matter how He answers.  This was the best minds in the country, coming up with the best test, they could imagine.  All to trap Jesus in front of the people.

Matthew continues the story in verse 18 saying … “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?”  Yikes!  It is as if a bright light is turned on in a dirty kitchen late at night, and the cockroaches who were all to happy to feast in the darkness are now revealed by the brilliant light, their antennae darting back and forth as they scream to each other “we must hide, we must hide”.  They run for the corners looking to be rehidden by the darkness, but it will not come.  Jesus perceived their wickedness.  He knows in an instant who did this, who was responsible for this, and what they are trying to do.  He calls out their hypocrisy as He knows they do not believe a word they say to Him, about Him at least.  He knows it is false flattery.  And then in bone chilling words He once used with Satan himself, He asks these wicked men, why they are tempting Him.

And do our prayers that say one thing, and our lives that witness another, earn us a similar response?  When we treat sin like gold, and freedom from sin, like a pain we want to avoid – do we not behave the same way as our Pharisee forefathers?  We have countless requests of our God, for the millions of things we think we need.  But only routine prayers to say thank you for food, and even less so when our other requests are granted.  Our prayer life resembles a child on Santa’s lap at the mall.  Our hearts are revealed to the same God who walked among us, as He walked among these Pharisees.  They did not believe they needed to change; how many of us believe exactly the same thing.  We count ourselves “good” enough already, just like they did.

Jesus responds picking up in verse 19 saying … “Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. [verse 20] And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? [verse 21] They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.”  Hold the phone!!  There is not supposed to be any “good” option in this response.  There is not supposed to be a “good” answer.  This was a trap of bad vs worse, no good option allowed or anticipated.  And this is why you lose.  You, me, the Pharisees back then, all keep looking at situations with human eyes, limited by human thinking, and ideas about what is possible and not possible.  Instead, we could be turning over our “impossible” situations and decisions to God and watch what He can do, instead of trying to dictate to Him what we want Him to do.  Our prayers “telling” God what to do, are as worthless as our trying to take things into our own hands in the first place.  We are in effect, trying to lead God.  When we should be surrendering to God and following whatever He decides – expecting what He does, to not look like anything we would have thought of, and to be a million times better than anything we could have imagined.

The conclusion of this story occurs in verse 22 saying … “When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.”  This response is so strikingly sad.  They heard Him.  They were blown away that He had figured a way out of their trap.  And then they left Him and went their way.  Notice nowhere in that response was any sort of change on their part.  They did not become disciples after that.  They did not repent of their intentions.  They scurried back like the cockroach, to plan another attack in the darkness, for darkness is what they craved.  Make no mistake, when you walk away from the light, you are headed for no other destination than the darkness. 

People who treat Jesus as some kind of option, or some kind of alternative – believing that spirituality is all that counts, and doing good all that matters – walk away from His light, into the darkness of deceit.  Jesus offers you a real change in who you are, how you think, and how you love.  You cannot fix that.  You, on your own, may not even believe that needs fixing.  But it does.  It is the self-love that cripples you, and damages others.  And because self is at the center of it, you are powerless to fix it.  But Jesus is a master at re-creating you from who you are now, into what He knows you are capable of being.  He is not looking to leave you in your misery, making excuses for your pain.  He is looking to lift you out of your misery, freeing you from your pain forever.  That is the kind of change we can all embrace.  The free kind.  The kind that comes from submission, instead of control.  Walk away from your own ideas about bad and good, possible and impossible, and turn it over to Jesus, who can do things, and show you things, and make you into something you could never have imagined.  And the word regret will have meaning to you no more.

But the traps for Jesus were not to be ended just yet …

 

Family Redefined ...

Most of us hold a special place in our hearts for mom.  Mom generally earned this place because as far back as we can remember, she was there taking care of us, nurturing us, and showing a love for us we could barely understand back then.  Dad’s love was different, likely less expressive, but present.  Dad had a natural instinct to insure the family was safe, secure, and taken care of.  It meant less of his time, but always because of His desire to work for our greater good.  Our siblings are another kind of love entirely.  We grew up with them, fought with them over silly things, and were close to them when in times of need or sadness.  We share their joys and triumphs and share with them their sadness and defeats.  Underneath it all, the fights with them were more about establishing a unique identity in the family unit, than about any “real” disagreements.  And so we define our family unit by blood relations, and are often taught that blood is thicker than water, and only blood can be counted on in the world.  But our premise is mistaken at its core.  It is not just the Supreme Court of the United States that is redefining family, it is Jesus Christ.

Our core premise of family is broken from the outset.  Mom and dad are not actually related by blood (usually), unless you trace back our ancestry to Noah or Adam.  Taking history back that far makes us ALL related by blood (a concept we find Jesus endorsing).  So then mom and dad are family not by blood, but by choice, and by commitment.  In our world choices and commitments fail regularly leading to new family unit compositions, where new partners for mom or dad equate to new roles in the parental offering.  Step dads, or step moms, become part of the family unit through different choices made on the timelines of our lives.  New siblings that may have no blood relation at all enter the family unit, and if things go well, and Christian charity is employed, they can become as close to us, as any blood relation ever was.  The love between the new partner of mom or dad is different as well, and can be more or less intense than the original pairing.  And so how do we judge (perhaps not at all), about the validity of a family unit after it was broken, and now attempting to repair itself in another way?

