Repudiation

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

The end of the day - and what a long, disappointing day (!) - leaving Jerusalem for the last time after a deliberately planned trap ending as a sparring match of questions and answers with the scholars of the Talmud, some followers of their teachings, and a group that didn't believe in life after death.

Matthew 23

vs.37

Ἰερουσαλὴμ Ἰερουσαλήμ, ἡ ἀποκτείνουσα τοὺς προφήτας καὶ λιθοβολοῦσα τοὺς ἀπεσταλμένους πρὸς αὐτήν, ποσάκις ἠθέλησα ἐπισυναγαγεῖν τὰ τέκνα σου, ὃν τρόπον ὄρνις ἐπισυνάγει τὰ νοσσία αὐτῆς ὑπὸ τὰς πτέρυγας, καὶ οὐκ ἠθελήσατε

(Jerusalem, Jerusalem - killing prophets and stoning others sent to you. How many times did I want to bring you together like a hen brings her little chicks around her under her wings... But you were not willing.)

The whole story could have been different.  Jesus had worked hard to make his public teaching one of joy and hope, forgiveness and acceptance, healing and second chances, a story that would have ended with a more complete understanding of God and what he wanted for people.

vs.38

ἰδοὺ ἀφίεται ὑμῖν ὁ οἶκος ὑμῶν ἔρημος

(Just look at your house!  It has been left empty.)

He found his people in disarray.  He found them in groups and sects.  He found them in social classes.  He found them in conflict against Rome and in conflict among themselves.  He found them in disbelief of his message about who God was and what he wanted.

vs.39

λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν, οὐ μή με ἴδητε ἀπ’ ἄρτι ἕως ἂν εἴπητε εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου

(So rest assured that you will not see me from this moment until you have declared, "Praise the one coming in the name of the Lord!")

He had tried!  But his father had made it clear to him that his time on Earth was over.  It had been an especially long and trying day.  So, he in turn told those listening to him that he wouldn't see them again in this city until he was treated as the Messiah entering Jerusalem, which, unknown to them, would only be a little over a week later.  When he returned, the events would be ordered, the countdown set.  There would be no more opportunities for the hen to gather her chicks to listen to Jesus talk about his father or his wishes for his people.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The beginning of the same day, a week and a half before his final entry into Jerusalem led on a donkey in a procession of palm leaves to shouts of "Hosanna in the highest - Praise the one coming in the name of the Lord."

Knowing the time of the end heightened Jesus' urgency to explain EXACTLY what stood in the way of people seeing God for who he was and Jesus for who he was.  Jesus was incredulous that the very people who were supposed to represent God to the world wouldn't believe the one whom God had sent to them so that they could return to being a people who could actually represent him.

Who was it that couldn't accept that he was the Messiah, the one representing God' light in a dark world?  Who was it that couldn't accept that he was God in flesh accepting them as they were and encouraging them to be better about doing hateful things to each other?  Who was it that would blatantly oppose teachings about acceptance, healings of restoration, and beautiful acts of catching God's favor?

That's the unbelievable part of this story.  They were the people well versed in what God's covenant meant to his people.  They were referred to as scholars of the Talmud and as Pharisees, a group of people that committed themselves to following the teachings of these scholars of the Talmud to the letter.  God's ways had been codified in their eyes.  It wasn't a loose covenant of love and acceptance.   It was an unbending list of commands that needed to be followed meticulously in order to curry favor with the Almighty Lord of Hosts.  Anything short of that curried the Almighty's anger.  The covenants made with Abraham and Moses and the traditions of the people, the insights of former, esteemed rabbis, were all written down.  By the time of Jesus, Jews had divided into several groups trying to deal with the long history of God's covenant with them, but the most influential group in Jerusalem was the one saying that being a Jew was a matter of black and white, a system of actions to be performed.  The group believing this austere regimen of behavior in following the Talmud called themselves Pharisees.

