New Thoughts (12/05/10-12/07/10)
So much to say for so short a passage! I shall begin by considering those of whom the Pharisees complain: the disciples, the matheetais. These, as Zhodiates notes, are the ones who have so thoroughly accepted the teacher’s instruction as to make it their own rule of conduct. They have seen the fruit in His life and desire that their own lives might be so fruitful. Is that you? Is that me? Or, are we merely intrigued by the novelty of what He suggests?
Before I get into those questions, though, I want to contrast this to the term we saw in the previous section, the ‘those who followed after’ of Matthew 21:9. These were also disciples. They, too, could count themselves amongst those who were doing their utmost to make Jesus’ example their own rule of conduct. But, there is something even stronger in that other word, in akolouthountes. These sought to ‘conform wholly’ to the teachers example, notes Thayer, even unto death! That’s commitment! That’s the degree of commitment that the true believers have known down through the ages. Is it my commitment? Am I that ready to pursue the course set for me by my Brother?
See, if those who followed after had been the sort of hangers on who were so common in earlier scenes, there would be no reason for this question. They’d be noisy, but at the rebuke of the Pharisees, I suspect they would have silenced themselves. The Pharisees, after all, were to be respected and honored, and if all these people were after was the novelty of the occasion, one rebuke from such a respectable person would have put an end to the game. But, it’s no game, and these are no curiosity seekers. These are those who follow, disciples, acolytes. I would suppose that latter word shares its etymology with the akolouthountes from Matthew’s text, and the akolouthountes were made of up matheetais. Conformed even unto death.
If that is not my story, it assuredly should be! Truth be told, I have sufficient cause to question whether it is so with me. I can be bold enough, I suppose, in the house of God, and even here in these studies. But, in public? Not so much. Believe me, I don’t suggest this is as it should be. Quite the opposite, really. But, it is the state of my union.
Yet, there are other places where a certain boldness has been rising up. I have been recovering a certain boldness in prayer, the which deserves most definitely to be interjected into this particular bit of my studies. To whit: In recent weeks (months, years, forever), I have been deeply concerned with the health of my beloved wife. I have known her struggles with this disease as long as I have known her. Unsurprisingly, as the years lengthen, so does her desperation, so does her frustration at still having this issue. Where is God? Why doesn’t He do something? What gives? Let me tell you, as she sought for me to pray aloud for her yesterday, in the midst of a weekly bout with her condition, what was in me to pray was hardly worthy of taking to the airwaves. I was in the darker corner of David’s prayer life, as near to demanding answer of my God as I am inclined to approach, and frankly, rather nearer than I would deem proper. But, it was a raw honesty of that sort I know my God does not take offense at and yet I find myself so rarely willing to allow. As if He doesn’t know my thoughts in the first place!
But, there was another period to the day, a period of exhaustion on both our parts, but simultaneously a period of utmost joy to me. We lay upon the sickbed together, my beloved wrapped in my arms and my prayers, at least when consciousness allowed of prayer. These were no longer the angry, demanding prayers of frustration, but the compassionate pleadings of a lover’s heart. Like David before me, I found myself moved from the angry demands of faith shaken to the tearful requests of a child to his Dad. It hurts, Daddy, make it better! Oh! Let me tell you, such are the words of a childlike faith, a faith that has set aside the realm of probability or even possibility, simply knowing that Daddy is Great. He’ll fix it. There’s nothing He can’t fix. I don’t know that I achieved quite that level of simplicity, but I was nearer that than the ‘why me, Lord?’ that tends to well up in the midst of a Job experience. I’d had plenty of time in that place as well, but here was a different atmosphere.
I must confess that going forward into the evening there really wasn’t much of anything to suggest that these prayers had received any more attention than those which preceded. I wasn’t hearing any shouts of victory from the bathroom to suggest that the trial had passed and in some unexpectedly immediate fashion. No, and through the night I heard such disturbances as are sufficiently common to my experience now, that suggested that the struggle was continuing unchanged. Yet, there was something upon me that allowed of sleep in spite of it, and a sleep not disturbed by doubt. In my more cynical moments I could write that off as evidence that I just really don’t care that much, but I know better.
