Tag Archives: another place

KING OF THE JEWS

Bible Study, ,

KING OF THE JEWS

“Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked Him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ ‘Is that your own idea,’ Jesus asked, ‘or did others talk to you about me?’

“‘Am I a Jew? ‘Pilate replied. ‘Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?’

“Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of the world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.'” John 18:33-36.

One has to feel some pity for Pilate. At the crack of dawn, when the poor man had hardly wiped the sleep from his eyes, an irate mob of Jews, led by their religious leaders, turned up on his doorstep but refused to go inside because of some religious scruple of their own making. They were demanding the execution of a prisoner he hardly knew anything about.

When Pilate asked about the prisoner’s crime, His accusers retort with the lame excuse that they would not have brought Him had He not been guilty! How was Pilate to interpret that? Were they trying to make him look like a fool so that they could dodge the question?

It was left to Pilate and Jesus to determine His crime. Pilate must have had some notion that Jesus claimed to be the king of the Jews. Now the charge was no longer blasphemy but treason, a charge serious enough to deserve the death penalty if it were proven true.

Pilate asked Jesus outright, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Jesus certainly didn’t look very regal at that moment. There was blood congealed on His face from the thorny crown that had bitten into His flesh. His seamless robe was dirty and dishevelled. There were bald and bloodied patches on His cheeks where the soldiers had pulled out His beard. He was pale and gaunt from lack of food and sleep.

He didn’t act like a king either. Where was His retinue of attendants? Where were His loyal subjects? He was neither loudly protesting His innocence not demanding justice for a man in His position. He had no secret army waiting in ambush to attack the Romans and defend Him. He stood before Pilate in respectful silence, waiting for him to decide what to do with Him.

Pilate and Jesus engaged in an unusually polite exchange for a Roman governor and a prisoner. Pilate must have been intrigued by this accused man who did not behave like all the others. There was a calm dignity about Jesus, in spite of His precarious position, that caused Pilate to treat Him far more gently than he would the run-of-the-mill prisoner.

Since Jesus would not state the charge which was supposed to have been brought by His accusers, Pilate tried to find out from Him what He had done to deserve this treatment. Jesus’ response was mystifying. ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’  Was this man crazy? What was He talking about? He looked perfectly sane. Was He hallucinating from pain and shock?

No, Jesus was neither crazy nor hallucinating. As always, He viewed His life from the perspective of His purpose for coming to earth. Whether Pilate understood or not was irrelevant. He was making no claim to Caesar’s rule over Israel. He was establishing His right to rule over the hearts of the men and women He had created for Himself.

What Jesus had done was not the issue but who He was, and it was not Pilate’s responsibility to decide but to acknowledge that He was who He was and to submit to Him as King of the Jews.

Son of God…King of the Jews…from the human point of view He was guilty of both charges but, from the divine perspective, He not only claimed but proved Himself to be who He said He was. The problem was that His accusers refused to examine the evidence. He was a threat to their cushy lives and that was more important than the truth. Unlike Jesus, they refused to view the whole of life including the part that extended beyond the grave. Jesus was offering them mercy for the past and grace for the present and hope for the future but they turned it down flat!

What about you?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Faith And Unbelief

Christian Life, , , ,

FAITH AND UNBELIEF

“Still shaking his head, he went to Mary’s house, the Mary who was John Mark’s mother. The house was packed with praying friends. When he knocked on the door to the courtyard, a young woman named Rhoda came to see who it was. But when she recognised his voice — Peter’s voice — she was so excited and eager to tell everyone Peter was there that she forgot to open the door and left him standing in the street.” Acts 12:12-14 (The Message).

Peter was free but vulnerable. How long would it take for the Roman guards to rouse from their stupor and realise that Peter had disappeared? He had to get off the street and quickly. A lone man wandering around in the dark would be suspect, to be sure. Of course, there were no electric street lights and many dark corners, but daylight would soon reveal the fugitive when the soldiers were sent out to comb the neighbourhood, and they would be ruthless in their search.

Peter made a beeline for Mary’s house knowing he would be safe there for a short while. Although he did not know it then, many of his friends were assembled there, praying up a storm for his release. His urgent knocking was answered by a young servant girl who was obviously very much part of the praying.

Luke adds a human touch and a little humour to his story. Rhoda recognised Peter’s voice and was so ecstatic about the miraculous answer to their prayers that she left him outside and rushed into the prayer meeting with the news that Peter was free. Unlike the “holy books” of other religions, little incidents like these link us to the sheer humanness of the story. This is God’s story, but it is about people just like us.

“But they wouldn’t believe her, dismissing her, dismissing her report.’You’re crazy,’ they said. She stuck by her story, insisting. They still wouldn’t believe her and said, ‘It must be his angel.’ All this time poor Peter was standing out in the street knocking away.” Acts 12:15-16 (The Message).

It seems strange that the believers were praying for Peter’s release but, when it happened, they could not take it in. One wonders what they were expecting to happen. Perhaps they had some prescribed notion of how it would happen instead of letting God do it His way.

Aren’t we just like that? Instead of letting God be God, we tell Him what to do and how to do it and then we put our faith in our expectation instead of in God to do what He wants to do His way. So much of our disappointment with God is tied to our expectations of what He will do and the way He will do it instead of putting our trust in Him and His wisdom and love. How often I hear this statement: “I’m trusting God for….” instead of “I’m trusting God,” period.

Somehow we have the capacity to turn faith into unbelief when we limit God to our way of thinking and our way of doing things. What if, instead, our heartfelt confidence in the will of God frees Him to act when, how and where He chooses so that our insignificant concerns become a part of the bigger picture of His kingdom?

“Finally they opened up and saw him — and went wild! Peter put up his hands and calmed them down. He described how the Master had gotten him out of jail, then said, ‘Tell James and the brothers what happened.’ He left them and went to another place.” Acts 12:16-17 (The Message).

Having told his story and concluded their mission to pray him out of jail, Peter left Jerusalem, putting distance between himself and the murderous intentions of Herod. From here on, Luke turned his attention to Paul and his commission to take the gospel to the whole Roman Empire. Peter appears briefly in Acts 15, but for the rest, Paul and his companions are the focus of the missionary enterprise.

If we take a step back for a moment and take in the ebb and flow of the infant church, it’s a story of vulnerable human beings caught up in the cosmic war between God and His arch-enemy, the devil, with human beings the prize. There is suffering and victory, death and life, pain and joy, but all the while the church inches her way across the empire, person by person, city by city, through the courageous witness of men and women who were not afraid to pay the price for their faith in a living Saviour.