“And all were
speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling
from His lips; and they were saying, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’” (Luke 4:22).
Some thoughtful
folks see genuine wonder and praise in Luke 4:22, other thoughtful people see “who
does He think He is, we know Him and His family?” As we saw in our previous reflection, the
congregation, His hometown church, soon tried to murder Jesus.
In John 8:30 –
59 there is a similar pattern. We go from “many believing in Him” (Jn. 8:30) to
these same people “picking up stones to throw at Him” (8:59).
How does Jesus
respond to “many believing in Him”?
“If you continue
in My word then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and
the truth will set you free” (Jn. 8:31 – 32).
Just as in
Nazareth, Jesus could have left well enough alone. In Nazareth Jesus could have
found a different passage to read in Isaiah, but He didn’t. In Nazareth He
could have not introduced the stories of the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the
Syrian, but He did. In Nazareth He could have eased into the idea that He was
the Messiah, He could have given His hometown folks time to get used to the
idea, time to adjust, time to consider, time to ponder, but He didn’t.
In John 8, in
Jerusalem, He could have eased the people who were “believing in Him” into the
idea that there was a freedom they were not yet experiencing. He need not have brought up slavery to sin
(Jn. 8:34 – 36). Why does He say that “You seek to kill Me, because My word has
no place in you”? (Jn. 8:37). After all, outwardly they were believing in Him,
why not leave things alone, why penetrate their hearts? Why not give these
people time?
Why keep
insisting that they can’t hear His word (Jn. 8:43)?
And why, O why,
tell the people, “You are of your father the devil”? (Jn. 8:44).
This makes no
sense, doesn’t Jesus want to build a nice large church? Doesn’t He want to get
His message across? Why does He alienate people?
The people go
from believing in Him (verse 30) to accusing Him of having a demon (verse 48)
to attempting to kill Him (verse 59). Things move quickly toward attempted
murder in John 8 just as they do in Luke 4. Why, in both instances, does Jesus say
things that will incite the people to reject Him and attempt to kill Him? Why
can’t He be a seeker-sensitive Messiah? Why won’t God Incarnate cater to our
needs and wants and desires and agendas? Why won’t Jesus play church?
“For judgment I
came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who
see may become blind” (Jn. 9:39). The simplicity of the story of Jesus and the
blind man ought to instruct us. Just as Jesus was put out of the synagogue in
Luke 4, so the blind man who was healed by Jesus was cast out of the synagogue
in John 9. Even the blind man’s parents disowned him “because they were afraid
of the Jews [the religious leaders]” (Jn. 9:22).
Jesus strips
away our pretentions, our religious facades, our Sunday-morning personas, and
He gets to the heart of the matter – we are blind; our heritage – whether religious
or national or ethnic or family – does not make us God’s chosen people –
we have no possibility of righteousness outside of Jesus Christ and He will
make certain that we know this. We will either know this and accept this, or we
will refuse to acknowledge Him and attempt to murder Him.
I imagine the
attempted murder of Jesus Christ occurs every Sunday morning in “Christian”
gatherings across the globe. The idea that He may be working in the widows of
Zarephath or in the Naamans of Syria is too much for us, the thought that Jesus
may want to burst our wineskins and replace them with Himself as our Temple,
and that He wants to bring those who are not like us into our lives, is too
much for us. We will kill those ideas, we will bury those teachings, we will replace
any pastors who dare suggest such things.
We must seal
ourselves off from the Samaritans in our communities and nation and world. We
must isolate ourselves in order to protect our way of life, our “lifestyles,”
our religious self-righteousness. Just as the people of Jerusalem, we say to
Jesus, “We are the children of America and have never been slaves to anyone!” Unless
of course, we are African – American.
We say to Jesus,
“We are Pentecostal, we are Reformed, we are Lutheran, we are Roman Catholic,
we are Anglican, we are Arminian, we are nondenominational, we are Conservative,
we are Liberal.” Well, you get the idea. Don’t mess with our security, with our
identity, with our righteousness. Do not
question our way of doing church, of church growth, of the End Times; and most
certainly don’t take issue with our view of what it means to be prolife (as Pope
Leo has done).
We see much the
same scenario in John 6 as we do in Luke 4 and John 8. Jesus goes from a crowd
to a few.
“Truly, truly, I
say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the
loaves and were filled” (Jn. 6:26).
“Therefore the
Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, ‘I am the bread that came down
out of heaven.’ They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose
father and mother we know? How does He now say, I have come down out of heaven?’”
(John6:41 – 42). What does this passage remind you of?
When Jesus says,
“For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has
been granted him from the Father,” many of His disciples leave Him “and were
not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:65 – 66).
Now here is the
thing dear reader, and here you can know where you really are in your relationship
with Jesus Christ. It all comes down to your answer to Jesus to this question
of His.
“So Jesus said
to the twelve, ‘You do not want to go away also, do you?’” (John 6:67).
What is my response
to Jesus?
What is yours?
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