Our core premise of family is broken in yet another way.  Sometimes children are left alone in this world, because of situations beyond their control.  They may be lucky enough to be adopted by parents who so desperately want to add another child to their family unit.  Those parents invest deeply in the lives of these adopted children, working hard to demonstrate a love that is intended to fill the gap left by the pain and loss found in this world.  No adoptive parent ever makes a distinction in how much they love their child.  While not the biological parent, they are the parent none the less.  These family units are determined by choice and commitment, not by blood.  They are as strong as any family unit, and the restorative love they put on display emulates the love of God as much as any we see here on earth.  And blood relations have little to do with the choice and commitment adoptive parents and children make to each other.

While the Supreme Court recognized that the privileges of a marital family unit are more defined by a choice and commitment than by the sexual orientation of the two individuals making that choice; they only chose to expand our legal definition of family to those who may be a bit different from ourselves.  But I submit, what they did is not new, nor did “they” actually redefine family for us or Christianity at large.  How could they?  We already had homosexuals in our family units, whether by blood, or by choice.  The orientation of a person does not determine their place within a family, it is instead only a characteristic that self-identifies with that person.  Many parents will discover that one or more of their children are in fact gay.  While this revelation may be painful at first, particularly if it is at odds with the values those parents hold to; ultimately it changes “nothing” about how much a parent continues to love that child.  Moms don’t stop nurturing, caring, and loving their child because they discover the child is gay (or they shouldn’t).  And dads don’t stop providing, seeking for safety and security of their families, because they discover a child is gay (or they shouldn’t).  So the inclusion of a gay person in a family unit was ALREADY part of our culture, and our definition of family.

It turns out, we already love people who are gay, whether as siblings, or children, or parents.  Loving someone with this characteristic is NOT against the law of God, nor is it forbidden in scripture.  There is no scripture that demands we ostracize a member of our family because they exhibit some behavior the Bible defines as sin.  If it did, every single parent, spouse, or child who has ever told a lie should be cast out (instead of forgiven).  Every single act of sexual misconduct including “lust” even if only in the mind, would be grounds for excommunication between the family unit and that person.  Under these extreme conditions there would be no family units left, only single individuals who are universally guilty of misguided sexual expression both straight and gay.  If our sin is allowed to separate us from each other and from redemptive love, there is no hope for any of us.  Instead Christians believe and need the forgiveness our Savior offers us.  It is a constant and ever present need, and it spans many more sins, than just those of a sexual nature.  At its core, a family unit is composed of choice and commitment, it is not simply a matter of blood.  But that lesson is not mine, it was Christ’s.

Peter recalls to John Mark an incident that proved just this point.  Mark wrote it down in chapter three and beginning in verse 31 saying … “There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.”  This occurs at a time when Jesus is deeply engrossed in teaching His followers about the restorative love of God.  His mission is beyond healing only our bodies, but it remains for Jesus to heal our minds, and our souls.  He is demonstrating to his listeners what freedom from sin can really mean.  And during His teachings, His blood relations, or His family come to see Him.  Keep in mind this designation includes not only His mom, but “His brethren” or His siblings.  Mary did not remain a perpetual virgin after having Jesus Christ.  Instead she was a normal wife and mother.  She had sexual intimacy with Joseph, and the brothers and possibly sisters of Christ were a result.  Mary was like any other wife and mother, she loved her children, and her husband.  She had earned a place of respect in the family unit due to her choice and her commitment.  And now she was here with her other children to see Jesus.  But the venue was packed, another standing room only event, and she could not even get close enough to her Son, to ask Him what she was there to ask.  So they had to send in word by messenger.

John Mark records how the message progressed in verse 32 saying … “And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.”  Whether it was whispered from person to person, or perhaps someone sitting there at the feet of Jesus saw His family outside waiting for Him and just assumed He needed to know, the message about His family waiting was delivered to Jesus.  Of course in so doing, the flow of His sermon was interrupted.  The train of thought had to by necessity pause, while consideration of this new situation was discussed and addressed.  Jesus, being divine, already knew they were there.  In addition, He already knew why they were there and what they wanted from Him.  He had already evaluated their needs and their request in His head before they arrived; had it been more critical to Him than what He was teaching, He would have ended His dialogue early, and met them outside, or on the road to go address what they felt was important.  But Jesus did none of this.  Instead He had remained inside, with these people in front of Him, teaching them something that outweighed the needs of His family.

Then Jesus does what the Supreme Court could not ever do as Mark continues the account in verse 33 saying … “And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren?”  This is not a casual question.  The parentage of Jesus Christ was “the” pivotal question of His ministry here on earth.  Jesus had repeatedly commanded the demons who fled before Him to remain silent on identifying Him as the literal Son of God.  To be born of a virgin was a miracle ONLY God could accomplish, and since it has never been done before or since, it remained an issue of faith to accept.  You will also note in this text, He does NOT ask who His Father is.  That question was to be settled as we examine His life.  But questioning who is His mother, and who are His siblings was intended to shock His audience into thinking deeper about what it means to be in a family with the Son of God.

Then Jesus ups the stakes in the definition of family as Peter has John Mark transcribe the further words of Christ in verse 34 saying … “And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!”  Ouch.  If our traditional views of blood relations were all that defined family, Jesus Christ just blew that away.  There would be no special place of respect for His mother standing outside, or for His siblings that grew up with Him.  Mary would be no intercessor with Christ as our Catholic friends might like to believe, as here Jesus plainly equates NO special status to her as to any other person sitting on the floor in front of Him.  To be the blood brother of Christ, did not afford His siblings any more special consideration than to be a stranger sitting at the feet of Jesus.  Blood is obviously not something that defines inclusion in the family of Jesus Christ.

