I think it would have been pretty amazing to listen to Jesus teach. Some translations from our reading today says “the people were hanging on His every word”. The priest and scribes didn’t like that very much. They hated Jesus and here He is speaking to the crowds moving them in ways they could not with their teachings. There was no one to match the way He connected with people when He spoke. This infuriated them. They were jealous! But they could have avoided this animosity if they had only stopped to consider that He might really be the Messiah. Then they would not have minded so much that He was better than them. He (the Messiah) was suppose to be.
But it didn’t stop there. There were other things Jesus did that just fueled their hatred. Jesus healed the blind and the lame. Again, I think it would have been amazing to be there with Jesus seeing these wonderful miracles first hand. How could you be against something like this?
To top it all off, Jesus came into the temple and did the job they should have been doing all along. As guardians of the Temple the Priest and Scribes had allowed “robbers and thieves” to take over. It is interesting here that none of them complained about Jesus driving them out. They couldn’t, they knew He was right and they allowed their embarrassment to turn into violent thoughts. “We need to get rid of him and if that means killing him that is what we will do.”
But in the middle of this tension God in His grace, sent children too shout in the temple – “Hosanna to the Son of David!”. “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David!” It was a sound and clear message, but would the religious leaders respond to it in a positive way?
No…
They didn’t…
This is a story, a true story, that in part is about people who responded to Jesus in a positive way and those who responded in a negative way. There were people whose first response was wonder and there were those whose first response was criticism. You and I would have fallen into one of these groups if we had been there. If you are like me and hope that you would fall on the side of wonder, amazement and praise, then we should live our lives accordingly…
today…
Where as it is my sins that put Jesus on the cross, I never want to personally “put Him on the cross” because I missed what He was doing by being blinded by my arrogance, jealousy or fear. God often moves in ways we do not expect, or understand. He also moves in ways that do not fit our “righteous molds.”
Help me Father see what you are doing today, I don’t want to miss you like these religious leaders did.
Today’s Bible Readings – Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:12-19; and Luke 19:45-58
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