Have the rulers then indeed recognised that this is the Christ? This is where we left off last time, partway into the 7th chapter of John’s gospel. In the face of conflicting opinions, with eyewitnesses testifying to the merciful (and miraculous) deeds of Jesus on one side and His detractors claiming that He is misleading the crowds on the other, the people want an answer, they want to make a decision; but they are afraid to make it on their own…
Because it is always easier to put it off… We think: “Maybe I don’t have enough information yet;” or, “Don’t we have experts on this subject for this very reason?” Or: “I don’t want to be too hasty; I could make a mistake.”
“After all, I have lived my life so far without making this decision, and nothing awful has happened yet. What is one more day, just to be sure?” And then we can expand that argument: “And I know Jim, who is a lot older than I am, a lot more experienced with life and important things… He hasn’t decided yet, and nothing bad has happened to him.
“Yeah, I think the sensible thing is not to rush into anything. I don’t want people to think I am a fanatic or a zealot or one of those people that don’t care if they rock the boat. You know, rocking the boat is not something to be taken lightly. It can offend people; make them feel bad.
“No, let’s be level-headed and see if there is a consensus from everyone else. Then we can all make the sensible decision together.”
That is essentially the response from many in that crowd. The question is, is He the Messiah? Their answer:
John 7:27 But [as to] this [man] we know whence he is. Now [as to] the Christ, when he comes, no one knows whence he is.
You see, apparently, a teaching had developed over the years (centuries) that when the Messiah appeared, it would be some sort of surprise (a plausible reading of Malachi 3:1) and so, no one would know where He was coming from.
As Barnes’ Notes on the Bible say, we have other evidence in the gospel of this belief being current as can be gleaned from: Matthew 24:23; Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not. And again Matthew 24:26, If they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not. And we have other Jewish writings that taught the same idea.
Yet it was well-known that Jesus had come from Galilee. Therefore, relying on that tenuous contradiction, they felt justified in hesitating. But, since the escalation has already started, Jesus won’t let them get away with that:
John 7:28 Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, Ye both know me and ye know whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is True, whom ye do not know.
He is repeating to them the assertion from John 7:16-17, but now adding the natural conclusion: If they knew God, they would recognize His Voice in Jesus’ teaching. The fact that they choose to doubt that then proves that they really do not know God.
John 7:29 I know Him, because I am from Him, and *He* has sent me.
Jesus’ claim to have been sent directly by God cannot be any more explicit. He has said this before, but it is sharper here because of the way He said it: He knows the Father, but they do not. Clearly, “them’s fighting words”.
John 7:30-31 They sought therefore to take him; and no one laid his hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come. But many of the crowd believed on him, and said, Will the Christ, when he comes, do more signs than those which this [man] has done?
From this point on in the Gospel, this will be the tenor of the interaction between Jesus and the people. It is what He prophesied about Himself.
Matthew 7:34-36 Do not think that I have come to send peace upon the earth: I have not come to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter with her mother, and the daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law; and they of his household [shall be] a man’s enemies.
Conflict is guaranteed…
Do we know the rules of engagement?
It is important to note the verse I underlined in John 7:30: No one laid a hand on Him because the hour for that had not yet come. Jesus had precipitated the conflict on purpose (as He told us in Matthew 7:34-36), it was part of the plan all along… because the two kingdoms cannot coexist in peace. This plan, laid out by the Father long ago, was precise in every detail, down to what would happen and exactly when. Nothing could be left to chance; so important was this plan.
The plan we are talking about is, of course, the plan of Salvation: the plan that would require Jesus giving up His life in order to save the whole world… that is, to save every one in the world who would choose to believe in Him. For that to happen, first of all, the conflict had to become clear to everyone. And then the price to be paid also had to be clear to everyone.
And Jesus spelled it out more than once, pointing out that this conflict is truly an all-out war. It wasn’t only Him who would have to suffer:
Matthew 16:24-26 Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any one desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever shall desire to save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what does a man profit, if he should gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
He said words like these many times. As we will see in John 15, He never wavered on the clarity of this warning:
John 15:18-21 If the world hate you, know that it has hated me before you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on account of this the world hates you. Remember the word which I said unto you, The bondman is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will keep also yours. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they have not known him that sent me.
Reading these words, taking them to heart, should make it clear that the sufferings of the Christ could very well be part and parcel of our own lives… because just as the Father sent Him, He sends us. And if the sufferings come, we have nothing to complain about. It should be no surprise. But more importantly we should be expecting them and be prepared to deal with them in the same way that Jesus dealt with them.
Do we know the rules of engagement?
Conflict is coming… but who wields the sword?
We have to be careful how we answer that question because, like many generations before us, we tend to want to worship heroes, heroes who end up victorious by their might and determination. Think about all the action movies in theatres and streaming online. The hero is the martial artist, the ex-soldier, the tough man that won’t let anyone walk over him (or her). Sure, the movie plots are set up to justify the actions of the hero; and a lot of times they are defending the helpless. But you and I know that a lot of times, they are the heroes simply because they are the only ones strong enough to stand up to the bad guys (or the badder guys).
But is that the kind of hero Jesus was?
His enemies – people that He knew were refusing to listen to The Father – came against Him: They sought therefore to take him… They wanted to grab Him and take Him prisoner, judge Him and punish Him. So what did Jesus do? It doesn’t say He used his Kung-Fu skills to knock them all down, does it? No, what it says is: and no one laid his hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.
You see, Jesus was sent, sent by the Father, the Maker of the Universe; and because He knew it, He had complete confidence that that Father was in total control. He let the Father take care of it.
Why didn’t He fight back?
Maybe because it is awful hard to love someone that you are busy punching out. And if you know the story, you know He let himself be beaten almost to a pulp.
This is the way Isaiah the prophet saw and heard it… Jesus speaking:
Isaiah 50:4-5 The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed. The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not away back.
Jesus listened to the voice of the Father and did what He was asked to do. Yes, He came to rescue the weary; but doing the Father’s will also included being illegally apprehended, enduring a sham trial, and taking all the abuse that happened that night:
Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
And He did not fight back. Why? Because He knew Who is in control:
Isaiah 50:7-9 But the Lord Jehovah will help me: therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth me: who will contend with me? let us stand together; who is mine adverse party? let him draw near unto me. Behold, the Lord Jehovah will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? Behold, they all shall grow old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
Jesus abided by the rules of engagement required for the Father’s plan to succeed. The question that I have to ask myself, the question all of us have to ask of ourselves is this:
Are we willing to do the same?
In this action movie, we, the followers of Christ, do not wield the sword. Because, as He told Peter, He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. If we have any doubt about this, all we need to do is read the Sermon on the Mount and know that Jesus meant every word He said.
The only sword we can wield is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. And to be true to it, we must be willing to turn the other cheek when struck, walk that extra mile carrying our enemy’s burdens, and refuse to hate, refuse to denigrate, refuse to insult, taunt, or threaten anybody simply because we claim to be on God’s side and claim to be doing His work.
Do we really think that God needs our help? Do we really think that He needs us to pass judgment on sinners? I mean, when did He stop being the Infinite God, Maker of the Universe? Isn’t He still today, and always, in control?
