It Seems the Jewish Leadership Is Prepared to Accept A Lot from Jesus, But Not All, Not the Truth.

June 3, 2021              John 5: 43

39 ‘You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. ⁴⁰Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. ⁴¹I do not accept glory from human beings. ⁴²But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. ⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. ⁴⁴How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? ⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. ⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. ⁴⁷But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?’

6After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.  ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.

            So Jesus just told the leadership they do not have the love of God in them.  But that is not a dropped in verbal smiting.  He goes on to explain why.  Jesus has come in the name of the Father and is not accepted.  However, if another comes in his own name, that’s cool.  So, if Jesus were there preaching in the name of Jesus, a prophet of the Lord, let’s say.  If Jesus came as the new Elijah, let’s say.  Both of these would have been acceptable to the leadership?  Heck-fire, they may even have accepted him as Messiah.  (These three names go back to the first chapter.  The Leadership challenged John the baptizer with these possibilities as they tried to establish his credentials).

            It is arguable that Jesus fulfilled all three of these expectations.  There are implications in the Old Testament that all three of these, Elijah, the Prophet, and the Messiah, were coming. 

            What appears to be the disconnect, however, is God the Father.  That kind of authority on Jesus’ part, that seems to be too much for the Leadership to take.  So, if we stretch out the implications of what Jesus is saying, if Jesus came in his own name.  If Jesus claimed to be a big wheel of religious intent and intensity, given what he has said and accomplished, that would have roused the interest even of the Leadership. 

            Remember the incident where Jesus drove out the moneychangers from the temple.  That was not condemned for the actions of a violent man.  Rather, the question was by whose authority did he come.  The implication is that if the authority was right, the actions were proper.  If Jesus pronounced that he came in the name of Jesus, that probably would have justified it, in light of the rest of his words and actions.

            But the ideal that Jesus brings, his authority and connection to the Father, those are too much for the Leadership to accept.  The people seem ready to accept Jesus at whatever authority Jesus is claiming.  They see the results, they know something from God is happening here.  The Leadership see it as well, how can they not?  But Jesus has gone beyond reasonable expectations. 

            In the long view, an overview of the entire story of Jesus, this is usually put down to jealousy, political and religious jealousy of Jesus’ hold on the people as God’s own versus the presumed religious and political leadership of the priests and so forth.  And there is certainly truth in that. 

            But if we follow where the disputations with the Leadership really got tense, it was not at the cleansing of the Temple, it was healing the cranky man on the Sabbath.  Remember, Jesus told him to take up his bedroll and go home.  That is work of a kind forbidden by tradition on the Sabbath.  The man passed the buck to Jesus.  When a guy heals you of decades of invalidity and he tells you to pick up your bed and go, you do.

            But in so doing, it was not that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath.  There were ways to fix that kind of unlawful behavior.  It was that Jesus would not even acknowledge he was in the wrong.  He kept doubling down.  The one who has authority to dictate the terms of the Sabbath, to dictate the terms of the law of Moses that, up to know, has been the foundation of Sabbath legalities, that’s the authority Jesus is claiming.  And that is undermining the authority that the Leadership claims for itself.  That is why things between them are tense.

            More later.

Peace, Pastor Peter