Messiah by Ghenadie Sontu

When his father had made it clear to him that his time on Earth was over, Jesus left the outlying regions of Judaism and went to its heart, Jerusalem.  He knew he would encounter these scholars and this rigid group of people.  They had followed his movements in Galilee and surrounding areas, so they had encountered Jesus and his teachings before.  He also knew that they were the largest party of the controlling power groups in Jerusalem.

He was down to just a week and a half on Earth.  He had to expose the true nature of these Pharisees and scholars.  He had to speak about just what what kind of people they truly were.  His father had wanted them to change, but they wouldn't do it.  Now, the countdown was set, so he had to highlight emphatically what a fictitious religion Judaism had become compared to what his father had wanted.  So, after the major sparring match that had been planned to thwart all of his teachings (Matthew 22), Jesus took the opportunity to recount the ways in which the scholars and their followers were so UNrepresentative of his father.

Matthew 23

Verse 4

δεσμεύουσιν δὲ φορτία βαρέα [καὶ δυσβάστακτα] καὶ ἐπιτιθέασιν ἐπὶ τοὺς ὤμους τῶν ἀνθρώπων, αὐτοὶ δὲ τῷ δακτύλῳ αὐτῶν οὐ θέλουσιν κινῆσαι αὐτά

(They make burdens and place them on people's shoulders to carry, but they are not willing to help shoulder the load.)

Verse 5

πάντα δὲ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν ποιοῦσιν πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις· πλατύνουσιν γὰρ τὰ φυλακτήρια αὐτῶν καὶ μεγαλύνουσιν τὰ κράσπεδα

(All of their actions are done to be seen by others.  They make their scripture straps thicker and exaggerate the fringe on the bottom of their garments.)

Verse 13

Οὐαὶ δὲ ὑμῖν, γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί, ὅτι κλείετε τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων· ὑμεῖς γὰρ οὐκ εἰσέρχεσθε οὐδὲ τοὺς εἰσερχομένους ἀφίετε εἰσελθεῖν

(Scholars of the Talmud and Pharisees, actors, you make me cringe because people see you close off the realm of the heavens.  You yourselves don't enter, and you keep them from entering.)

Verse 15

Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν, γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί, ὅτι περιάγετε τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ τὴν ξηρὰν ποιῆσαι ἕνα προσήλυτον, καὶ ὅταν γένηται ποιεῖτε αὐτὸν υἱὸν γεέννης διπλότερον ὑμῶν

(Scholars of the Talmud and Pharisees, actors, you make me cringe because you go all over the most desertous regions around to convert one person, and when you do, you make him twice as much a child of Hinnom Valley's despicable fires of desecration as you are yourselves.)

Verse 23

Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν, γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί, ὅτι ἀποδεκατοῦτε τὸ ἡδύοσμον καὶ τὸ ἄνηθον καὶ τὸ κύμινον καὶ ἀφήκατε τὰ βαρύτερα τοῦ νόμου, τὴν κρίσιν καὶ τὸ ἔλεος καὶ τὴν πίστιν· ταῦτα [δὲ] ἔδει ποιῆσαι κἀκεῖνα μὴ ἀφιέναι

(Scholars of the Talmud and Pharisees, actors, you make me cringe because you exact a tenth of mint to spread on your synagogue floors for a good aroma, a tenth of dill to mix in as medicine to make you feel better, and a tenth of cummin to give your mouths a refreshing smell.  Yet, you have relaxed the matters of the covenant that really matter - justice and mercy and good faith.  It should be a matter of course to do the former without relaxing the latter.)

Verse 24

ὁδηγοὶ τυφλοί, οἱ διϋλίζοντες τὸν κώνωπα, τὴν δὲ κάμηλον καταπίνοντες

(Blind guides, straining out a wine gnat that is unclean just to gulp down an unclean camel!)

