R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 25

Children

Some Greeks had gone to Jerusalem to worship during Passover. Philip from Bethsaida in Galilee was there too. So they went to him and said, “Sir, we would like to meet Jesus.” Philip told Andrew. Then the two of them went to Jesus and told him….

Some people brought their children to Jesus so that he could bless them by placing his hands on them. But his disciples told the people to stop bothering him.

When Jesus saw this, he became angry and said, “Let the children come to me! Don’t try to stop them. People who are like these little children belong to the kingdom of God. I promise you that you cannot get into God’s kingdom, unless you accept it the way a child does.” Then Jesus took the children in his arms and blessed them by placing his hands on them. (John 12:20-22 and Mark 10:13-16)

Some famous people have “handlers.” Some CEOs are hard to contact, hiding behind a wall of secretaries and assistants. Perhaps you can arrange an appointment for next year. But Jesus didn’t operate like that, despite the best efforts of his disciples to “protect” him. Jesus opened himself to the most unexpected visitors.

Like non-Jews or children.

Only when a child came of age, which in Judaism was at the age of thirteen when they had their bar mitzvah and could be counted as a full member of the synagogue, did children begin to matter to society. Until then, they had no standing. The disciples only naturally assumed that a great man—certainly the Messiah and future king—had better things to do than pay attention to children, therefore.

Jesus became angry when the children were excluded and told his disciples to let them come. The kingdom was open to everyone, even those that seemed not to matter. It fact, it was the weak and lowly, those who lacked power and prestige, who were most reflective of the nature of the kingdom. People entered the kingdom God not based on who they were, where they came from, or what they could do, but based solely on what Jesus did on the cross. So Jesus called the children to himself. He allowed non-Jewish people to talk to him.

Actions, ability, or connections don’t matter. How much money you have doesn’t matter. You’re welcomed into the kingdom of God not because of who you are, but because of who the king is.

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Who’s On First

They went through Galilee. He didn’t want anyone to know their whereabouts, for he wanted to teach his disciples. He told them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God. They will murder him. Three days after his murder, he will rise, alive.” They didn’t know what he was talking about, but were afraid to ask him about it.

They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, “What were you discussing on the road?”

The silence was deafening—they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest.

He sat down and summoned the Twelve. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”

He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me—God who sent me.” (Mark 9:30-37)

It’s the standard nightmare. You get to school, and not only are you unprepared for the test you didn’t know you were having, you suddenly realize you forgot to ever attend a class. Jesus’ disciples must have felt like that on a regular basis when they were with Jesus.

Jesus tried to teach his disciples what his mission on Earth was all about. But all his talk about death and resurrection made no sense to them. And they were afraid to ask for clarification. Instead, they only wanted to think about what they thought they did understand. Since Jesus was the Messiah, they knew that meant he’d be king. So what sort of position in his kingdom would they, his closest confidants, have? They focused all their energy on that issue, instead of on what it was that Jesus really wanted them to know about.

So Jesus pulled that distraction away. He showed them that what they thought about the kingdom of God was all wrong. Once more, even a topic they thought they understood, became completely confusing.

But they didn’t ask Jesus any questions about his correction, either. Why? Because they preferred their delusions to reality. The disciples failed to understand that their confused day dreams were pale shadows compared to glorious reality that Jesus was trying to tell them about. Clarity came to them only with the coming of the Holy Spirit.

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No Honor

He went away from there and came to His hometown, and His disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were astonished. “Where did this man get these things?” they said. “What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t His sisters here with us?” So they were offended by Him.

Then Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household.” So He was not able to do any miracles there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was amazed at their unbelief. (Mark 6:1-6)

The people who we think we know best, that we are closest to, are the ones that we are most likely to underestimate. It is all too easy to miss the wonder that is a neighbor, friend, or family member. When a teenaged son or daughter first takes the wheel of the family car, most parents struggle to adjust to their new abilities. Instead, our minds are filled with memories of skinned knees, of diaper changes at three in the morning, of tiny hands gripping our finger and of their tears as they toddled off to kindergarten. It is hard to recognize them as budding adults. When they grown up and become a fighter pilot, it doesn’t seem possible.

Meanwhile, children accept the words of strangers that they previously rejected from the mouths of their own parents. They believe teachers rather than the ones who feed them every day and see to it that they have a roof over their heads.

So Jesus pointed out the obvious to the people of his hometown, Nazareth. A famous person isn’t famous at all when he’s at home. He’s just dad. Or mom. Or that kid down the street. No reason to shake his hand or get his autograph. In Nazareth, Jesus was just the son of the carpenter. Everyone knew his family. Who did he think he was?

Rather than seeing his miracles, rather than seeing he was the Messiah, they only saw the person they thought they already knew. They didn’t care about what he was doing, they only cared about where he had come from.

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What’s Important

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Then, surrounded by the Pharisees, Jesus asked them a question: “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

They replied, “He is the son of David.”

