Matthew 27:27-31, The Soldiers Mock Jesus

 ²⁷ Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. ²⁸ They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, ²⁹ and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. ³⁰ They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. ³¹ After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Sometimes we don’t act much differently than these soldiers. We put on a big show. We crown Jesus King (but have no real intention of giving allegiance). We offer him the staff of authority (but have no real intention of submitting). When we do this, it’s no different than spitting on Christ and assaulting him.

“Oh no…not me!” we protest.

Well, one of the characteristics of authentic submission is our determination to be obedient with the seeming insignificant details of life…when nothing of value is at stake. When we are all alone in our private world and nobody is observing.

There is a high likelihood that Jesus is observing…and that he takes it all seriously.

These are the finer points of faith. These are the details of faith that bring richness and depth to our lives. These are the specifics that would prompt an artisan to say “this is the real deal!”

We could liken it to the difference between two carpenters…a framer and a finisher. If we have any sense at all, we would not ask a framer to do the finish work in our kitchen (guess how I know this). A framer is cheaper and faster but details are not his strong suit. We pay a bit extra for the finisher and, in the end, its’ worth it.

The analogy breaks down if we get too picky, but I like to refer to Jesus as the framer. He built the structure of our faith and it’s solid. But, the Holy Spirit is the finisher. Every fine detail is crafted with perfection if we give him free reign.

And the result? People will come by. They will look carefully at every detail. They will inspect every corner and joint. In the end they will say “what a fine house God has built!”

Imagine how you’d feel. The literal house I live in won an award the year it was built. I take great pride in that…even though I had nothing to do with the building or the award. When I brag on the house I say “Wally built it!”

But…you know what? I get to live in it…

Live boldly out there today…

Matthew 27:11-26, Jesus Before Pilate

 ¹¹ Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

 “You have said so,” Jesus replied.

 ¹² When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. ¹³ Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” ¹⁴ But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.

 ¹⁵ Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. ¹⁶ At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus^[b] Barabbas. ¹⁷ So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” ¹⁸ For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.

 ¹⁹ While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”

 ²⁰ But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.

 ²¹ “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.

   “Barabbas,” they answered.

 ²² “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.

   They all answered, “Crucify him!”

 ²³ “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

   But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

 ²⁴ When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

 ²⁵ All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”

 ²⁶ Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

I’ve often marveled that the greatest victory ever…victory over sin…could only be accomplished through bad behavior, failure and incompetence. God might observe, “Well, look what I’m working with!”

Pilate represents possibly the greatest failure in leadership ever. How does that saying go? “If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.” So goes the legacy of Pontius Pilate. Nearly any other reputation would be preferable for a senior military officer. It’s like saying the preacher doesn’t own a bible.

But, Pilate was confronted with a tricky situation. He knew the high cost of making the correct call so he needed to mitigate some of the blowback. He also knew the benefit of being able to blame the decision on somebody else. He decided to be shrewd.

Consensus…that’s the ticket! “When the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

Theory says the value of consensus is that when you have many bright minds working on a problem the results will always be superior to other methods.

In this case…the “best and the brightest” released Barabbas.

Brilliant!

We might pursue consensus if we are unsure of the right course of action. I understand that. But…is there any possibility Pilate didn’t know the proper decision? Exactly! It’s not very often that you and I don’t know the right answer either. It’s quite another thing to pay the price for the right answer.

The biggest price being…we might make the wrong decision when other people help us.

Here’s my thinking on this. God’s Holy Spirit has been given to us to ensure we know the right course of action…not to minimize the fallout. When our knees begin to feel wobbly we shouldn’t seek advice from our friends. We should seek the face of God. Therein is a majority of one.

The only consensus we need in the Body of Christ is that we all agree to seek the mind of Christ. If you’d like to do that with me I’d be grateful. The specifics are inconsequential.

Live boldly out there today…

Matthew 27:1-10, Judas Hangs Himself

 ¹ Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. ² So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.