Strong, strong words!  And Jesus elaborated on these points more than what is quoted here.  He was greatly empassioned about the fallacies of these scholars, their followers, and the other groups that didn't know the covenant of God nor his power!!

He said all of this, and he was down to the end of his time.  He left Jerusalem...

The morsel with all the kick and sting in it for future generations to notice and avoid are the words ὑποκριταί (actors) and ὁδηγοὶ τυφλοί (blind guides). It was a shame because there was not another chance.  Jerusalem would not see him again, he said, until he came a week later as king, messiah, and son of God to be crucified, which fulfilled Psalm 118.26.  And then, he woke up.  All was fulfilled, and not another chance existed.

There are still those groups today that want a performance-based, black and white, duty-filled, obligation-driven, you're-in-and-they're-out kind of religion.  They are easy to spot because their language contains few words of acceptance, forgiveness, healing, or restoring brokenness, and their actions are perfunctory rather than the beautiful, courageous acts of grace representing Jesus and his father.  They want to achieve being flawless with their own paltry deeds offered to God.  In reality, there is only one way to be flawless.

Jesus' strongest and sharpest words, his most emphatic warnings, as he faced the time for his departure to his father, were for his followers not to become actors and blind guides.  Then he left us.

This hits home because my own footsteps have walked down Pharisaical paths of acting and blindly guiding.  I still know people I left on those paths.  My prayer is to echo the words of Jesus when he taught the Twelve to pray: "Don't make us stand trial for our evil, but rescue us from it!" (Matthew 6.13)



[The Greek text used is the Nestle-Aland 28th edition.]
[Songs used are Set Me Free by Casting Crowns and Flawless by Mercy Me.]
[Introductory photograph from www.fotosearch.com, artwork, The Messiah, by Ghenadie Sontu retrieved from
http://www.ghenadiesontu.com/figurative/messiah]

[Translations from Greek are my own.]

The reason(s)

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

Thomas Blackshear

Forgiveness

Life and death are two facts everyone grows up learning about so that by the time a person is an adult, he or she knows death is the sure and certain end of life.  I, too, have seen this principle to be true without exception, so it is the surest fact I know.

Then Jesus came and changed the surest thing I know.  First he changed the terminology used from time immemorial to more accurately represent what is happening.  It's hard for me to accept because my eyes and experience have told me different my whole life.  But, on three occasions Jesus went to a group of people and told them that the person they were mourning for was only sleeping.  The groups really couldn't fathom the idea because it contradicted everything they had been taught and everything they had seen and experienced.  That didn't stop Jesus, though, from saying that people were really only sleeping.  And when he brought them back to life he merely told them to wake from their sleep.  He told two of the three very directly, "Wake up."  And they did.  He told the third, Lazarus, a direction to walk out of the tomb, "Hey, out here," knowing that Lazarus was already awake.  Even for himself, Jesus did nothing different.  After being killed in the sight of many, many people and sealed tightly in a tomb.  He simply woke up.

Jesus also taught about life in a different way than others.  Teachers before him could say that following their teachings would give a person "quality life" or "enlightened life" while alive.  But Jesus told a woman he could give her living water, and after drinking it, she would never thirst again.  He told Martha that he was life, that she should trust him on that because her brother was going to wake up.  He told other people that he was truth and life, but he didn't mean that he was offering good instruction to follow, and by following it, they could live enlightened (the abundant life).

It was a different teaching.  John 10 illustrates well the idea that has changed what I have seen and what I have experienced.  Jesus was saying that his words were authentic and different from what others before him had taught.  He used an analogy about a shepherd with his sheep, but the people he spoke this to didn't understand his analogy.  So, he changed one element in the analogy slightly.  He said that he was a gateway for his sheep to enter through for good pastures.  Everyone else who had come before him as a gateway to some kind of good teaching was merely a thief to rob the sheep of good pasture.  Then he spoke of what he had that the ones before him never had.

