Very God, very human.

CHAPTER 7. DELIBERATELY INTO DANGER.
From the move South to the Arrest Warrant.
Late Summer AD 31 to early Spring AD 32 (probable dating).

John 7 to 11, Luke 10:25 to 18:34 Mark 10. Matthew 19 & 20

7.1 DARING AND DEFIANCE.
(Luke 13:31-33. Mark 10:1. Matthew 19:1-2.)
At last Jesus and the disciples were ready to respond to Herod’s execution of the Baptist. They moved into Herod’s territory, his real home ground across the Jordan.

There on Herod’s doorstep, Jesus preached to crowds, healed the sick and cast out demons. Herod was a weak character, a prey to superstitious fears. He asked, “Is this John the Baptist risen from the grave and come back to haunt me?”

He considered the possibility of killing Jesus and it was some of the Pharisees who brought the warning. We can only guess whether they were genuinely concerned to prevent an assassination or merely wanted to use the threat to drive Jesus out of the district. Whatever their motives they told Him that Herod was seeking His life and He should make a quick getaway.

The message Jesus sent back to Herod was far from respectful.

“Go and tell that fox I am here today, I shall be here tomorrow, and I shall still be here the day after. I am here to heal and cast out demons and I will finish my course.”

This was pure defiance, light years away from the image of “gentle Jesus meek and mild.” With wry humour He added, “It would never do for a prophet to perish outside Jerusalem.”

He was challenging Herod to come and get Him, asserting that what He had started He would finish and telling Herod in no uncertain terms, “You will not stop me.”


7.2 TEACHING IN THE FACE OF DANGER.
(John 7:1 to 11:53. Luke 10:25 to 18:34. Mark 10:1-45. Matthew 18:1-28.)

This period in trans-Jordan lasted only about six months and was interrupted by three trips to Jerusalem. Yet it contained much of Christ’s best known teaching. Luke especially focusses on it.

The parables of The Good Samaritan, The Rich Fool, The Great Banquet, The Good Shepherd, The Prodigal Son and many others are recorded by Luke at this phase. It is of course probable that some parables were told several times, in different places and with minor variations. In this new area Jesus may well have repeated much of the teaching already given in Galilee.

Even so it was a prolific time and there is a sense that Jesus was giving His utmost, working under pressure, knowing time was short.


7.3 OPPONENTS
It is usual to think of “The Pharisees” as the great opponents of Christ’s mission, and when it came to arguments, they probably were. It was not, however, Pharisees who posed the greatest threat when it came to physical danger. Great on theological theory, they tended to be half hearted when it came to action. The first time some of the Pharisees plotted His death it was in company with Herodians and nothing came of it. Pharisees in Jerusalem also talked murder and even attempted a lynching, but failed to carry it through.

Herod was a killer, but he was a weak character, full of superstitious fears and big talk, manipulated by his wife and stepdaughter. As we have seen, Jesus defied him and he proved ineffective.

It was the Sadducees and their leader Caiaphas who were the deadly enemies. Cold, calculating and ruthless, they saw Jesus as a threat to their political power. So although Christ’s move into Herod’s territory appeared publicly as a dashing and daring venture, it was His visits to the capital which brought Him face to face with those who not only wanted to kill Him, but had the resolution to do it.


7.4 JERUSALEM.
(John 7 to 11:53.)

Curiously the visits to Jerusalem are all recorded in John’s Gospel while the other three only report the last visit. We have already looked at the first two such visits, namely:
3.7 - 3.9 John 1-4 Mission to Judea with six disciples, before Baptist arrested.
4.7 John 5 Visit for one of the feasts, during Galilee period.

It is also possible that the next visit, (John 7 - 10:51) was in the last autumn of the Galilee period, but the balance of evidence seems to favour the next autumn, ie soon after leaving Capernaum. Another possibility is that John 7 records an earlier visit and John 8-10:51 a later one.

Whatever the timing, it is clear that antagonism built up earlier and more fiercely in Jerusalem than in Galilee. John 5 records a plot to kill Jesus, John 7 an attempted arrest and John 10 an attempted lynching.

Nevertheless, the common people heard Him gladly, in Jerusalem as elsewhere. The opposition was from the religious Pharisees and the politically motivated Sadducees.


7.5 WHO WILL THROW THE FIRST STONE?
(John 8:1-11 - passage often thought to be misplaced; so time and context uncertain.)

Few incidents demonstrate better Christ’s ability to gain control of a dangerous situation. His handling of it was brilliant.

The temple courtyard was an open space surrounded by columns and portico’s where learned Rabbi’s used to sit and teach those who crowded round them. None was more popular than the Galilean carpenter. Opponents longed to break up and disrupt His following.

On this occasion they had caught, or had brought to them, a woman taken in the act of adultery. Their dirty minds loved to publicise the sin. Their self-righteous souls loved to exult over another’s humiliation. And here they had what looked like a golden opportunity to interrupt Jesus and discredit Him.