 ³ When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. ⁴ “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

   “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”

 ⁵ So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

 ⁶ The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” ⁷ So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. ⁸ That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. ⁹ Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, ¹⁰ and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”^[a]

This may be one of the great tragedies in scripture. But, it’s instructive.

Judas is a man who spent a great deal of time with Jesus. He was intimately familiar with Christ’s teaching and intent. Nothing was clouded in mystery. He was privy to teachings that were reserved only for the disciples.

And yet…he couldn’t cooperate with the son of Man.

An obvious analogy is sitting in the front row at church every Sunday in an Evangelical church…and Rick Porter is preaching. We aren’t saved by our proximity to the truth. We are saved by a gift of grace that allows us to recognize the truth of Christ’s claims and follow them.

What is most instructive about Judas is two things…we all have a bit of Judas in us, where we believe we have a better way. And, that belief in our own judgment is fatal. We can see glimpses of Judas in nearly every one of Jesus’ parables. If Judas surprises us we aren’t paying attention.

It’s a great spiritual war we are fighting. Satan is a formidable foe. He knows all he needs to do to defeat us is plant a seed of doubt. As the man in scripture said…”I believe. Help me in my unbelief!”

Live boldly out there today…

Matthew 26:69-75, Peter Disowns Jesus

 ⁶⁹ Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said.

 ⁷⁰ But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

 ⁷¹ Then he went out to the gateway, where another servant girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

 ⁷² He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!”

 ⁷³ After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away.”

 ⁷⁴ Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”

   Immediately a rooster crowed. ⁷⁵ Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Well, we knew this was coming…

I’ve always been curious about things like this. Could Peter have chosen not to deny Jesus…after Christ said he would? It’s a theological sticking point. And we always say “no”.

If that’s the case, this is not Peter’s fault…and it’s not Judas’ fault. More importantly, it’s not our fault.

This is how the world prefers to look at sin and guilt. If “the devil made me do it” or God determined it I have to be exonerated or there is not justice. Perfect. The world loves to debate the story of Judas and Peter.

But, what about “free will”?

Or, we could look at it another way.

What if Christ’s insight was merely predictive and not determinative? In other words, he knows stuff but doesn’t determine it. In microcosms of time we understand this “cause and effect” phenomenon. As we watch a baseball hurdle towards home plate we can predict it will be a strike. We might be wrong if we predict too early. If we predict at the last second our chances of being right increase.

So maybe this ability of Jesus to predict stuff is all a matter of timing.

Or…it could be a function of knowledge. My dog Bailey likes to visit the neighbor. It’s so predictive that I know…as soon as I let her out…she will saunter down the hill. And, I know that both now and forever. Timing has nothing to do with it.

Two things:

God is omnipresent. This means timing is meaningless. For God, everything is in the present tense. He doesn’t “predict the future” because there is no such thing for him. God just narrates the eternal “present”. Error is eliminated

God (Jesus) also created us. It’s difficult to imagine greater intimacy than creator with creation. When this is the case all uncertainty disappears and is replaced by perfect understanding. The probability of God being unable to recognize our predilections is about zero.

Rather than seeing this as a threat, I suggest we see view this as a great blessing. This means the more we commune with God the better we understand the unfolding of our lives. Most likely, the more we commune with God, the more we will be pleased with his predictions for our future.

Live boldly out there…

Matthew 26:57-68, Jesus Before the Sanhedrin

 ⁵⁷ Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the teachers of the law and the elders had assembled. ⁵⁸ But Peter followed him at a distance, right up to the courtyard of the high priest. He entered and sat down with the guards to see the outcome.

 ⁵⁹ The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. ⁶⁰ But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward.

   Finally two came forward ⁶¹ and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”

 ⁶² Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” ⁶³ But Jesus remained silent.

   The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

   ⁶⁴ “You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”^[e]

 ⁶⁵ Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. ⁶⁶ What do you think?”

   “He is worthy of death,” they answered.

 ⁶⁷ Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him ⁶⁸ and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?”

One sure sign of incompetence is when we cannot even lie successfully.