Jesus responded, “Then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, call the Messiah ‘my Lord’? For David said,

‘The LORD said to my Lord,

Sit in the place of honor at my right hand

until I humble your enemies beneath your feet.’

Since David called the Messiah ‘my Lord,’ how can the Messiah be his son?”

No one could answer him. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:34-46)

Jesus kept hitting home runs against everything that the religious establishment threw at him. The Sadducees had taken their best pitcher and Jesus belted it out of the field. So now it was the turn of the Pharisees, who of course would fare no better.

When they asked Jesus about the greatest commandment, their expectation was that no matter which one he picked, they’d be able show how some other law was better and thereby make Jesus look foolish.

Once again, Jesus’ answer short-circuited their expectations. And before they could react, Jesus turned the tables and asked them about the issue that motivated all their attacks upon him: who they thought the Messiah was.

Jesus showed them that they had no clue about the Messiah, since they had no answer for a rather obvious paradox in the Bible about him. How could he be both a descendent of David and God himself? They had never considered the incarnation: God becoming human. At that moment, they should have realized that they might be wrong about Jesus, since they didn’t know as much about the Messiah as they imagined.

We don’t always know as much as we think we do. Be ready to open your mind and adapt yourself to what the Bible says, rather than insisting upon what you think you already know.

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Invitations

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying,

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.” ’

“But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.

“Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.

“‘Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

“But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless.

“Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:1-14)

What is the kingdom of heaven like? Jesus’ parables never compared the kingdom of heaven to earthly kingdoms. Most didn’t even have government officials in them. Though this parable has a king in it, the story has little to do with governing. Instead, it’s all about a party.

Jesus’ parables, just like Aesop’s fables, all had morals. They were not allegories, where each character and event represented some person or thing. Instead, the story taken as a whole was the message. The moral was the reason for the parable.

So what was the moral—the point—of Jesus’ parable about a king who threw a party? That although everyone gets an invitation and no one is excluded, not everyone wanted to come. And what of the one without wedding clothes who was speechless? The ill-dressed man, for whatever reason, had not really wanted to be there either, otherwise he’d have worn the right clothes.

God has invited everyone into his kingdom. But not everyone will come because not everyone wants to.

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Divorce

When Jesus finished teaching, he left Galilee and went to the part of Judea that is east of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed him, and he healed their sick people.

Some Pharisees wanted to test Jesus. They came up to him and asked, “Is it right for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”

Jesus answered, “Don’t you know that in the beginning the Creator made a man and a woman? That’s why a man leaves his father and mother and gets married. He becomes like one person with his wife. Then they are no longer two people, but one. And no one should separate a couple that God has joined together.”

The Pharisees asked Jesus, “Why did Moses say that a man could write out divorce papers and send his wife away?”

Jesus replied, “You are so heartless! That’s why Moses allowed you to divorce your wife. But from the beginning God did not intend it to be that way. I say that if your wife has not committed some terrible sexual sin, you must not divorce her to marry someone else. If you do, you are unfaithful.”

The disciples said, “If that’s how it is between a man and a woman, it’s better not to get married.”

Jesus told them, “Only those people who have been given the gift of staying single can accept this teaching. Some people are unable to marry because of birth defects or because of what someone has done to their bodies. Others stay single in order to serve God better. Anyone who can accept this teaching should do so.” (Matthew 19:1-15)

Questions aren’t always what they seem. Why would some Pharisees quiz Jesus on whether it was right for a man to divorce his wife? There was much more to the question than just the legality of divorce. They wanted to know if divorce could be had for “any reason.” Jesus said “no,” that divorce should never happen, except maybe for adultery. He explained that God never intended for relationships to be irrevocably breached. To do so was counter to the whole concept of love and forgiveness.

The disciples were taken aback. They decided that not being married at all was better than being “stuck” with a bad wife.

And Jesus agreed with them. Whether celibacy was the consequence of circumstances beyond an individual’s control, or because that person choose to commit himself to God in that way, celibacy, Jesus explained, could be considered a gift from God. Certainly it was far preferable to a bad or unhappy marriage. Both marriage, and celibacy are gifts from God. They should never be lightly thrown aside.

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Who’s the Boss?

The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

“Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! (Matthew 18:1-7)

The disciples thought Jesus would answer their question with someone’s name. Perhaps they thought he would say God, or maybe name himself. In their hearts, each disciple may have hoped to hear his own name.

The disciples’ question rose from false presuppositions. They thought they knew what the kingdom of God was: a descendent of David sitting on an earthly throne, ruling from Jerusalem, the new world capital. They imagined something like the Roman Empire, only bigger and badder. Who would be the greatest in such an earthly kingdom? The obvious answer would be someone rich, or someone famous, someone who had performed great deeds, subdued armies. Perhaps a general. Certainly someone of significance.