So, imagine my joy when I arose this morning and the first thing I hear from my beloved is that the trial is over and she will be able to come to church today. This being the day we are supposed to receive our official membership in this new body, and also the day we are blessed to be lighting the advent candle of peace (!), it was particularly gratifying to hear that she would not have to deal with the disappointment of once more being forced to miss an occasion. But, wait! There’s more! So, still groggy with the typical effects of first waking, I hear this: “There wasn’t nearly as much that came out as I would have expected. It’s as though it just disappeared!” I am doubtless paraphrasing from my own perception of events, but you don’t know! You don’t know what this meant! It meant that my Father in heaven had indeed not only heard, but even answered! Answered above and beyond my imagination! Oh, believe me, I knew already that He is able, but it was getting harder and harder to suppose that He actually would. But, He did!
Oh, let me tell you that here in this second week of Advent, as Hope is joined to Peace, what a wonderful start to the day! What a day for rejoicing! What a day for feeling that renewed faith within, that excitement, that testimony that will not be denied, cannot be denied! This is a day for rocks crying out! This is a day for dancing in the streets! This is a day for celebrating my God, my King, my Redeemer, my Yahweh Rapha! No, there is better! This is the day for thoroughly enjoying the love of my Dad, my Brother. Big brother saw the hurt being laid on His little bro, and He stepped in.
Thank You, Jesus! You are indeed my Strong Tower, my Strength, my Shield against the enemy. You are so wonderful to me, and I am blessed beyond all measure to have You call me family. Lord! Grant unto me to do something, something, to express unto You the gratitude I feel, to in some small measure at the very least give You the recognition that You are due. Let Your name be magnified, Your glory made manifest by something in me, in us, this day! Oh, the splendor of Your majesty! Oh! The marvelous great benefit of being Your child, Your sibling, Your beloved bride! Indeed, You are no respecter of persons, and You will share Your glory with no man. Holy God, be it in Your will, let this day not only be the day to celebrate victory in the night, but let it be the true turning point, the day of which we shall say that You have indeed healed this disease, ended the trial and pronounced Your daughter whole. Let it be so, Lord, I dare to pray! Let it be so!
I say that this event is fitting to bring into the study before me because it is of a kind with that story from David’s reign that had come to mind in preparing yesterday. David entered Jerusalem bringing the ark of the covenant to be set in prominence in his capital city, in God’s capital city. This was not his first time trying to do this thing. He had tried before, but he had been severely rebuked by God Himself, for David had been doing things by his own plan, not by God’s declared methods. He had been careless in his pursuit, and God was not pleased, not even tolerant.
This time, though, was different. David had prepared himself, and set himself to learn the right way, the way God would be pleased to see done. And so, he set himself to study, to prepare, and to walk out what he had learned. And, here he was at the end of it, having done things God’s way and God was pleased to allow His ark to be brought into the city, to be set under the tabernacle that the people of God might rejoice in this manifestation of His presence amongst them and His pleasure in them.
Now came a rather different sort of obedience. I don’t think David found this in the scrolls of Torah, nor do I suppose his priests and prophets were advising him that this was the right way to finish the event. No, this was direct line from heaven type stuff, and David was dealing with that electricity of the Presence of God, the irresistible, the couldn’t possibly be otherwise. So, David danced. And, he didn’t just do some stately hora as he led the procession, he danced with abandon. He danced with such abandon that both clothing and dignity were left behind. There was nothing on his mind but to rejoice in the goodness of God. Now, one might suppose that God would have been offended by this display. Where was propriety? Wasn’t there, after all, that business about not exposing oneself to thy youngers? So, let me suggest that the degree of David’s nakedness may not have been quite the extreme that we tend naturally to imagine. It was enough to compromise the statelier aspects of his dignity – at least in the eyes of those somewhat more confined to earthly realms – but not so much as to present a breach of God’s Law. It must be so, mustn’t it?
But, David, leading the presence of God back to home base, could no more have stopped that dancing than these disciples following after Jesus, or even the less devoted more excited crowds coming out from the city, could have stopped shouting the Hosannas, stopped laying their cloaks in the street and waving their palm branches. It wasn’t possible! It was impossible! This is akin to the joy I feel this morning, upon hearing the word from my lovely wife that she is not only feeling better, but feeling improbably better.
Oh, listen to me! If anybody has reason to recognize when things have not followed their natural course it is she! She has dealt with this issue nigh on weekly, lo these last thirty years or so. She knows the typical course of things. It’s her experience. It always goes this way (and that has been her despair, it is intolerable that it always goes this way, but this is the way it inexorably goes). But, it wasn’t her experience this time. Something shifted! Something shifted in the heavenlies, and that shift has brought a change in the flow of the earthly. The ordinary has had to give way. Impossible, my friends, doesn’t apply to God. The term is foreign to Him. It has no meaning. Celebrate? I should think so! Shout about it? Give me an opening!