Think about it. We have a universe of possible facts and stories that we can tap into. We can manipulate them in any fashion…known only to us…to achieve our ends. An unsuspecting observer would have to be able to do two things to uncover our fraud: They would have to have a reasonable grasp on all the pertinent facts in the universe in order to filter out the ones that couldn’t possibly be true (which could take an eternity) and they would have to be able to read your mind to discern how we wove those facts together fraudulently.

Unless, of course, God subverts our plans…

So, with the Sanhedrin, we’re told “the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward”.

Really, what would have been their probability of success? On this count…

Zero!

But that didn’t stop them. They tried another tactic…just as reprehensible. They used Jesus’ words against him in order to fabricate a case.  “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.” Normally, such as statement would be the meaningless rants of a Walter Mitty with delusions of grandeur.  They knew such a feat was impossible, unless he “WAS” the Messiah. And, they didn’t believe that.

Or did they?

I’ve always told my children if they have to stretch the truth, embellish the truth, or obscure the truth they are on the wrong side of the argument. Today’s question is simple: In terms of our faith…when we’re talking with God…does our life shine brilliantly with truth or do we have to reach far and wide to fortify our claim?

Does it matter? Of course. Equivocation will never stand up to God’s scrutiny. If He’s not convinced, nothing else matters.

Live boldly out there today…

Matthew 26:47-56, Jesus Arrested

 ⁴⁷ While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. ⁴⁸ Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” ⁴⁹ Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

 ⁵⁰ Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”^[d]

   Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. ⁵¹ With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

   ⁵² “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. ⁵³ Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? ⁵⁴ But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

 ⁵⁵ In that hour Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. ⁵⁶ But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

This is for all of us who think Jesus needs our help…

He covets our cooperation, but he doesn’t need our help. He says “do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”  

Or course, the reason for this is our inability to see the big picture. If Jesus would have allowed his disciples to “help” him out of Gethsemane “how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

Jesus had already let his disciples know this was coming…but in the heat of the moment those same disciples had other priorities. It’s human nature.

I’m reminded of the lyrics to “Front Seat, Back Seat” by Love Song:

I was sitting in the front seat

Trying awfully hard to be the driver

Thinking I was making real good time

But always winding up a late arriver.

I went barreling out full speed ahead.
I went running every stop sign that I’d see
Thinking I’d give the Lord a short cut,
But I found out He don’t need no help from me!
But now I’ve been riding in the back seat
And I find it is a very great relief.
Now I’m riding in the back seat
And I’m leaving all the driving to the Chief.

Where are we riding today? The consequences of us driving may not be as profound as subverting Calvary, but…they are never good.

Live boldly out there today…

Matthew 26:36-46, Gethsemane

 ³⁶ Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” ³⁷ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. ³⁸ Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

 ³⁹ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

 ⁴⁰ Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. ⁴¹ “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

 ⁴² He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

 ⁴³ When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. ⁴⁴ So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

 ⁴⁵ Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. ⁴⁶ Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Believers don’t often have heart problems. We often have head problems…

Why do you suppose Jesus prayed all night long? According to the record, he didn’t have a lot to say…just wanted to avoid the crucifixion if possible. How long can it take to say that?

Unless prayer is about conforming…not complaining.

A few of things from this event stand out to me.

1.    “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

2.    “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done

Prayer has little to do with getting our way. It has everything to do with God getting His way.

We often forget the great doctrine of Christ’s full humanity. Calvary had to have been a struggle. I doubt this was the first time Jesus talked with his father about it. I don’t know how long it may have taken for the heart and mind of Jesus to find harmony with God’s will. Considering what God was asking him to do…probably a long time.

Gethsemane suggests that it takes longer for God to get into our heads. So…the daily conversion that God would like to see in us is less in our hearts and more in our heads. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  

I’m inclined to think that “throwing up a prayer” in the morning is the kind of thing that produces neither conformity with God’s will nor comfort with God’s will. When we find ourselves unnerved about the path God has for us…maybe it’s because we haven’t spent enough time with Him.

Live boldly out there today…