Jesus pulled the rug out from everyone’s expectations when he brought a child over and announced “this one.”

How could that be? Children were unimportant and powerless. How could the greatest in the kingdom of heaven be like that? Like a little kid?

Because that’s what Jesus was like. He was the Son of God. He was like a little kid. He arrived not to do his own will, but the will of his Father who had sent him. He accomplished nothing on his own, but only what his Father did through him. People who focused their attention on God and others, rather than themselves, people who were easily ignored—those were the ones who were greatest.

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No Way

Jesus made it clear to his disciples that it was now necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, submit to an ordeal of suffering at the hands of the religious leaders, be killed, and then on the third day be raised up alive. Peter took him in hand, protesting, “Impossible, Master! That can never be!”

But Jesus didn’t swerve. “Peter, get out of my way. Satan, get lost. You have no idea how God works.”

Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?

“Don’t be in such a hurry to go into business for yourself. Before you know it the Son of Man will arrive with all the splendor of his Father, accompanied by an army of angels. You’ll get everything you have coming to you, a personal gift. This isn’t pie in the sky by and by. Some of you standing here are going to see it take place, see the Son of Man in kingdom glory.” (Matthew 16:21-28)

Are Peter and the Devil the same person? When Jesus referred to Peter as Satan, he was not making an identification of who Peter was. He didn’t mean that Peter was suddenly possessed by the Devil. Rather, Jesus meant that Peter’s statement was the sort of thing that Satan would say.

Peter, along with most Jewish people of the time, believed that the Messiah would be leading a triumphant revolt against the hated Roman occupiers. A dying Messiah didn’t fit his expectations, so Peter rejected Jesus’ words. And Satan’s expectations of the Messiah were the same as Peter’s. Satan, too, expected Jesus to lead a rebellion against the Romans. Satan, too, expected Jesus to establish the kingdom of God on Earth, with the Davidic monarchy restored to all its glory. Neither Peter nor Satan knew what Jesus was actually planning to do. Peter, by his well-intentioned words, was attempting to thwart God’s plan in the same way Satan hoped to thwart God’s plan.

Protecting someone from death is a good thing, unless it’s Jesus who is dying to save us from our sins. Sometimes the right thing feels wrong. You have to be guided by love and you have to listen to God.

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You Need to Eat

Jesus passed through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick and eat some heads of grain. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”

He said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry—how he entered the house of God, and they ate the sacred bread, which is not lawful for him or for those with him to eat, but only for the priests? Or haven’t you read in the Law that on Sabbath days the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here! If you had known what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)

God doesn’t love rules. He loves people. And some rules really are made to be broken. God told his people to keep the Sabbath. And he told his priests what all their duties were. So sometimes the priests violated God’s Sabbath and never felt guilty about it. They sometimes had to offer sacrifices on the Sabbath. And sometimes they had to perform circumcisions on the eighth day after a birth, even if that eighth day was the Sabbath.

So Jesus told his critics that they had forgotten the whole purpose of the Sabbath, which was simply that people needed time off. The need to satisfy hunger took precedence over the minutia of the law. Just as David and his men, fleeing from Saul for their lives, needed food for their journey and took what they could find, so the disciples were doing nothing wrong by eating a few grains of wheat from a field as they walked along. The prohibition of “working on the Sabbath” could not be allowed to prevent people from doing what needed to be done.

Jesus claimed to be the Lord of the Sabbath. What does that mean? His use of the term “Lord” didn’t just mean that he was the boss. When Jews said the word “Lord” they meant “God.” Jesus told his critics that he was God and since he approved of what the disciples were doing, the discussion was over.

The rules aren’t supposed to get in the way of us doing what’s right.

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Water

“I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.”

Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John tried to talk him out of it. “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,” he said, “so why are you coming to me?”

But Jesus said, “It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.” So John agreed to baptize him.

After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” (Matthew 3:11-17)

If we really believed that God loved us we’d never resist his will. Jesus was concerned only with doing what his Father wanted. Human beings, in contrast, are generally more concerned with only doing what they want.

John knew that the Messiah was coming. John saw himself as God’s servant, as a human being of limited consequence. It made no sense to him that Jesus should ask him—or any other human being—for baptism. Rather, John saw only his own need for redemption; he was aware only of his own failings. And that prevented him from seeing beyond himself to what someone else might need—in this case, Jesus’ need to begin his public ministry, to receive, not the baptism of repentance that John had been giving everyone else, but rather the baptism given to those who were becoming rabbis. There were many sorts of baptisms regularly performed in Judaism: for conversion, for ceremonial cleansing, and for those becoming rabbis or priests. John, because of his focus, because of his own needs, had trouble seeing beyond his own habitual patterns.

Because of our fallen nature, we tend to think of things only in terms of what’s in it for us, or what we’re used to. Rather than being like Jesus, who saw things only in terms of what his Father wanted.

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