Lord, I am in Your hands. You direct and I shall follow. If it must get a bit messy, so long as it is under the direction of Your will, so be it. If, however, You would that we heed the due order of this body we are joining, I shall fully understand and abide. But, the joy! The joy of seeing You move after so long. No, that is no complaint, merely a sense of wonder. I may never understand why You have waited, what was different this time, that You were finally inclined to answer. I may yet know disappointments as Your answers unfold in ways different than my preferences, but what is that to me? You are Good. And, Your lovingkindness, Your chesed, is indeed unchanging toward me and toward my bride, my sister, Your child. So, God, let me only honor You as You would be honored, and let me make known Your goodness to those who could stand to be reminded of it, but only as Thou wilt.
Well, now. An interesting bit of parallelism appeared to my eyes as I was considering some of the particular wording of this passage. In particular, that phrase ‘become silent’: it is a rather unusual phrase, at least as Scriptural occurrence goes. But, it does show up in another setting, and it is another setting wherein this matter of rebuke arises. I speak of that occasion from much earlier in the ministry, when the disciples and Jesus were crossing the Sea of Galilee and great storm winds began to stir that body of water, as they are wont to do. The waves were threatening to capsize the small craft that they were riding in, yet Jesus was just sleeping on the back bench, unmoved until the disciples awakened Him in their fear. Oh, Teacher! O, God! Don’t You even care? We’re dying here, and yet nothing! You don’t even arouse Yourself from Your slumbers on our behalf!
Oh, how I know that feeling! But, My God never slumbers nor sleeps (Ps 121:3-4)! No, my help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth! And, that Maker of heaven and earth yet reigns not only over the affairs of man, but over the heaven and earth that He made! So, back in Mark’s account, we hear Jesus say to that creation, to the waves of His own design, “Hush. Be still.” Well, guess what happens? Those waves become still. Those winds cease their blowing, and the sea is restored to a glassy calm. What happened? God rebuked the elements, and the elements had no choice but to obey that rebuke.
Catch the connection, here! The Pharisees are asking – no demanding, really – that Jesus do to His disciples what He had done to the elements. Make them stop! Tell them to shut up! There’s going to be trouble! In their own way, these guys were in the same state of panic that the disciples had been on that earlier occasion. We’re all going to die, and yet You are allowing this to continue! Don’t You even care?
There’s a major difference, though. The wind and the waves were out of order, they were opposing the will of their maker, and when He spoke, they could only obey. Resistance was futile. These, on the other hand, are very much in line with the will of their Maker. Though He has spoken no audible word to them, they are acting at His command all the same. They could no more be silent now than the wind could have kept up its roaring then. The command had gone forth, the decree was issued. This is the day! My Son shall be acknowledged King of kings! There is no possibility of stopping it! Resistance is futile. Even if these guys could be convinced to shut up, I tell you that same creation that stopped its noise at My command would break forth and carry on the proclamation in their stead. God has willed it, and it shall be! It shall be by the hand of man, or it shall be in spite of the hand of man, but it shall be!
Peace, be still? I think not! This is not the time for silent contemplation. This is the time for jubilation! Get with the program, guys, or get out of the way! Oh! I am in mind of a bit of amusement I was having with an old coworker of mine last week. You know, there is that old phrase that folks love to trot out, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” Of course, experience shows that too many leaders feel a need to lead when no leadership is necessary, and indeed wind up becoming more of an interference than an aid. Followers, too, can tend to just tangle the feet of those who are trying to actually get some work done. “We’re just following our protocols. Just doing what leadership insists we must.” And so, nothing was done. For those in the trenches, those who have a job to do and a timeframe to get it done in, that old motto really rather devolves to, “Don’t lead. Don’t follow. Just get out of the way.” True leaders, I think, must come to recognize that this is 90% of their mission – just get out of the way.
Let me, though, keep my eyes on the Scriptures before me. The Pharisees were leaders in their community. But, they had become leaders who were in the way, leading in very non-productive, counter-productive directions. They needed to become followers, but to follow was not in them. Pride would not allow. And, even with those who did break through their pride to become followers, there was still so much of the old understanding in them. Their feet wouldn’t take naturally to this new walk. They stumbled. They became roadblocks to those more, shall we say, organic disciples. They couldn’t lead and they were having difficulty following. Now, with this rebuke from Jesus, they are being told to just get out of the way.