Perfection was not a pre-requisite either.  The crowd sitting in front of Jesus were not well educated wealthy, religious leaders who committed little if any sins.  They were common folks.  The Pharisees who were deeply religious, wealthy, and obsessed with the keeping of the Law, had largely abandoned following after Jesus to learn.   They were instead plotting how to kill Him.  The people here on the floor were common sinners of every variety.  They were not there to justify their sins, or deny them, or make false claims about having already gained perfection.  They were universally guilty of sin.  But the focus there was on restoration and redemption.  To free these listeners from even their desire to sin, was the paramount goal of Jesus Christ.  In that mission, He could not be interrupted for trivial concerns.  And just because you had a blood relation, did not make your request more important that the restoration of one who is bound in sin.

Then Jesus made a declaration that would redefine family forever as John Mark records in verse 35 saying … “For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.”  It would not be about blood, it would be about choice and commitment.  Those listeners there had chosen to find Christ and learn at His feet, they had committed to being restored by Jesus Christ, and in so doing were named as part of His family.  When we choose to submit ourselves to Jesus Christ and let His will become ours, let Him remake our desires, our thinking, and ultimately our choices … we are making a choice to enter the family of the Son of God.  He considers us family as we unite with both Jesus and the Father God.  When we become in harmony with His Laws of Love, we become part of His family.  This can only happen, as our sin-sick diseased and addicted minds are remade by our Creator God.  We need re-creation, if we are to be brought into harmony with the Law of God which reflects His entry-level definition of what it means to love others. 

Being Jewish was and is not enough to be considered part of the family of Christ.  Being of the bloodline of David or Abraham was not enough.  Being Christian was and is not enough to be considered part of the family of Christ.  It is not just about making a declarative statement that we “believe” in Christ.  It is about taking that belief to Christ and surrendering “who” we are to Him to be remade.  For many a Christian does NOT do the will of the Father God, as instead they cling to the sins that define their characters.  This is not just a gay condition, it is a straight one.  It is not just about sexual expression or behavior, it is about loving self more than loving others.  We could completely abstain from sex altogether and still be found lacking in the pursuit of the will of the Father God, because we have not surrendered our desires to Him to be remade.

Those who focus on sex as the discriminator of proximity to Christ, ignore every other sin they are bound to.  Both gay and straight people lie.  Both steal.  Both love themselves more than they love others.  Both have pride, arrogance, and can reflect a coldness to those in need.  Christians are supposed to be the antithesis of these characteristics yet they are not.  It is the un-surrendered heart that keeps us at odds with the Law of God.  It is our pride in “who” we are that prevents us from being willing to put even our spouse or our sexuality on the altar of God.  We wish instead to retain the things that are important to us.  We wish to retain the things about us that define who we are.  We cherish our characters instead of looking at them with the disdain they deserve.  The only good in us, can be found as we reflect the Love of God to others.  This love does not originate in us, it is only reflected through us.  And that reflection is made dim or non-existent because we refuse to let go of who we are, choosing to try to retain ourselves and find a “partial” salvation instead of a full one.

It is as if we wish to get better from our cancer rather than find a cure for it.  It is as if we are comfortable being HIV positive as long as our condition does not evolve into full blown AIDs.  Jesus was not here to dispense so many spiritual pills to make us feel better about our diseases.  He was here to cure them all, fully.  He was here to restore us to the condition He had in mind for us.  When we are ready to put our sexuality on His altar, even if that means we live the rest of our lives in abstention, or are compelled to find another partner, or must forgive and recommit to the partner we have no matter how bad they treat us … to allow Jesus to reshape what we desire and how we love … is at the core of a full cure from our disease of sin.  Lest straight believers think I am only talking to our gay brothers and sisters, I am not.  Adam withheld Eve from the trust of the Lord to save her.  Eve was the one thing Adam was not willing to give up, and in joining her, he initiated sin into our world and our genetics from then to now.  Original sin was not found in homosexuality, it was found in the love of a husband for his wife, over that of his Creator.  That test remains for us all.  Is there anything, or any part of us, we love more than we love God?  If we hold back any part of ourselves from the restoration Christ offers, we cling to the cancer that kills us.

But, if we are willing to bring all of ourselves into surrender to Christ, then there is no difference between any of us in His eyes.  Our perfection will be the journey Christ brings us to.  It does NOT matter what sins we suffer from today, as ALL of them are to be a thing of the past as He remakes who we are, how we love, and how we think.  In this process, our sole job remains to love each other.  We are to be a family by choice and commitment, not by blood.  I am to love you, no matter what condition of sin you suffer from, or that I suffer from.  I am to love you without precondition, or demands upon you.  For it Jesus Christ who will free both you and I from our sins.  No need to judge your progress on that path, only to encourage you to remain on it, and ask that you encourage me to remain on it as well.  It is not our sins that exclude us from restoration, it is our unwillingness to see those sins disappear.  Letting go all of ourselves to Christ, frees us to love each other without condemnation or judgment.

The Supreme Court redefined legal marriage in our country this week.  But what spiritual marriage is, remains a concept no law of our land will ever fully be able to comprehend or enumerate in legal language.  The relationships that God blesses of family units begins with an entirely different understanding of what it means to love others like He loves others.  If we are not in harmony with how He loves, how we could possibly hope to understand what a true spiritual marriage is all about.  Instead we bring our selfishness into our weddings, and our lives, and look to see what marriage has to offer us; instead of holistically re-evaluating marriage through the eyes of Christ, and what it means to have intimacy between ourselves and our God as the underpinning of any choice and commitment.  The intimacy between each of us and our God must occur prior to the success of anything we call marriage.  If we are distant from the source of Love, how can we hope to truly love each other, as a spouse should be loved?

