daily java

Daily Java:

One day as Jesus was teaching the people and preaching the Good News in the Temple, the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders came up to him. They demanded, “By what authority are you doing all these things? Who gave you the right?” “Let me ask you a question first,” he replied. “Did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human?” They talked it over among themselves. “If we say it was from heaven, he will ask why we didn’t believe John. But if we say it was merely human, the people will stone us because they are convinced John was a prophet.” So they finally replied that they didn’t know. And Jesus responded, “Then I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things.” (Luke 20:1-8 NLT)

I would imagine that it got kind of old. Every day somebody was challenging Jesus’ authority. Everybody, including the challengers, could see the authority of Jesus in what he did and in how he did it. It was obvious that he was from God.

The problem was, those who were in authority didn’t want it to be from God because it was not how they wanted stuff from God to be. It just didn’t line up with their desires.

For one thing, generally, when Jesus told a story with a bad guy, it was them. Not only that, but the crowds followed Jesus around, not them.

If the crowds had any degree of intelligence, they would follow those leaders around. They were the ones who had been to seminary and knew all of the stuff worth knowing. Not this upstart who came from nowhere.

But Jesus went on blithely doing miracles and teaching and just in general doing whatever he wanted in spite of the advice from his betters.

So they kept trying to give him the opportunity to change, to recognize them and their authority. But in every situation, he refused. Not only that, he would turn their own words back on them.

They asked, who told you that you can do these things? Then Jesus had the audacity to ask them who told John the Baptizer he could do what he did.

John was an anomaly to them. It was obvious that he spoke with authority and had a message from God. But they had never liked prophets much. And even if they would not admit it, their predecessors had the history of refusing to accept authority from prophets. All through the Old Testament, they had killed them rather than accept them.

They hoped it would not come to that with Jesus, but, well, if it did, he brought it on himself for being so presumptuous.

They talked about his question – whose authority was John – and finally decided to take a firm middle ground stance. We don’t know.

Jesus’ answer really surprised them. He refused to tell them. Your problem, he said, is that you would not recognize authority if it bit you on the ankle. So there is no reason for me to waste time with you on the subject.

You can imagine how mad they were at this. How dare he blow them off. He had less regard for them and their authority then he did for these stupid unwashed people that loved him.

The problem is, and Jesus shows it strongly here, is that people who do not want to recognize authority will never recognize authority. To them, authority is granted by earthly organizations, by degrees and credentials, by tenure.

But real authority comes from God, not people. All people can do is recognize it. They cannot confer it.

And it sure gets tiresome trying to explain that to people who refuse to see it simply because it doesn’t match up with what they want.

So Jesus quit and went on about his business.