Rebuke the disciples? Not happening. The rebuke, my friend, belongs to you and to you it shall come. Do you really suppose they could be silenced? Do you really suppose that you could withstand the will of God and prevent its fruition? Think again! Even were you to allow the outright slaughter of this crowd, cause them all to perish of an instant, you can’t stop this.
There is a line from Peter Gabriel’s song “Biko” that has application here. “You can blow out a candle but you can’t blow out a fire. Once the flames begin to catch the wind will blow it higher.” You could, perhaps, have managed to silence this multitude, but it would change nothing. All Creation would have taken up the shout. The Son of God was taking His Throne. The Battle was coming to the climactic moment. No, really it wasn’t. As much as it seems climactic from our perspective, that battle was already won, done and over with. Recall that this is the triumphal entry. The King has already defeated His enemies. It’s Game Over. This is not going to be stopped, and that’s an end to it!
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that God had His hands in the events that followed upon that terrible act in South Africa every bit as much as He had them on events here in Jerusalem. Assuredly, though, the events in Jerusalem carry far greater significance. The point is simple. God has decided. What we can hear in Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees is the assurance that not only is there nothing man can do to stop the announcement of the King’s arrival: There’s nothing any demon, any angel, any power in heaven, on the earth or beneath the earth could do to change the course of events. Honestly, that had been the case from before day one in Eden. God had set the course of history before there was a history to consider, and however much foolish Lucifer thought he was disrupting those plans, he was actually playing directly into God’s purposes every time.
As a bit of an aside right here: something came up in yesterday’s Sunday school session that I really hadn’t considered before. In that scene we have of Lucifer standing in the courts of God, when he is asked where he has come from, he answers, “Just roaming around on earth, checking it out” (Job 1:7). The point was made that Satan was lying here as he is ever lying (nor was God surprised by this). Two points made: First, Satan hadn’t been ‘just roaming around’. He had been specifically seeking to get at Job. Second, God (as always) knew the answer to His question before He asked it. He knew what Lucifer had been up to and why he hadn’t been able to do as he wanted.
Focus on that second factor, because this is ever how it is with God. He knows not only what Lucifer’s up to. He knows what each one of us is up to. That can be a blessing or a cursing, depending on where we’re at. For the believer, it ought to give us the utmost confidence to be transparently honest with God. Face it: as much as we try to hide our faults from Him, as much as we may seek to couch our words just so when we speak with Him, He sees through it all anyway. You and I have nothing to lose by being thus transparent with our Father – and everything to gain. He loves honesty! Oh! That I might more often lay hold of David’s example and cease from trying to look good for my Daddy God. He’s not impressed anyway.
As for that seemingly eternal enemy of His who is so poisoning the righteousness of the Pharisees here, like us, he knows deep down that he cannot hope to outwit God, and yet he cannot help but try. Throughout the last few days of what we know as the earthly ministry of Jesus, he’s trying everything he can to disrupt the inevitable outcome. Surely, he can move upon the Jews to reject this same Jesus they are just now proclaiming. Yes. Yes, he can, but that changes nothing. Surely, he can so enrage the Romans that they will utterly destroy this Jesus being. Yes. Yes, he can. But, it is for that very purpose, the unjust punishment laid upon the Innocent, that this Jesus being came. Oh, Satan can play his hand any way he likes, but it will always fall to God to win the round. Always. It cannot be otherwise.
God will not be mocked, and He most certainly won’t be stymied by the likes of man. He may (indeed, to our sorrow, He does) allow us our periods of wandering far afield, but this is a portion of the assurance we have as His children: He will not suffer us to go so far astray as to annul His plans for us. He will see to it that we are brought back to His fold, for He is the Good and Faithful Shepherd of our souls. This must never, never be taken as permission to just do as we please with no regard for Him. It cannot be! If this is how I view His mercy then I must fear for my salvation, indeed, for such an attitude towards my Father can only be supposed to reflect a heart that has no love for Him, that does not truly know Him.
However, within the bounds of His mercy, there is room for error on my part. It brings discipline, yes, and that discipline is not a matter to be anticipated with any great joy. But, as He has caused it to be written, the benefits that flow from that discipline are good indeed!