Before Christians decry the breakdown of the family unit because our country made something legal, they should take a serious look at why the concept of divorce exists, and the damage it causes to our families and our nation.  Divorce exists (and will now impact the gay community), because of the selfishness in how we love others.  It is a reflection of our addiction to loving self, and unwillingness to love another beyond the limits of our lives.  Divorce is enabled because Christians are unwilling to have their desires remade, and be taught a new way to love another.  If we were willing to submit the entirety of who we are in surrender to Jesus Christ, we would be making better decisions before marriage, and better decisions once in a marriage.  It is not the legality of our marriage license that determines the spiritual validity of marriage, it is determined in how much of ourselves we are willing to surrender to Jesus Christ to be remade by Him.  Full surrender will yield full restoration, and we can trust in Jesus to save us from ourselves.  To be part of the family of the Son of God, remains only about choice, and about commitment.  How much of who you are, are you willing to relinquish to Christ?  Or perhaps better stated … how much pain would you like to let go of as our Lord offers a full cure just for that asking?

 

The Only Thing Evil Knows - Communion (part eight) ...

When once you turn away from the light, the only alternative left to you is darkness.  When once you turn away from love, hate is the destiny you embrace.  Lucifer was created in the perfection of service and love to others.  His position was once third highest in all of creation, he stood at the left hand of the Father.  He was unaware of a distinction between himself and Christ, because the love of God towards others so was full there had never been a reason to measure it before.  But within this perfection, Lucifer reasoned that perhaps existence did not require this method to maintain perfection.  Perhaps an alternative was possible that would simply result in a “different” perfection than the one God setup.  He broke trust with God, and put his trust in the power of his own intellect and will.  He continued on his path, until the point where he could not be saved, because he would not be saved.  And there was war in heaven.  When once he knew only love and harmony, he would now be willing to introduce war and death into heaven itself.  Love had turned to hate, as trust was irrevocably broken.  Evil was born into the universe, and the opposite of love was defined for all sentient life to witness in horror; hate had come.

Lucifer became Satan.  The archangel became the devil.  A universe of perfect love to others, had been corrupted into a self-absorbed, self-focused, acquire-at-all-costs emptiness that could never be filled.  To look back at the perfect peace unfallen beings maintained, and witness the perfect love of service the unfallen beings lived, elicits only one response in the fallen – hate.  It is torture to live in self-inflicted pain while witnessing the unbridled joy of another.  Their peace only fuels the passionate hatred of the one who will not let his own misery go.  That impossible focus on self, only deepens the hatred for everything, when seen against the perfection of love and service and joy that is unavoidable from living as God ordained.  So when evil encounters love, its response must be one of two – submit to love and embrace it, or resist love and respond in hate.  As love is more powerful than hate, it requires more determination to hate, more anger to maintain, more energy to resist.  It requires an unrelenting choice to keep up the hate.  But for one who will not trust to anyone other than self, it is the only choice to be made despite its difficulty.

This was the reaction of the religious leadership of the day, to the Messiah they had waited for so long to see.  This was the response of the wicked and fallen angels to the arrival of Christ, who lived His life in perfect service and love.  The only thing evil knows to do when confronted with love, is to hate.  If one lets go of hate even momentarily one may be drawn to a love that would not let you go, one that would free you from hate, so as never to return to the power of its embrace.  That kind of redemptive love is what Christ introduced into our reality.  And the Pharisees hated Him for it.  The very redemptive love He offered to all, even to them, was refused because it required submission, it required an acceptance that indeed they did not know it all.  They were not the final arbiters of truth, they were witness to truth incarnate in the humble life of this servant of all.  This they could not, and would not accept.  So they responded to love with hate.  The learned elders of the one true religion, became the biggest proponents of hate in the very name of that religion.  The Pharisees would seek to kill the author of love, rather than be remade by that love.  Are we any different?  Do we prefer ourselves the way we are, than to be remade by Him and perhaps lose parts of ourselves we hold dear?  Do we carry placards that espouse love that transforms or hate that condemns?

John records the words of Christ now in chapter 15, as they near or perhaps enter the garden of Gethsemane.  Judas is not with them as he is already leading those who intend to kill love to their target.  Time is very short.  So Christ tries to explain the mystery of iniquity and hate to His followers so that they will not be surprised by what they encounter.  In verse 18 He explains … “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. [verse 19] If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”  Evil hates love.  When we reflect the love of Christ to others, we should not expect to see love returned as it would be in perfection.  Rather we should expect to see hatred, for evil struggles to the death to hold on and resist the love of God.  When we find ourselves in disfavor with society, when we are punished for the acts of love we do on behalf of another, when our reputations are mud for the sake of our relentless love in action – it is because evil resists the power of God who loves. 

However, when the world seems to have no problem with us; when we present no threat to it; when we are every bit as angry, and hostile, and judgmental as our accuser is; we can and will be loved by the world.  Satan has no problem with our hateful speech, couched in the name of God – that is a technique he pioneered for us.  Our Pharisee forefathers killed God in an effort to keep religion pure.  So when we hold our signs and placards that condemn the world for its sins, we join with Satan in persecuting those in the deepest need of His love; so pushing them farther from it, while carrying and maligning the name of Christ, and of Christians.  This activity brings little condemnation from the world, because the world is steeped in evil and loves the hypocrisy of accusing others while being every bit as guilty in our own hearts and desires.  But, by contrast, when we love unconditionally and without reservation, to those who no-one else would dare to love – we present a real and present threat to the kingdom of evil and hate.  It is then that we are out of harmony with the kingdom of evil and hate, and must be “dealt with”.  For if left unchecked, a love without reservation or limitation, that is only consumed with the benefit of another, has the power to change lives, hearts, minds, and wills and could make converts to the kingdom of Christ.  When these converts discover the freeing power of love, the salvation Christ does to liberate and change them from their former selves into servants equipped with the power of transformative love – the kingdom of evil loses a soul forever to the power of God’s love.  Thus when we love like Christ loved, we become hated quickly by the world.