Verse 9

ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα· δι’ ἐμοῦ ἐάν τις εἰσέλθῃ σωθήσεται καὶ εἰσελεύσεται καὶ ἐξελεύσεται καὶ νομὴν εὑρήσει

(I am the gateway.  Whoever enters through me will be rescued.  He will come and go and find pastures to eat from.)

Verse 10

ὁ κλέπτης οὐκ ἔρχεται εἰ μὴ ἵνα κλέψῃ καὶ θύσῃ καὶ ἀπολέσῃ· ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσιν καὶ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν

(The thief doesn't come unless he is coming to steal, take life, and destroy.  I have come so that you could have life, and you could have something more than you can imagine.)

Jesus didn't keep people in the dark.  He gave his purpose.  He said that he came so that people could have two things.  I have thought I knew what the first thing was - life - because  I was taught as a youth that life referred to my second life as a reward for believing and following the Bible.  The second thing was merely a description of the first thing: abundant life.  Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.  Translations have opted to describe the quality of life than to speak of Jesus offering life and offering something else separately.  Consequently, I didn't know about a second reason for his coming.

As it turns out, I think I am like Martha, after Lazarus died.  She told Jesus she knew Lazarus would rise again on the last day.  That's where I was.  Jesus chastised her for not seeing that he was life, and so was Lazarus for believing.  I feel Martha's chastisement because Martha's response would have been mine.  She understood, as have I, that this life ends, then believing produces a second type of life, a spiritual life.

In order to arrive at a translation of what Jesus said as abundant life, one has to make the second idea following the second verb into merely an adjective for life.  Other people translate the second idea after the second verb descriptively also, but put it into an adjectival phrase, like life in all its fullness or an adverbial phrase such as live life fully.  That's not what is said, though, so it is hard for me to make the second idea a description of life.  Jesus said "I have come so that you should have life and you should have ______."  The normal way to make adjectives or adverbs in Greek does not use two verbs .  The sentence construction in this passage has two verbs.  They are the same verb, but that redundancy is to show that there are two separate elements, two different direct objects, following the verb.  That would make the second object a substantive like life is, not a description of life.  The meaning of the second element would not change the semantic domain of something extra, added, extravagant, superfluous, or extraordinary, as in the word abundant.  It would just change the part of speech from a descriptive word or phrase to a nominative word or phrase.  So the idea is that we could have life (first direct object) and something extraordinary (second direct object).

So, something exceedingly more than I have now is what Jesus said he was offering.  I have life now, but going through Jesus as a gateway to eat in green pastures offers me a whole lot more of something I don't have now.  As I have understood the passage in the past, entering through Jesus gave me more of something I have already.  But, Jesus is saying that if I don't go through him as the gateway, then I don't get what he offers.  Instead, a thief steals my life and the second idea, kills them in me, and eliminates them altogether.

The second object is a noun, so it is a place (or an idea).  Jesus told the Twelve later in John (John 14.4) that he was going to prepare a place for them (or an idea, if the place is taken as metaphorical).  So, in the passage above, Jesus seems to be indicating this place he was preparing.  This idea would make the translation of the second half of verse 10, "I came so that you could have life and have an extraordinary place, one beyond your imagination."

For John it took Jesus' sleep before he understood what life was.  He had to go to the tomb, walk in, and see Jesus' grave clothes on the ground and his face cloth folded on the burial pedestal.  He looked around, then knew what he was seeing.  It impressed him - so much so that he included an image of what he came to understand from the tomb when he wrote his visions at the end of his Earthly life.  His last vision was of the place where God was, Jesus also.  His description follows (Revelation 22).

Verse 1

Καὶ ἔδειξέν μοι ποταμὸν ὕδατος ζωῆς λαμπρὸν ὡς κρύσταλλον, ἐκπορευόμενον ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου

(He showed me a river as clear as crystal, flowing with the water of life from the throne of God and the Lamb)

Verse 2

ἐν μέσῳ τῆς πλατείας αὐτῆς καὶ τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ξύλον ζωῆς ποιοῦν καρποὺς δώδεκα, κατὰ μῆνα ἕκαστον ἀποδιδοῦν τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰ φύλλα τοῦ ξύλου εἰς θεραπείαν τῶν ἐθνῶν

(And in the middle of its widest part, the river flowed on either side of a live tree, which produced twelve fruits, one type for each month, and which grew both fruit and leaves for healing of the nations.)