They hoped to force Him into a position where He must either appear to condone adultery or to abandon His role as “Friend of sinners.” So they dragged the woman in front of His audience to the place where Jesus was sitting, and proudly declared, “We caught this woman in the very act of adultery. According to Moses’ law, adulterers should be stoned to death. What do you say?”

All attention was focussed on the woman and her accusers. Only for a moment had they found it necessary to transfer attention to Jesus and if He had answered immediately the Pharisees would have remained in control.

Instead He reached down from His seat and began to doodle in the dust. There was no need for any significance in what He wrote. It was just a gesture. As the tantalising silence drew on and the audience craned their necks to see what He was doing, attention was transferred back to Him.

The accusers felt their command of the situation slipping away and tried desperately to recover it by clamouring for an answer. The effect was to direct attention all the more to Him.

When everyone was looking at Him, wondering what would happen next, He sat upright and answered with what has become one of His most famous statements ever.

“He that is without sin, let him throw the first stone,” and again He reached down and wrote on the ground with His finger.

It was rare for Jesus to deliberately humiliate anyone, but these Pharisees had asked for it and discovered Him to be a formidable opponent. They had come to embarrass Jesus and had been totally uncaring about humiliating the woman. Nor were they interested in promoting repentance or reconciliation.

Now Jesus spoke personally to her, “Where are your accusers? Does no one condemn you?”

“No, Lord.” She called Him Lord, realising, not perhaps His full Lordship, but His authority over this situation. And somehow this situation was less threatening, with Him in charge of it, than it had been a few minutes earlier.

“Neither do I condemn you, but remember, never again!”

Christ’s morality was different from that of the Pharisees, but equally strict. Theirs looked back and demanded punishment. His looked forward and demanded purity.

Two characters are not mentioned. There was the cowardly lover who abandoned her the moment she became dangerous to him (a typical adulterer in fact). There was also the cheated husband, humiliated and badly hurt, yet her only hope. The coming confrontation with him was more likely to lead to eventual forgiveness if she was committed to Christ’s command, “never again”. Her ordeal at the hands of the Pharisees might also encourage her husband to take her back. It is easier to forgive someone who has suffered.


BACK TO WHERE IT ALL BEGAN.
(John 10:39-41)

After the last failed attempt to lynch Him in Jerusalem, Jesus left the capital city and once more crossed the Jordan. This time, however, He stayed near the river in the place where John began his baptising more than three years earlier. This was the spot where crowds had first been stirred and the shake-up of both social and religious society had begun.

People remembered that John had introduced Jesus as one greater than himself. Now they had one more chance to meet and hear “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” the one who, according to John, will “Plunge you into wind and fire” and the one of whom John said, “He must increase, I must decrease.”

Jesus was well received there, but the respite was short.


LIFE RESTORED; DEATH-WARRANT ISSUED.
(John 11.)

At Bethany, a couple of miles from the city, stood the home of Martha and her younger brother and sister Lazarus and Mary. Frequently this had been the place of hospitality for Jesus and the disciples when in they were in the region of Jerusalem.

News now reached Jesus and the apostles that their friend Lazarus was seriously ill. There followed a discussion among the group. How safe was it to go near the capital. The last visit had ended with an attempt to stone Jesus and some of them were all for keeping away. Thomas took the other view. If Jesus was going to risk His life to visit a sick friend, it was for them to share the risk.

Eventually they all went, arriving too late for healing. Lazarus was four days dead and in keeping with normal practice, had been buried within a day of his death.

The family was both rich and popular. They owned a rock-hewn family vault. A large number of comforters had come to them, genuine comforters it seems, friends and neighbours rather than the professional mourners of those days. They were all thinking, this man Jesus has healed so many, yet one of His best friends has died because He was not here. Why did he arrive too late?

This was the occasion when Jesus wept. He felt, directly, the pain of the two bereaved sisters and it hurt Him regardless of the happy ending He was about to bring - He will bring a happy ending to every human tragedy one day - at the final resurrection - yet present suffering is real and He feels it.

He went to the tomb where there were plenty of people around to witness what happened. Lazarus had been dead four days and the tomb was regarded as finally sealed because in that hot climate bodies were decomposing by the fourth day. Everyone knew that.

So when Jesus had the vault opened and called Lazarus back to life, it was a miracle of a different kind from anything the public had heard of. Both the young man at Nain and the little girl at Capernaum had been dead only a short time. Rumours of their restored life would, by the time they reached Jerusalem, have been mixed with uncertainties. Could they have been healings at the point of death rather than beyond it? The disciples knew the facts, the public probably did not. And those miracles had belonged to the period when Jesus was popular in Galilee.

This was altogether different. Here was a well known public figure who was highly controversial and bitterly opposed by those in authority. This was the man who had escaped several lynchings and defied Herod. Suddenly all Jerusalem was filled with the news that He had raised to life a man four days dead. His most remarkable miracle was also His most provocative.

So the Chief Priests at last resolved to kill Him and issued a warrant ordering anyone who knew His whereabouts to report Him. They also plotted to kill Lazarus.

Jesus was now on the receiving end of a man hunt.



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