Jesus continues in verse 20 … “Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”  When we serve God we encounter those who have refused Him, and thus will refuse us as well.  Be they church leaders at the highest levels, or desperate sinners at the lowest rungs of society, those who refuse God and His love, will not accept our own any better.  But those who hear the voice of the Lord, will make themselves humble enough to hear His voice through His servants in whatever form that comes.  It is not only through a preacher that the word of God is offered.  It is offered through the mouth of the child, who can barely grasp the depth of the words they speak.  It is offered through the mouth of the downs-syndrome-afflicted who understands love so well, but intellect so little.  It is offered through the mouth of the sick and the dying as they face what we all fear, and now understand what is truly important.  If we are humble enough to hear it, we can ignore the faults and imperfections of the vessel, and instead hear only the pure word of God spoken in love regardless of its source.  It is not the denomination, or age, or gender, or sexual orientation, or known history of sin that either qualifies or disqualifies a person from speaking the truth of our God – it is instead only the content of what they say, and the love in which they say it, that either offers us the word of God, or the folly of men.  It is instead our arrogance that predetermines “who” is qualified to speak for God, and our standards lead us to miss His words, in favor of those that please our own ears.

Jesus continued in verse 21 … “But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.”  In the days of Christ as well as in ours, there will be those who refuse to accept Jesus as Lord.  To identify Christ as the Son of God, is to invite persecution – either from within the church as we transfer the attention away from traditions and self-reliance and on to Christ – or outside of the church as we identify the real meaning of love and not  the perversion of self-service the devils offers as its poor substitute.  Those who do not know God, do not know love, and evil has only one response to love.  Jesus further states in verse 22 … “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.”  In the days of the Pharisees Christ had spoken in their presence, they bore witness to His love, and therefore had no excuse to cloke their sin.  In our day, the love of the Lord is no less present.  We do not casually live our lives in blissful ignorance of the love of God, instead the love of God to redeem us is constantly offered, and we must by conscious choice ignore and disregard it.  So what was true for our Pharisee forefathers will be no less true for ourselves.

Jesus states in verse 23 … “He that hateth me hateth my Father also.”  There is no subdividing God.  There are not many pathways to God.  There are not many deities that can legitimately claim to be God.  There is only one God.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – three who are united in purpose and one.  To hate one of them, is to hate all of them.  You cannot hate one third of God, but love another third.  To love God, is to accept God as He is.  We do not get the choice of picking and choosing which parts of God we think are real and worth loving or not.  For if Christ always did the will of His Father, who is it we truly hate – the God who performed the miracles, or the God who ordained them to be performed?  Those who offer Buddha, or Krishna, or Mohammed, or any other purported deity to augment the place of God, offer only false ideologies that cannot find truth in the reality of who God is.  The Father cannot be separated from the Son.  To deny the divinity of the Son, is to deny the divinity of the Father, for it was the Father’s own voice who proclaimed Christ as His own Son, and who empowered Christ to bend the rules of physics to heal and create, and restore all the countless broken ones he encountered during His life here on earth.  It is both Father AND Son who are united in the plans for our redemption and salvation.

Jesus offers evidence again in verse 24 … “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”  The miracles of Christ should have been enough to prove His divinity.  He created food where there was none.  He healed diseases and birth defects and the demon possessed.   He woke Lazarus from the grave after 4 days of decomposition.  Every act of love for another should have been more than ample evidence of His divinity.  To require more “proof” is empty words, proof and truth were already there for those who did not refuse to see.  Jesus continues in verse 25 … “But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.”  The rejection of Christ had been foretold.  It was even sadder still though, that this prophecy found fulfillment in the leadership of His own religion and faith, instead of merely in the government of Rome and the world.  I wonder if our modern Christian churches are any different.  Do we too reject Christ as the author and finisher of our salvation, choosing like Lucifer to put our trust in our own wisdom, logic, interpretation, and will power to save us from our sins?

Jesus then tells His followers, that for them even more evidence will be received in verse 26 He continues … “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: [verse 27] And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.”  The Holy Spirit will come to His followers and continue to declare in the Truth of the Father, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and source of our salvation.  The Holy Spirit does not disagree with the accounts of scripture, rather He verifies them.  The miracles the disciples would perform were not of their own strength, but done in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of God.  If the life of Christ were a lie, if He were not our God, His name would have no effect.  We could not break the rules of physics and modern medicine by the power of our own names, or the random name of some mere historical figure, even if that figure was a “good man” or known to be a “prophet”.  But the name of Christ, and the power of love of God that He embodies, has seen the impossible become possible.  To be made free from the addiction of sin and self is in itself a miracle we will never fully understand, for it is His work in us, and none of our own, that sees it accomplished.

