Imagine a town where the city council happens to be controlled by a group of pastors of the largest local churches. It is common for these pastors to appear in the local shopping mall and spontaneously make declarations or deliver a speech. During the week leading up to Christmas, the mall is packed, and the people have a heightened religious awareness, even those who don't go to church regularly. So people who are jockeying for positions of authority in this town make appearances at the mall each day, like political candidates running for office. But all the buzz is about this new guy in town, truly a man of the people, who is killing these other guys in debate. He is making them look so bad, and the people are flocking to him is such droves, that the polical machine is working 24 hours a day on attacks, smear campaigns, research into his past, coming up with "gotcha" questions, you name it.
This is the picture of Jerusalem in Matthew 22. Jesus has chosen Jerusalem (the epicenter of Jewish religious and political life) and the week of Passover (the most important religious holiday) for the climax of his ministry. It is also the place where the current power brokers in Israel will feel most threatened by him. They're engaging him daily in high-stakes verbal wars that draw big crowds. They retreat, plan a new attack, then go in again. And when it becomes clear that they're not going to win in a debate with this guy, they will make new and more desperate plans.
I think one of Matthew's greatest contributions to the gospel story is that he helps us see the degree of opposition Jesus faced. He had to manage it for most of the three years of his ministry to preserve his life and personal freedom, but at the end the gloves come off. Matthew debunks the notion we have of Jesus and his disciples merrily travelling across the countryside with a message of peace and love, and being warmly received wherever they went. It was rough going for three years. God appeared to the world in the flesh, and the world dogged him every step of the way.
We are blessed to live in a different era with more personal freedoms than the first Christians did. But truly and fully living out the Christ-life is still counter-cultural and will ruffle feathers. Are you willing to embrace life as a Christ-follower if it means personal loss or opposition?
No comments:
Post a Comment