If I turn this around, however, and contemplate those for whom God’s control of history is equally certain, but for whom the outcome is just as certainly not for their good, the very thing that gives me assurance must leave them in dread and frustration. What a frustrated Satan it is who so plagues the earth! He knows he can’t win, yet he can’t accept it. He knows the end of the story, and with greater certainty than even we have laid hold of it. If anybody understands inevitable, it is he! Yet, he cannot but try to find some way to change things, even knowing the impossibility of it. Do you recall the Greek myth regarding Sisyphus? He was the one supposedly condemned for his wickedness by spending eternity rolling a great boulder uphill only to have it roll back down. Utterly fruitless, hopeless labor forever. No choice but to take action, but always with the certain knowledge that all that action would change nothing.
Such a thing could lead even a relatively good man to want to lash out in frustration. The urge must be nigh on irresistible in one who has no predilection for goodness. Satan is a very frustrated force of evil, knowing himself to be in just such a Sisyphean struggle against an ultimately unopposable God. He knows he cannot win and if anything, this makes his frustration the more impossible to ignore. So, he lashes out in such ways as he can, seeks to cause as much disruption and trouble as he can. If he can’t win, we might suppose his reasoning goes, he can at least make it as annoying as possible to work his defeat.
He was certainly at work on the streets of Jerusalem, as he saw the very instrument of his defeat approaching. He sends Pharisees to try and besmirch this One’s reputation, but they are not up to the task. He turns one of Jesus’ own against Him, but then, Jesus knew that was coming when He called the man. He has had the priesthood working overtime, abusing their office in ways even they hadn’t managed to imagine before, ready to break every rule of righteousness to preserve their hold on such power as they had, but all to naught. He had even (by his thinking) arranged to have this rather weak and irritable governor in place for the occasion, one easily enough manipulated by the craftiness he had instilled in that vile priesthood. Oh, yes, that one had the power of life and death over God’s puny hero! And, not only would that one be moved to crush the hero, but he’d surely vent his spleen on all these sad hanger’s on who were putting so much hope into Jesus. Oh, it would be just delectable, this treachery!
Except, of course, that every treachery he was instigating was already accounted for long since in God’s planning. Every evil he stirred up, God in heaven was working for ultimate Good. Even the death of His Son, which Satan would indeed succeed in bringing to pass, was no setback, but the very denouement of an eternity of planning. Played right into God’s hand with that one. Again. And, to what glorious result!
Let me, though, drag my attention back to the moment we are looking at. Rocks would cry out if the voices of men were somehow stopped! And, if it could be imagined that the rocks could be silenced, then the trees would take up the mission, or the wind, or the very fabric of the universe. If all matter were forced into some preternatural silence, then no doubt anti-matter would be proclaiming this one King. It’s unstoppable! That’s the power of what Jesus is saying. Rebuke? Listen! This is the One (and I know I repeat myself here) Who rebuked the wind and the water – and they listened! If there is any being in all of existence who could possibly have brought things to silence in that moment it was He. But, He would not, for He would never oppose the Father’s plan, even for the sake of His own life. I think, though, that even apart from that, the power of this proclamation was so great that He frankly couldn’t even if we could conceive of it that He would.
Yes, I understand that Jesus is wholly God even as He is wholly Man. I also understand that by some mystery beyond my capacity, He had so emptied Himself of Godly prerogative that there were things He clearly held to be beyond Him, such as to declare the time of His returning. How it can be that He Who is Himself Omniscient God is not given to know what Omniscient God knows, I cannot say, but for that season, at least, that’s how it was. It seems to me that a similar statement could be made in regard to this triumph. For this season, there were those matters of scheduled events that were left to the Father alone to determine, and as He determined, thus they would surely be. Not even a moment of weakness in the Son, could such be considered, would have changed that schedule by so much as a second. But, we need not take such matters farther than speculation, for He did not falter, even as He faced His own fleshly death, and what was far, far worse: Those moments of separation, utter separation, from the eternal fellowship of the Trinity. Such agony of spirit we can only guess at, understanding that it must surely have been an amplification of an amplification of an amplification of the worst agony we shall ever experience. Yet, He went, and He went willingly. Nevertheless, Father, Thy will be done. No harder words were ever spoken.
There is a second aspect to this rebuke which Jesus issues which I may have already noted here. It is a matter that the NET brings out in their footnote to this passage. I’ll simply quote that note. “Even creation knows what is taking place, yet the Pharisees miss it.” In our vernacular, you could take that along the lines of “the rocks understand what’s happening, and still you don’t get it!” You, sir, are dumber than a rock, to have missed the reality of what God is doing right now, and to suppose it could be stopped!
