As we continue to spend time with the Lord during Lent thinking about how it was for Him and those round Him as He turned His face toward Jerusalem, I have been thinking about how people started to become aware of Him and were drawn to Him as time went on. Each Gospel relates what happened when Jesus was baptized by John in the area of Bethany beyond the Jordan and then began His ministry. After John the Baptist baptized Jesus, He called His disciples to be with Him, and He began to teach in synagogues in and around the Galilee. As he became more and more well known, the religious leaders began to have problems with Him. One of the first of Jesus’ practices that they found objectionable had to do with Jesus’ activities on the Sabbath.
Those who objected to Him saw Him and His disciples eating grain they plucked on the Sabbath as they walked through some fields (Luke 6:1-5). When they were seen doing this, Jesus was accused of breaking the Law because they considered it work that they plucked the grain and rubbed it together in their hands to separate the kernals in order to eat it. His reply to His accusers was that when David and the men with him were hungry they entered the house of God and ate the bread that was set aside as holy and not to be consumed except in religious ceremonies. He also proclaimed to them that the Son of Man was the Lord of the Sabbath. Beyond their anger with Him that He had worked on the Sabbath, He could not have said anything that would have angered them more than the statement that implicated that He was claiming to be the Son of Man, the Messiah, as I have mentioned previously.
In that era it was normal for people to come to their synagogues seeking healing and wholeness when men who taught about the scriptures were there. The religious leaders and teachers of the Law considered the acts of healing and deliverance to be work. In Luke 6:6-11, right after the scripture about Jesus and His disciples picking and eating the grain on the Sabbath, it is related that a man with a withered hand comes to his synagogue to seek healing from Jesus. Knowing that those who are watching Him to trip Him up will be critical of this act of healing, Jesus asks them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” Then Jesus tells the man to stretch out his hand and He heals him.
In another passage about healing on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17), after Jesus has delivered a woman who has been crippled for seventeen years, the synagogue leader rebukes Jesus in this way -- “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” And Jesus replied to him, But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”
By this time, the narratives about Jesus’ conflicts with the Pharisees and the scribes start to make it clear that those who are against Jesus are dangerous enough to be called his enemies (Luke 13:17). And the people who were ministered to by Him and heard His teachings, and believed in Him were rejoicing. The accolades of the crowds became even more troublesome to the leaders. And this all contributed to why it was so dangerous for Jesus to be heading to Jerusalem for Passover that final time.
Jesus demonstrated God’s love to everyone who met Him and heard Him teach, and was healed and/or delivered by Him. When He taught about the Kingdom of Heaven through parables, He was describing what God is like and the differences between the way things work in Heaven compared to how human beings live when they do not know the Lord. One of the reasons that the religious leaders were so negative to Jesus was that they had made the laws that had been written down more important that acting out of God’s mercy, righteousness and love. Over and over people were cast out of society and marginalized instead of being welcomed and taken care of and nurtured.
The religious leaders considered Jesus their enemy because they believed their power was being threatened by Him. The Roman political leaders represented by the Procurator Pontius Pilate needed to keep the peace in the region that had become part of the Roman Empire in 63 B.C. By the time Jesus had become the threat that He was to the religious and political leadership He dealt with, His life had been threatened over and over.
Even before He was born, His mother could have been stoned to death for being pregnant before her wedding. After the Magi came to honor Him, the first King Herod tried to kill Jesus when he ordered all the baby boys two years old and younger who were born in Bethlehem to be killed. And Jesus was almost thrown off a cliff and killed in Nazareth when He came there to read the most important Messianic prophecy. On the day that the scripture we know as Isaiah 61 came up in the in the annual lectionary, Jesus announced to everyone there in the synagogue where he had grown up, that the scripture was fulfilled because He was the One about whom it was written. It was at that point that Jesus reminded the people of Nazareth that a prophet is not welcome in His home country. Only a few people there had faith enough in Him to receive healing.
As I have spent this time with the Lord reading, writing, praying, and meditating today I have seen more clearly what it must have been like for Jesus as He continued to do God’s will. Even though the multitudes revered Him and followed Him with adulation, the forces against Him were getting stronger and stronger. It must have been terrifying in many ways, and yet Jesus knew why He came to Earth. He knew that He was given the same free will that every other human being has been given. Therefore, when He decided it was time to turn His face to Jerusalem, it took a great deal of courage. I think that is very important to remember as we keep on accompanying Him on this journey during Lent.
May the Lord continue to bless and keep you and yours, Beloved. As ever, I am praying for you and hoping that you are open to God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ.
* Mark 1:29-45 (RSV)
Jesus Heals Many at Simon’s House
29 And immediately he left the synagogue, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever, and immediately they told him of her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them.
32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered together about the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
A Preaching Tour in Galilee
35 And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him pursued him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Every one is searching for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Jesus Cleanses a Leper
40 And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.
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