Since water is the sustaining force of life on Earth, what better image for John's vision than showing water as a river from the source of life itself, the throne of God and the Lamb.  John understood what Jesus was about and who he was.  He was the essence of life.  He didn't have life in him, he was life as was his father.  They shared the same essence.  John used the thrones of God and Jesus as the source of a river giving life to a tree to produce its fruits and leaves for healing the world's nations.

Beautiful imagery.  He captured very well what he had suddenly realized and understood clearly when he had gazed at the burial clothes on the ground of the tomb those many years ago.  Jesus was life, and he surrounds us like a river around a tree living in the middle of it.  And, we serve as a healing force for the nations.  Beautiful imagery, truly.

Verses 3-5 give that o-o-oh so flavorful morsel.  What Jesus said when he walked the Earth, that he came for people to have something so much more than is imaginable, is also described.  It was the second idea from John 10 where Jesus said the purpose for him to come was so that 1) we could have life, AND  2) we could have something much, much more, something extraordinary, beyond our imagination - the direct presence of God.

Verse 3

καὶ πᾶν κατάθεμα οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι. καὶ ὁ θρόνος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου ἐν αὐτῇ ἔσται, καὶ οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ

(There will no longer be anything restricting us from him.  The throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and everyone will serve him.)

Verse 4

καὶ ὄψονται τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῶν μετώπων αὐτῶν

(They will see him in person and his name will be everywhere they look.)

Verse 5

καὶ νὺξ οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι καὶ οὐκ ἔχουσιν χρείαν φωτὸς λύχνου καὶ φωτὸς ἡλίου, ὅτι κύριος ὁ θεὸς φωτίσει ἐπ’ αὐτούς, καὶ βασιλεύσουσιν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.

(Night never falls, and no one ever needs light from a torch or from the sun because the Lord God illuminates their world.  They rule into infinity.)

I don't have to settle for believing like Martha or like the Twelve before Jesus appeared to them after he woke up.  I don't have to worry about whether I will receive an abundant life now or not.  Jesus came for us to have his life and his place.  We have a three dimensional life now.  It will continue after we sleep with some modifications, evidently, to this existence.  We experience an existence now, but going through the gateway of Jesus and sleeping briefly allows our existence to change over to an incredibly majestic place, a place in the direct presence of God.  Continuance of existence is the name of the game because thieves steal, end, and destroy one's existence, or at least our existence in the presence of God.

My response to what Jesus offers is deep and not always found in words.  But if music and words could express it, it would be in the words to the song below, Take off my shoes.

[The Greek text used is the Nestle-Aland 28th edition.]
[Songs used are Take Off My Shoes by Delirious and I'll See You Again by Westlife.]
[Introductory art, Forgiveness, by Thomas Blackshear retrieved from
https://www.google.com/search?q=christian+art&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS524US524&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&imgil=XcD9egmRwI1opM%253A%253BEEU6XG3sbIgqfM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.spiritandflesh.com%25252Fart_Christian_art_Jesus_Christ_Cosmic_Christ_artChristianReligion.htm&source=iu&pf=m&fir=XcD9egmRwI1opM%253A%252CEEU6XG3sbIgqfM%252C_&usg=__f6MgpiEc1SXco5HCuR4GUKiIzgg%3D&ved=0ahUKEwj5zraWi_3LAhVhkoMKHc1-CBYQyjcILA&ei=op0GV_n1EeGkjgTN_aGwAQ#imgrc=ebn9OG6tZKmPhM%3A]

[Translations from Greek are my own.]