daily java

Daily Java:

Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there.  Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3:1-6)

Jesus was doing stuff that was amazing. And you could tell he was from God doing it. People were being blessed by his actions and by the presence of God in all he did.

But there were people who did not want God to act any way but theirs. This was their church, this was their stuff and God needed to act like he had before.

In their minds, God was not someone who could change. He was someone who remained static and who remained like them. Or, at least, like they pretended to be.

So when Jesus decided to do things a different way, they tried to stop. They even set up little sting operations to try to catch him doing something against their interpretation of God’s will.

They knew the man with the shriveled hand would be there, they knew Jesus would be there and they knew he would heal the man. So they waited and watched. When he did, they would jump out and arrest him, or at least accuse him the sight of everyone of being a heretic, a transgressor of the holy law.

But as he did so often, Jesus went another way. he called the man up in front of everyone. Then he asked if the Sabbath, one of their most holy ordinances (of course it was, since it involved them) and asked if it was legal to good deeds on the Sabbath.

That flummoxed them. If they said no, they would look like idiots. If they said yes, Jesus would say, okay and then do what he wanted. So they did what the cowards always do: they remained silent, watched while he did what he did and then went away to meet in private to plot his downfall. In fact, to figure out how to kill him.

They were more willing to kill an innocent man than they were to change their ideas of God and his church. I use church because that is our way of thinking.

People who are invested in their own ideas to the point of excluding all others are willing to commit symbolic murder than to admit that maybe God does things differently than they want. They are willing to drive someone out of the church than to let them do things differently than they want.

This happened to Jesus. Jesus did not die because of the way he talked, or the way he parted his hair. He died because he did things differently than the way those in charge wanted it done. And they were more willing to kill him than change.

Sometimes people are allowed to become entrenched in a church to the point that they run the church. And they will drive out preacher after preacher who disagrees with them and their way of looking at the Bible and the church.

They are more willing to tear the church up than they are to change.

After the Jews had killed Jesus, on the day of Pentecost, many of them realized the grievous error they had made. And they changed. But many never changed. And their nation died. Oh, a semblance remains even today, but the power of that nation operating through the power of God is gone. It is one more small nation among many.

When a church does this over many years, sooner or later the church dies. It is infected. It cannot live long. This is a cancer that destroys it. It becomes one more small church among many.

And like the nation of Israel, it needs to die. It becomes an embarrassment and a hindrance to the will of God. In a town, especially a small one, all know of the reputation of that church, and it will never recover.

Israel didn’t. But in the end, Jesus won.