Oh, it’s fun to look at the proud Pharisee and witness his comeuppance, isn’t it? Well, you know where I’m going to go with that one! We are that Pharisee! We need always to be thinking along those lines, however assured we are of our own faith, perhaps more so, the more assured we are. In what ways, you ask? I can speak to it from my own experience. The farther I progress in the faith, particularly, the longer I have been at this habitual pursuit of studying God’s Word, the more I find myself forming up hard and fast definitions of doctrinal positions. This is, to be fair, as it should be – within proper bounds. I should expect that if I am studying Truth and seeking to know it truly, then I will find myself more and more convicted as to that Truth, and less and less willing to accept any substitute.
However! However, there is always the risk that what I deem to be settled Truth is in fact just prideful opinion. I being a finite man must seek always to remain open to the correction of an infinite God. Look! I’ve been there. I’ve been absolutely, firmly convinced that I knew how this one particular aspect of faith and doctrine stood, and nothing could convince me otherwise. Oh! I could get quite vehement in defending that ground, or even just trying to explain it to somebody who in all probability already agreed with me, or at least wanted to agree. But, earnestly pursuing what Scripture actually said on the topic forced me all against my will and desire to come to the realization that for all my vociferousness, I was just plain wrong. And now, I find myself just as steadfastly holding the exact opposite perspective from that which once I held.
And yet, there are other points which I deem equally settled. And yet, there are other points which I have become equally dogmatic about, the which I have not yet wrestled with to this degree. Indeed, what with my recent history and the changes I am even now undergoing, I find myself becoming very reactionary towards many of the very practices I have endured and even participated with in times past. This is not good. Let me be very clear about that. This is not good. It is the Pharisee rising up. I am smarter. I am more righteous. I have so much greater a commitment to abide in the Truth of God. I am better than you. Oh, and right there: there it is. Trouble.
Thus, I discover that it becomes harder and harder to come to this Word of God with my ears open to what He has to say. I have too many prefabricated opinions. I read the opening lines of a passage and there is that within me that is already at the end. Oh yes. I know this one. Heard it before. No need to revisit it. I find when I am reading somebody else’s perspective on things with a theological underpinning my eyes tend to skate over whatever verses they may be offering as support for their view. If I already agree with them, there’s really no point, right? I’m already there. And, if I don’t agree, then surely they’re taking things out of context anyway, so again: what’s the point?
Again, let me stress this: This is not good! This is a close-minded, unwilling to hear from God perspective on seeking to know His Word. This is evidence of being every bit as prone to read my own opinion into the text as those I would accuse of such practices. It is the Pharisee disease. “The rocks understand what’s happening, and still you don’t get it!” Oh! I don’t want to have to hear such a thing said of me! I don’t want to be so reactionary about those things that are accredited to a ‘move of the Spirit’ that I refuse to notice the Spirit moving. What a terrible fate, that! Yet, I don’t wish to be so open to everything that lays claim to being spiritual that I lose all discernment, and chase after every passing wind.
Either way lies danger. Either way becomes error. If I am so closed off to what God is doing in my day that I pronounce with the greatest holiness (and even an earnest concern for piety and Truth) that these are just the excesses of an emotional and unthinking, misguided people, I am putting myself right alongside the Pharisees in this crowd – telling God that He’s acting improperly. I am in that window with Michel, chiding the man of God who has actually found himself in the courts of praise because he is praising God in a way that I find embarrassing. Honestly, neither of those positions has a great deal to offer.
In the other direction, I would be back to a place where there is such a low degree of concern for doctrine and for Truth that every claim of being Spirit-led is assumed true unless catastrophically proven false. Trust your leaders! If they’re wrong, it’ll be on their head not yours. Whoa, mule! I cannot go that way! Nope. I’ll stick with my Pilgrim forebears, and hold that I shall follow no man farther than he follows God. I shall uphold the rule of the Word over my faith first and foremost, not disallowing and disavowing the capacity of God to move in the traditional Spiritual gifts in my day, nor even disallowing that He might even come to His people in ways they have not previously known; but in the absolute certainty that however He may choose to move among us, He shall never move in a way contrary to Himself and to His revelation to mankind. What He is, He has always been. What He has been, He ever is. Age to age the same, my Rock.
May I never grow so callous a man of the Word as to fail to be available to the move of God’s Holy Spirit! What manner of temple should I be, to refuse God His right of me?
I’m going to shift my thinking down another avenue, now, to consider the motivation that is moving these Pharisees to speak so to Jesus. Why do they suppose the disciples are worthy of rebuke? The sense they would like for us to suppose is at the base of their concerns is that the sort of things the crowds are acclaiming for their Teacher are too much. They are feeding His pride. If He is truly a worthy teacher, surely He must refuse such accolades as this! Why! It borders on worship, and even the angels know better than to accept such things to themselves. If, then, you are such a holy man, Teacher, surely you must rebuke those who would lay such praises at Your feet!
