 |
Welcome | Ministries | Service Times | Events | News | Links | Contact Us |
 |
Does it matter who's fault it was? A devotion for Holy Week 2010This morning the news reported the stabbing death of a high school student. The boys were fighting over a girl. The survivor will now be charged. Whether he caused the fight or not -- he will bear the full consequences for its outcome. I've never liked the picture the New Testament Scriptures paint of the teachers and scribes of the law with whom Jesus struggled throughout his ministry. They were sly and underhanded. Their collusion with Judas ultimately led to the entrapment of Jesus -- and when Judas supposedly regretted his betrayal of Jesus -- they merely responded: "That's not our problem!" (Matthew 27:4) After I reread their words, I looked back in the Old Testament to a place I thought I heard something like that before -- I looked at what background information I could find about the priest Ezra. Ezra was a hard-liner. He is credited with saving Judaism from extinction after the exile in Babylon by raising his people's self-awareness. He advocated a pure religion. He went so far as to insist that Jewish people separate themselves from their non-Jewish spouses and families etc. to keep the race and their faith pure. (Ezra 9) Some say he taught the 'prophets' as they meant really it -- Ezra loved God and his people deeply and wanted to save them from the displeasure and judgement of God -- as was witnessed before! Then I looked again at the words of the High Priest Caiaphas who tried Jesus before he was handed over to Pontius Pilate. Caiaphas himself said: "It is better for us that one man should diefor the people, and the whole nation not perish." (John 11:50) It's easy to lay blame when people are so badly out of step with what WE believe. Unfortunately, our own lack of principles and unwillingness to stand up for what we really believe ultimately leads to the death of all kinds of important things too: safe neighbourhoods, flourishing faith communities, harmonious families ... Evil, apathy, greed, questionable values and priorities -- destroy and replace these things that would otherwise put wings under our feet and help everyone live a rich & fulfilled life -- our bad decisions bring the same results as the hard-line faith of Ezra and his religious heirs: the teachers and scribes of the law in Jesus' time. Death was already knocking at their door long before Jesus came along to revive faith in the Living God of their ancestors. They did not invent the blindness and hatred that sent Jesus to the cross. They were the ones holding the 'smoking gun' when the New Testament Gospels were written, but it was generations of people before them who moved God to come into the world in human form to save it from itself. It doesn't really matter who killed Jesus. Suffering was widespread then. Spiritual teaching was confused with teaching obedience to the law -- which was believed to free people of their sins! All around the Jewish territories -- hundreds of thousands of people still never heard the Good News of God about which the psalms so often speak! Israel had failed God in its mission to the nations! It is for them too, that Jesus came -- and who's sins he took with him on the cross. Our Lord God offers us His love and forgiveness in the message of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. He walks with us before we accept Him, and God forgives us when we ask -- regardless of who we are or what mistakes we've made. The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to also forgive oneanother. With an emptied-out heart; emptied of guilt and sin, traditions become less important. Everyone can be a sister or brother and a neighbour to a person in need. Through Jesus God calls us to reconcilliation and love for oneanother and not to separation & condemnation. Who's fault was the crucifixion? It doesn't matter! God used it to bring us His love and forgiveness once more! Easter blessings to you and yours.
|
|||||||||
