The power of God's revelation is the Holy Spirit. His divine Presence changes everything. The primary manifestation of His presence, the single path of fulfilling revelation, is a relentless and sacrificial love for others. To lack any compassion for the needs of a fellow human is more than adequate proof God's Spirit is missing from the soul. The focus of Jesus' daily life was the revelation of God in compassion.
To this end, Jesus spent a lot of time praying. He was the living model of a man reaching out to Heaven with both hands, pulling down the vast supply which He passed onto the lost world. As men whose ostensible purpose in training was to model themselves on their rabbi, the Twelve asked for teaching in prayer. Did not John, His cousin, give similar training to his disciples?
As all teachers throughout history, Jesus repeats some lessons because they didn't what take the first time. Jesus offers here a renewed look at the Model Prayer, and it should surprise no one it comes out just a little different than the precise wording recorded elsewhere. The lesson here is not about the words, and this was not meant for rote recital in any language. Rather, Jesus provides a pattern to breathe life into prayer, to make it a live audience with the King of Heaven. This outline echoes court protocol in the East. Recognize the Sovereign; presume to seek His interests. Declare utter dependence on Him, and seek to spread abroad His fame by sharing His bounty. Ask Him to protect and support His own interest in our service. There was little here actually new in that day.
There is a specific focus on food as a symbol of spiritual provision, as the stuff of our service in revealing God to the world. A friend has come to us, weary and lost. He really needs help. What a delightful picture of evangelism! So the host goes to the only person in town he knows can supply his need at this hour. If the bonds of friendship aren't enough, the sheer persistence will prod the other man to provide for his need. We cannot share the bread of life to others if Our Father does not provide it to us. Unlike a human friend, there is no strain on our relations with Him, because there is no bad time to ask Him for the power to share His truth. Persistence is the key from our human perspective.
Persistence in love will drive us to ask again and again for ever greater measures of that divine food of revelation. Not just our King, but God is our Father, who loves us easily better than any earthly father loves his children. Would you tolerate in your community an abusive prankster dad? God is the best dad in the universe. Pestering Him is what He hopes we'll do, because that means we will have taken upon ourselves His long suffering nature.
In a very public deliverance, Jesus' dispatched a demon which had bound a man in miserable silence. For some in the audience, their rejection of compassion demanded they justify their miserable spiritual silence by accusing Jesus of using Satan's authority to control Satan's demons. They demanded more signs from a heaven they would recognize, a heaven which didn't exist. It was silly on the face of it. Was not the deliverance from bondage enough proof? Utterly lacking in love and grace, they could not comprehend anything Jesus did. So He helped them understand.
Satan isn't stupid. He's not going to let anyone take his prisoners if he can help it. The only way anyone can take his treasure is if they use a power and authority Satan cannot resist. We either work for Hell, or we work for Heaven -- there is no middle ground. If people do not pour out their lives in sacrificial effort to gather lost souls, they are actively oppressing them, pushing them more tightly in the grip of Satan. Let's suppose you could drive demons out by living according to the Pharisee's teaching. What would happen? The demon would take a vacation, then bring back more demons, worse demons. Superficial changes are quite comfortable for Satan.
Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus had little interest in public accolades. One of the audience referred to His mother as truly blessed to have such a son. Jesus turned that on its head. It did His mother no good in the eyes of God to raise up a Son of God if she also didn't herself obey God's commands. Jesus didn't need to build Himself up; that was His Father's concern. Too many people in this world are seeking for themselves. They want to be entertained, and to gain affirmation from seeing their ideas confirmed by others. The leadership of the Jews were in it only for themselves, making self-important demands as if they kept the gates of Heaven. They are no closer to God than the Ninevites to whom Jonah preached. They would never have recognized Solomon's wisdom, as a pagan queen did in his day, so they could hardly recognize the Messiah. Pagans throughout history had a far better response to God's revelation than His own nation.
Like Jonah, the leaders of Israel held God's revelation as their private treasure, and the rest of the world should go to Hell. They hid the light of God, and were so blinded they didn't see it, either. Their hearts were so corrupt, they were fully unable to recognize God's hand, and had turned His Word upside down, inside out -- they had perverted it. God's truth changed people, made them different from the rest of the world. The Jewish leadership were distinguished only by taking pettiness and arrogance to new heights.
It was yet another setup. Some Pharisee invited Jesus to a meal, in the company of other Pharisees and Scribes. The lamb in the den of wolves turned the tables. When His host made note Jesus didn't follow Pharisaic ritual cleansing before the meal, Jesus launched a stinging rebuke. Noting they were no different than richly decorated chamber pots, Jesus points out their whole religion is just such a fancy paint job which never penetrates to the soul. Did not God make mankind with an inner being? Did they really think God ignored what was in their hearts? God called people to share their inner selves first with those in need. Purity inside would show itself by genuine full sacrifice of the self. No, the Pharisees could smugly tithe the herbs growing in their window boxes, but couldn't show a harvest of mercy. So self-absorbed they were, they had created extravagant rules to jockey for public recognition. Their titles meant nothing. They were dead while living, defiling everyone who came near, just like unmarked graves which pedestrians touch and run afoul of ritual purity on the way to the Temple.
One of the lawyers present felt insulted by the condemnation of the politicians with which they worked. Justly so, said Jesus, for they were no better. Instead of making the Law simple and pleasant to obey, as David had rejoiced in some of his Psalms, they had made it a hateful burden. While the Pharisees were tombs, the Scribes were the builders of tombs. They were the legacy of those who killed the prophets. In Hebrew culture, the bigger the tomb, the greater the crime of the man buried there. So it was the mass of convoluted legal precedent, utterly missing the purpose of God's revelation as a call to repent, was simply a more ornate heap of stones to bury the truth. They were no better than those who eagerly slew every good man of God from Abel in Eden right up to Zechariah, the first and last unjust murders mentioned in the Old Testament. The lawyers knew all the words of the Law, and understood nothing of it. Their rejection of the spiritual meaning kept them out, and as so-called guardians, they wouldn't let anyone else go near the Law to understand the God who gave it.
Naturally, these glimpses of truth from Jesus did neither the partisans nor their lawyers any good. It simply became their excuse to fight Jesus all the more fiercely.
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By Ed Hurst
16 August 2008
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