Jesus continues and wraps up this part of His communion on the responses the disciples should expect in chapter 16 starting in verse one … “These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. [verse 2] They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”  The worst irony, the saddest expectation, would be that the center of persecution would not be in the world, but within the church.  It would be those who favor religious zealotry, over actual love for others, who would be most willing and eager to kill in the name of God.  The Romans would hardly care less which God you worship as long as you paid your taxes and did not attempt rebellion.  In this, Christians were wholly compliant.  But the Jews believed the introduction of the doctrine of the Messiah having been fulfilled was the destruction of their faith, traditions, and powerbase, thus to kill to end this “heresy” would become a top priority within the faith.  Christ explains all of this to his disciples in advance.  He explains why they will do this in verse 3 … “And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.”

Here the message of Christ is powerful both then and now.  Those who would hate or kill in the name of God DO NOT KNOW GOD at all.  They neither know God the Father, or God the Son.  Those who respond to love with evil and hate, know only evil and hate.  God does not kill those who disagree with Him.  If that were true Satan would simply have never existed.  Instead God creates all with freedom to choose to trust and love or not.  God does not change who He is, instead He attempts to lure us back to Him with the power of His so great love.  He does not kill us all because we sin, or have sinned.  Instead He looks to free us from our sin, and offer us love and joy in its place.  He takes pain and death away from us, and offers us life and love instead.  Those who offer death for disobedience follow the doctrines of Satan alone, not of our God.  It is Satan who kills those who disagree with him, or disobey him, or fall away from his cause.  God attempts to redeem the lost.  Satan would kill any who stray from his cause of evil.  The religious zealots of the time of Christ who kill in the name of God, were doing so at the express desire of Satan himself.  The religious zealots of today who espouse hate to those still caught in sin, follow the same path of Satan, and do nothing to advance the cause of God or the redemption those sin-sick souls are in such desperate need of.  Only love will ever reach them, hate and death will accomplish nothing.

Jesus concludes his predictions by stating one last time in verse 4 … “But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.”  Everything He was telling them was prophetic, and true, and would help prepare them for the future they faced.  The message is every bit as relevant for us today as it was then.  When we are transformed by the love of Christ, we will become different people than what we were.  We will value different things, love differently, want different things.  When we begin to reflect the love of Christ through us more perfectly, we will draw the ire of the world around us.  Satan will not leave us free to love as Christ loved without making every attempt to draw us away from Christ.  He will tell us that “we” have accomplished our spiritual awakening by our own great power and intellect.  He will do everything he can to convince us that even our religious life is about us, our salvation attributable to our works and will power and understanding of scripture.  He will do anything he can to keep us from focusing on Christ.  We cannot expect a life of ease as a servant of love.  Instead we can expect a life of hardship, and of perfect peace, contentment, fulfillment, and joy.  For it is not our conditions that define our responses, it is the power of His love within us.  We will find perfection from the work He does.  We will find peace in KNOWING that it is He who saves us from the people we once were.  Our salvation is His gift to us, and the way we love is also the result of His gifts.  Nothing can take that away, whether from within our churches, or outside of them.

And communion was not over yet …

 

Doubt and Division ...

The setting remained at the Temple during Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.  Jesus had come here to teach his doctrine of love and salvation, and had already convinced some that were there listening that He truly was the Messiah.  This knowledge reached the Pharisees and His ability to reach the minds and hearts of the people could not go unchallenged.  To maintain their hold over the people, to maintain their authority to teach truth and doctrines as its only source, the Pharisees must see this young upstart removed from "their" Temple and brought to them to answer for His crimes.  Sometimes for church leaders, the preservation of the hierarchy is more important than the dissemination of truth and love.  The preservation of church authority is more important than a true conversion which might turn leaders into servants.  And so using the “muscle” of the church at the time, in chapter 7 and verse 32 of John’s gospel account, the Pharisees send their officers to forcibly take Christ and bring Him to them, to answer for His deeds.

When a church must rely on the power of force or compulsion to insure its own preservation, it has lost sight of any truth it may have once known.  The God of both Old and New Testaments has never compelled mankind to love and serve Him, for it is impossible to “force” love.  Love must always be a choice if it is to be love.  Our God of love “chose” to save us, and take on our punishment in order to redeem us.  Our God offers us the “choice” of being saved from the pain we inflict on ourselves and others.  Our God longs to save us from the fate of death that inevitably accompanies the evil we embrace.  But He does not force us to make this choice.  He cannot.  He can only offer.  We are free to accept or reject.  It is our freedom to choose hate and death; that makes it a true choice when we pick love and life. 

It was this same freedom that allowed Lucifer to break trust with God, and choose to pursue his own wisdom instead of God’s; and evil which had never been known, was born into the universe.  Up until that time, Lucifer had chosen to follow God and trust in God as had every other sentient being in the universe.  But up to that time the choice was natural and logical.  No one had ever put themselves or their own wisdom ahead of God’s.  No one had ever challenged love or its motives.  No one had ever looked to themselves as a source of wisdom that might match or rival God’s; until Lucifer made that choice.  He broke trust with God, and decided to follow self, and the negative spiral that ensued defines the evil that now lies in the hearts of the Pharisees, who lead the church of His day.

But the doctrine of Satan is nothing like the doctrines of God.  Where God would offer us a choice to be free from self, Satan would gladly compel us to serve self with an addiction we are unable to break.  Satan is uninterested in freedom, but keenly happy to enslave any who even briefly look away from God.  The doctrine of Satan is most happy when it is able to compel others to submit to its authority.  It is happier still when it can compel truth to be silent, mix it with error, and present it as the “will” of God.  The Pharisees had abandoned truth for power, and in so doing were now doing the will of the father of evil.  The doctrine that would compel the conscious of others is authored and preserved by Satan himself.  When a church adopts compulsion, it adopts with it, Satanic doctrine from which it will be powerless to escape.  Power and control have a high allure to unconverted minds that know not what it means to truly love.  This was the lot of the Pharisees in the days of Christ, this was the path they had chosen.  I wonder, if the Catholic and Protestant churches of today, that claim the name of Christ, would also be willing to completely abandon the power and influence they seek to exert in the halls of governments around the world, opting instead to offer only truth and love to all who have need?

