“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ - Jesus, Mattew 23:37-39 Matthew 23 is a pretty serious chapter. It’s the week before Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion. The Jewish priests have been testing Jesus, trying to trip him up so that they can have him arrested and killed, but he responds to their questions flawlessly at every turn, more and more revealing the hypocritical attitudes of their hearts. Chapter 23 of Matthew is titled in my NIV Bible as “The Seven Woes”: Jesus finally cuts loose and tells these priests to their face seven critical ways in which they are harming themselves and their fellow Israelites, and all believers who followed them, because they are serving themselves and not God. He is not gentle; he does not beat around the bush. Just a few examples of statements he makes to these men: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (23:13) “Woe to you, blind guides!” (23:16) “You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.” (23:27) Jesus was not kidding around. He was not happy. He let them know what they were doing was wrong. He was angry at the way these people, who God had chosen as a nation of priests for him on Earth, were acting. He would not tolerate them using God’s name to fulfill their own selfish obligations any more than he tolerates the blatant acts of wickedness done by those who don’t profess to believe at all. And yet look at this last paragraph (the one I started with). After all of that reprimand, all of that anger – suddenly, can’t you just hear the grief in his voice? Can’t you hear him making one last plea to these people to listen to him? These people who he has just called hypocrites multiple times, these people who are leading God’s chosen people away from God rather than to him, these people who are going to murder him in a few days time – but can’t you feel the love in those last few sentences? Despite all of this, Jesus, God on Earth, loves them. And he hurts with the desire that they would know his love, that they would give up their rebellion and their stubbornness and accept the perfect way of living that he has in mind for them. He is grieved with the fact that they will not turn from their evil ways and accept him, even when he is about to go through unimaginable, inhuman suffering for their sakes. This really hits home for me. Jesus does not condone our sin. His Word (the Bible) points it out to us. He does not want us to stay as we are forever, just sitting on the sidelines of salvation and doing our own thing. Jesus does not condone purposeful attitudes of sin in our lives, and if we have committed to following him, he will make efforts to correct us. But the thing we have to remember is, Jesus corrects us out of love. He does not reject us for sinning; he understands that we are flawed and will stay that way all through our lives here on earth, until we are made perfect in heaven. And for the same reason, no matter what you have done in this life, Jesus still wants you. He has still extended his call to you. It’s YOUR choice if you’ll take it – if you’ll accept his salvation and come into a relationship with the God who made and loved and died for you. And this isn’t a casual decision, where you get a free pass to heaven and can continue to do anything you want, regardless of how much it hurts God, and not expect him to correct you. He wants so much better for us, and if we have committed to serve him, he will teach us how to become better, more like him, as we live our lives. But he does not do this out of a desire to control us, or to shove our noses in our sin; he does this out of love. It reminds me of another of my favorite passages, from Hebrews: “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” - Hebrews 12:7-11 I wonder if any of those priests really listened to what Jesus was saying in Matthew 23. I wonder if even a few of them were honestly humbled by the reprimand from Jesus’ mouth. I wonder if any of them realized that in their plot to murder this man out of fear that he would take away their power, they were as far from God’s will as they could possibly be. I wonder if any of them accepted the discipline of his words, repented, and recognized Jesus as the Messiah, after all. Because if they did, I know they were just as forgiven as I am. And I think that someone in that crowd must have been affected by Jesus words, because Jesus did not do anything without a purpose. And he did not act simply out of anger, but out of a deep, deep well of love that was willing to do whatever was necessary, regardless of public opinion against him, to snap people out of their stupor and show them that they were going the wrong way. Because when all is said and done, God wants as many of his precious creations to be choose salvation and reunion with him as possible. That’s what I wanted to share tonight. I hope you can read that passage at the top and sense the same grief born out of love that I read in it. It’s really wonderful when you hear God speaking through his word, and I don’t ever want to forget how deeply Jesus loves us – and if he loved the very people who personally had a hand in nailing him to the cross that much, then there is hope for anyone who wants to come to him, no matter what they’ve done. And that’s awesome. That’s hope of the most beautiful kind. I hope people will continue to hear it.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 03:50:21 +0000
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