You see? They are only concerned with upholding God’s honor. Quite righteous, that concern, isn’t it? In reality, though, I have a feeling that their concern, their motivation, is to do with something much closer to home. They will be aware, for example, that while the Romans may hold the Jews in a certain disdain, it’s not as though they can’t interpret the language of the Jews, or at least lay hold of somebody who can. The message being shouted down the road is frankly unmistakable. The noise of it is absolutely certain to have got the attention of the soldiers in the city. Consider what Matthew had said about this procession. “When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred” (Mt 21:10).
No soldier worth his salt could be idly observing this sort of scene unfolding on his watch. Yes, I know. It’s coming up on Passover, and the natives are always a trifle restless in this season, but this goes beyond. That shouting: What are they saying? That doesn’t sound like the stuff I’ve heard them singing in previous years? “Behold your king”? Hoo boy. Here we go again. Seems every few years they find some foolish hero to rally behind, and all it means is more work for us. Won’t they ever learn?
Listen! There’s a riot happening there in the streets. That’s going to be the Roman interpretation of it, at least, and the Pharisees are fully aware of it. It’s going to go particularly hard on the people when Pilate – or worse yet, Herod (who we know is in town) hears them proclaiming somebody king. Kings really don’t like competition much, and that whole family heritage of the Herods has proven themselves particularly adept at making royal office a blood sport. Oy! If this is allowed to boil over into a breach of the Roman peace, it’s not just going to be those who are shouting who pay for it. It will be all of us. The temple itself could be at risk. They’ve dared to violate its sanctity for lesser reasons in the past. Jesus, it’s not just your life in the balance here! It’s ours! What have we to do with You? Shut this down before we’re all slaughtered in the streets!
But, God is in control. However nervous His activities may make us (and let’s be honest, they can make us pretty nervous), He is in control. Pilate is not in control. Herod is not in control. Caesar is not in control. God is. This is His story, His drama, and all is proceeding exactly according to plan. Oh! Try and tell that to the disciples as they’re watching Jesus make His painful way out to Golgatha! Try and convince His mother of this as she sees Him writhing in final agony on that cross. Try and penetrate the thick doubts upon these very disciples when He’s been two, three days in the grave. This is God in control? I don’t think so! What have we done? What will become of us? Do we just go back to normal life again? Can we? Listen! These are things to shake faith into dust! All this excitement of escorting the King to His royal city, and then it’s crushed in such short order. How do you look at that and see God glorified?
Well, let me come forward into our own time. How do we look at what’s going on in the world all around us and see God glorified? We have false religions, and violently false, rising up and even threatening to overwhelm our own numbers. We see government working actively to undermine every last vestige of righteous living, promoting programs that destroy human dignity and human hope in their urge to preserve their own power. We see people dying in nations all over the earth, victims of what to us would appear to be senseless and directionless accidents of nature: things we used to be smart enough to consider acts of God. But, we’ve been too long in the school of God is good, God is love, God could never harm a fly. We have allowed ourselves to accept half a god and think we have the whole of it.
Listen! When it’s like this, when it’s exactly like this, the time is still right to glorify God! I have to say that the time is always right to glorify God. Oh! I admit it: I’ll be much more inclined to do so when I hear the trumpet sounding the end to this period of development, I’ll be far more prepared to shout for joy when I see my King riding into sight on His great steed. But, the time is now! The right time is now! My God is worthy of all my praise, right now! The question for me is the question for these Pharisees. Will you join in and shout with abandon, or are you going to wait to be pushed into it like these rocks?
Here is an opportunity to exercise that much-vaunted free will of yours! You know, every knee will bow to Him, like it or not. Every tongue will confess that He is Lord and rightfully so, like it or not. He shall reign over all the earth, like it or not. He already does, and if the devil can’t stop Him from pursuing His course to the end, you and I are certainly not going to manage it. So, what’ll it be? Praise with abandon for your beloved King come to take you home, or the begrudging acceptance of the Conquering Warrior? Will it be the joyful abandon, the shouting of those praises welling up in your heart, or will you try and be the proper and stoic man of piety, determined to remain dignified?