But Jesus was not there to compel, He was there to make an offer of freedom to His listeners.  And Christ knew something the people there did not: He would not always be with them.  There was a limit to the time He would be permitted to spend with them.  His offer to them bore a sense of immediacy.  He had a sense of urgency.  There was a real need, that required a real solution, and it required it now.  To those sent to take Him, Jesus responds in verse 33 … “Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. [verse 34] Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.”  God longs to be with mankind, His creation.  Love longs to be with its object.  Every precious minute spent with Christ, was one that Christ wanted to spend with us, and one we should have treasured to spend with Him.  The life of Christ was not to be one that would last indefinitely with His people.  His work required an end to His earthly life, and a return to the Father who sent Him.  Once removed physically from our presence, we would be unable to follow Him where He was going.

The offer of Christ was not that we should be saved from evil within us, only at the last great day.  It was an offer of salvation that could begin immediately.  Our pain does not delay, our cure must not either.  Christ had come to meet our need of salvation, and meet it in the here and now.  He does not defer His offer until a last great day of judgment.  He does not require us to live in the pain of self-service the entirety of our lives, die, and only then be resurrected to finally know the freedom from serving self that His offer truly brings.  He offers it here.  He offers it now.  He offers that a belief in Him is able to meet our most immediate need, it is able to end the pain we inflict on ourselves and others in the here and now.  This is why He was so passionate with what time He had left among us.  It is why He so longed to free us, because He saw that our need was so great.  He knew we would want to simply be with Him, for when we are in the presence of Christ our pain is taken away.  He knew that when we seek Him, we find relief when we find Him.  And He knew, that soon the punishment justice would require would remove Him from our lives in a physical way. 

Only Christ would transcend death, and be reunited to His Father.  Only Christ, being God, could be something more than mortal.  Christ knew that even when we die, we do not escape our graves, we do not follow Him to heaven.  We sleep.  If it were otherwise, His words that day may have been different.  He may have said, fear not, when you die believing in me you will be instantly reunited with me in heaven just after your death.  Instead He says … “where I am, thither ye cannot come”.  We are not immortal.  We are not transcendent.  We do not enter the door of death, only to re-emerge in some other higher state of being.  We are dust, and to dust we return.  We sleep when we die, knowing nothing.  We sleep awaiting the last great day of resurrection, and in that hope, but our consciousness ceases to exist.  It is this truth that Christ knows, and His listeners do not.  Time for us, is not without limits, at least not yet.  We have only the limits of our mortal existence in which to choose to be made free from our pain and sin.  We have only now to choose to embrace life, and let go of the path of death that follows trusting to self, instead of to God.  Jesus preaches with an urgency, to reach those that are listening.  His would-be kidnappers are stopped in their tracks, the urgency with which love calls to them, reaching into the innermost parts of their hearts, causes them to completely lose track of the mission they have been assigned.

But the leaders present at His sermon are not so moved, they are puzzled.  Beginning in verse 35 they begin to wonder aloud where Christ might go that they could not find Him.  Is He going to teach the Gentiles maybe in some far off land?  What on earth could He mean that He is going somewhere they cannot go?  This saying makes no sense to them, as once again, they are thinking in physical terms and not in spiritual ones.  This is often the case when unconverted minds who trust not in any wisdom outside of their own, attempt to interpret truth.  When we decide it is our job to “tell” God what truth is, we rarely get it right.  What we do instead, is attempt to “tell” each other what truth is, in no uncertain terms, and use this as a basis to form an organized church.  What Christ told His listeners did not make sense to those who were not there to follow, but to lead.  Leaders could make no sense of this.  They had the means and power and influence to track Christ down, no matter where He tried to run from them.  But frankly to be rid of Him, was not an unpleasant idea anyway.  It was the concept that having been rid of Him, they would only then want to actually find Him that perplexed them.  Why would they want to find Him, after they had won?  This idea was troubling.

Time though, was growing short.  The Feast was nearly over.  People would be returning to their homes, some of them may never have the chance to hear the author of truth and love ever again.  And so the urgency increases even more, in verse 37 it states … “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. [verse 38] He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. [verse 39] (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)”  Again Jesus quotes the scriptures of His day, again Jesus ratifies that the Old Testament spoke truth despite what misinterpretations the people of His day, or ours, had associated with it.  Again Jesus speaks of “living” waters that spring from “within” us.  This is the gift He is here to offer and His Holy Spirit will see fulfilled.  We are not the source of this blessing, we are the recipient of it.  It is something that will be placed within us, not grown there of our own deeds and intentions.  We that “believe” on Him will see this transformation take place in our lives.  We that “believe” on Him and not ourselves, truth His wisdom and not our own, will see a river, not just a trinkle, but a flowing river of living water flow out of us.  For it is His power, His love, and His truth that can flow through us, when we submit ourselves out of His way.  When we submit to Christ, we can be a vessel for His Spirit; instead of predisposed to wish credit for His actions, and fame for our part in His service.  But because Jesus was not glorified yet, and was still with us personally, His Spirit had not yet been poured out on His followers.

The words of Christ, like seeds on the ground, encountered a variety of responses in the ears of His listeners.  There were some who heard and did not fully understand, but they knew His words had the ring of truth to them.  Perhaps they could not fully understand them, but they knew them to be true.  These would gladly call Him “the prophet”.  Others heard the love in Him, others knew that the source of love was in Him like in no other man that had ever been, or would ever be.  And so they gladly called Him the Messiah, the Christ, the long awaited hope of Israel.  These were even more blessed.  But there were some, who though they were convicted He was the Messiah, could not reconcile their own prejudices with what they knew of His background or origin.  They perceived Him to be from Galilee and from Nazareth, not from Bethlehem of the house of David.  After all, Herod had slaughtered all the male children of Bethlehem about the time which Christ was born, no one had survived to their knowledge, so even based on the scriptures they knew – the perceived the facts could not line up with this Jesus being the Messiah.  And verse 43 pens the painful reality of His age, and of ours … “So there was a division among the people because of him.”

How painful it must be to Jesus our Lord, that so many people who claim His name, are so divided from each other “because” of Him?  For He is one Lord, so why do we divide ourselves from each other, while all still claiming our method of following the one Lord is the only “one” He would approve of?  It was not the Old Testament that was in error in the day of Christ, nor the prophecies of His place of origin that were mistaken, it was the understanding of the people who simply did not know, or refused to accept, the truth of Him.  Christ was born in Bethlehem from the lineage of David, as the prophets foretold.  It was true.  Whether people knew, or chose to believe it, was the only question at issue.  There was no “real” need for division over the truth, for the truth was true, and did fit the facts.  It was us, in the error.  It was again when we applied “our” knowledge of scripture and the facts, that “we” drew a different conclusion and division arose.  It is the same today.  We look at scripture and attempt to teach, rather than to learn.  We apply our “knowledge” of the facts, and draw conclusions different from each other.  And we allow these differing conclusions to become so important to us, that we separate ourselves from each other over them.  Instead of cherishing the uniting principle and motive of love, that could supersede all other ideas of truth; we allow our pride in our “understanding” of doctrine to keep us from free association with fellow believers so as to keep “pure” our ideas of doctrine, over simple love.  The division of His listeners is little different than the division of hundreds of protestant churches who color the landscape of Christianity today.

Verse 44 continues … “And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.”  Some of the officers sent to take Him, now gave it careful consideration.  But all in all, His passion, His love, and His truth touched them deep in their minds and souls.  The power of love in the message of truth was so compelling, that men under orders who knew the penalty for failure, decided they could not fulfill their mission.  Instead they return empty handed to the eagerly awaiting Pharisees, who expected to judge Christ, condemn Him, and see Him killed in their presence.  They were to be disappointed.  When the soldiers appeared without Him, the Pharisees demand to know why they did not bring Him?  They could have lied.  They could have simply told the truth that there were so many there who did believe, it might have caused a riot to attempt to grab Him then.  The Pharisees would have believed that answer, and likely been satisfied with it.  But instead they told a different truth, the real truth in verse 46 … “The officers answered, Never a man spake like this man.”  The power of truth in love had reached the hearts of those sent to take Him.  To this the furious Pharisees ask … “are ye also deceived?”  They add in verse 48 … “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?”  This they offered as “proof” He was not the Messiah.  Since none of the church leaders of the day had endorsed Him, He could not be the one.  As if truth and love, require the endorsement of the leadership of the church, before they can be “truth and love”.

In verse 49, in order to further prove their point about leadership knowing what is best, and simple parishioners not knowing that facts they add the commentary … “But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.”  Simpletons.  These idiot guards are cursed for not knowing the truth the exalted leadership knew.  But in his account of this incident, John did not go with allowing this unjust idea to stand.  Instead it was debunked in real time.  Nicodemus, a venerated leader, and one of the Pharisees was in attendance that day.  Nicodemus, unbeknownst to any of them, had sought Christ out at night and learned directly from Jesus the words of truth, love, and light.  None of these men knew it.  But Nicodemus did, and he was educated.  Nicodemus then calls to their attention the hypocrisy of claiming a curse on the uneducated guards based on the law, when attempting to use the law to condemn a man without trial, and without even hearing from Him?  In verse 51 … “Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?”  Salt in a wound there my friend, salt in a wound.  The stunned Pharisees hardly could recover from this, one of their own just called them out on their shenanigans.   Now they are just plain mad at Nicodemus for this humiliation and respond in verse 52 … “They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. [verse 53] And every man went unto his own house.”

To the truth of the words of Nicodemus in exposing their hypocrisy they offer further “prejudice” as proof.  Asking if Nicodemus too was from Galilee (knowing he was not), they ask him to ever disprove the notion that Galilee was not a place from where great prophets ever came from.  Of course this idea too, ignores that Bethlehem was the place of His birth, and that He descended from the lineage of David.  But to keep this argument from coming up, in verse 53 they take an immediate action – meeting adjourned.  Better to go home disappointed they did not get to judge Christ that night, than to have further conversations that may reveal the truth of His heritage and origin of birth.  If ever forced to confront the truth of Him, they would be forced to admit they had no leg to stand on in regards to their hatred of Him, other than He threatened their power over the minds of the people.  Satan HATES losing control over his subjects.  So too, do religious leaders hate losing influence over the minds and hearts of their flocks.  But truth needs no guardian.  Love needs no army.  The true power of the gospel is found in humility.  The transformation that follows a real encounter with Christ, cannot be stopped by edict, or any other device of Satan.  So it was in His day, and in ours …