Those rocks are going to cry out, my friend! All Creation will be singing in that day. The trees of the field will clap their hands, and will you realize what’s happening? Or will you write it off as heavy winds shaking the branches? The grass of the field will be presenting a wave offering, and will you see it? Will you join in? Or will you just see a natural explanation for it and shrug? The clouds will burst forth with such song as clouds make, the rocks will cry out with mighty shouts of joy according to their structure, and what will you see in it? Natural disasters? Violence and evil? Or will you recognize the accolades going up to the Mighty King of all kings, come to take His throne once for all time? Will you join in because you can taste the excitement in the air? Because your spirit is thrilling in harmonic vibration with the Spirit of Almighty God? Or will you wait until acknowledgement of your rightful King is forced from you?
It’s not just a question of are you for Him or against Him. That is but one aspect of it. Let me assume, for the sake of argument, that you are for Him. I know I am for Him, and yet I know that these questions apply to me with just as great a seriousness, of not greater. When the time comes, will I shout with abandon, or need to be pushed to it like a rock? The time comes day in and day out, and I know that too often, I am the rock. There’s a time for rocks. But, there’s a time for abandon, and it’s not just that one, final day. There’s times throughout our lives that demand that abandon, and too often, we, or at least I, fail to take note of it, and I miss a wonderful opportunity to avail myself of a wonderful privilege.
Oh, hear me! It is a truly magnificent privilege to have this capacity from our Creator. We are made with a voice fit to shout His praise! We are made with a mind to recognize that He is worthy of that praise! We are made with hearts so fashioned as to be capable of desiring to sing His praise! And, we are given the strength to follow through on all these capacities. What are we given as the greatest commandment? Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. That very capacity for love sets us apart from every other creature, and that we can know such love for Him Who made us, places us far above the rest of our environment. That we have these things in combination: heart, soul, mind and strength, fits us in unique fashion to enjoy the privilege of magnifying God, of magnifying Jesus!
Thank You, Holy and Magnificent God of all Creation! You Who knit me together in my mother’s womb, Who fashioned me to be such a marvelous combination of abilities as to crown Your creation! You, Who in Your infinite Wisdom have so arranged the course of all history to achieve the moment of Salvation, the moment of my salvation! How great You are! Your Goodness is indeed beyond measure, even though I have so often failed to see it on display in the events around me. Though my eyes are so terribly unfocused when it comes to recognizing Your hand, yet You remain faithful to guide me, to guard me, to uphold me in my weakness! What words could ever be enough to proclaim Your infinite worth? They must fail me. And though I may type these praises in silence, out of respect for those sleeping above me this early morning, yet there is such a shout in my soul as defies containment. Oh, God, You are my God, and I shall ever praise You. I thank You for these times when I can seek You in the morning, though I sometimes complain of the hour! It’s OK with me. Really it is. You come to me when You choose and may You always find me a willing student at Your feet. May You find me an apt student, able not only to understand Your word but wise to put it to practice. This, I know, is my weakness, Lord, but in my weakness, I beg You to show Yourself strong.
Yes, and Lord, I shall not fail to seek Your hand once more upon my beloved wife, the daughter of Your own household. I am blessed beyond measure (and thrill for it even still) to know what You accomplished in her Saturday night, but I sense that it isn’t finished. God, I cry out for that to be her story, that when it comes to this illness, it is finished! I know that it is so in some eternal sense, that her future is utterly secure in You, but, oh! How I cry for her present. Can You? I know You can. Will You? With all respect for Your sovereignty, and with all understanding that Your ways are greater than my own, Your knowledge of the battle complete where I can barely see beyond my nose, yet I would ask that You find it in Your will to win this skirmish, to vanquish the enemy on this front, once and for all time, that Your glory may be physically, vocally (and you know she’s a vocal one!) manifestly and unavoidably evident in her hear and now.
I have, in this event, seen evidence of Your power at work in her, and it gives me confidence to seek that You would finish that thing You have started there in her intestines. Oh, it is true! Your lovingkindness is better than life, but so long as life must persist, I pray You show her Your lovingkindness in this matter. So long as life persists, I shall continue to pray this, until that time I see her whole, restored in spirit, the damage of a lifetime washed away by Your goodness. God, You are able! You are my Jehovah, my Rapha! My Jireh! Come and move the waters of her soul! Come and pour out Your goodness upon her even as she lies asleep in her bed. Let this be the day when the shout comes forth from heaven, “No more! Hands off!”
Yet, even so, Lord. Even so, Your will and not mine. And teach my spirit to abide peacefully in Your will, however it befalls me and mine. Behold, You are my King!
