Wow he's covering so much ground in each chapter that its hard to isolate your thoughts in one are but here is one the hit me right away--
2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.
What hit me about this was they were trying to see if they could catch him in a trap. Would he do a miracle on the Sabbath, if he does heal someone on this day we got him! Ha he surely is not the Son of Man!
Wait Jesus is running around doing miracle after miracle, healing the sick on a daily basis so they know they have a shot at catching him screwing up and working on a Sunday. They didn't doubt his ability to do a miracle just whether or not he would be dumb enough to do it on a Sunday. Have they lost their minds?
I just find interesting that he has been performing the supernatural on such a regular basis that the Pharisees are way past trying to discredit the authenticity of his acts and have moved on to try a different angle--the 'letter of the law' trap.
The crowds are gathering because there is something different about this guy--they may not all know exactly what but let's be clear He is performing miracles that would blow our minds and people are dropping what they are doing to try to get near him. There is no Twitter or social meeting to spread the word, but clearly the word is spreading.
We are reading about Jesus 2,000 years later because he wasn't just some guy but because He is the Messiah. For me today the Pharisees after thought of Jesus ability to perform miracles is just another point of affirmation of who He is and therefore why I need to continue to eat up the words from this book written thousands of years ago.
I may have gone off the reservation a bit today--sorry for rambling.
knut
I don't think you are off the reservation at all! I think you're sitting right in the middle of it.....where God wants you. Your analogy of the pharisees is pretty funny. It reminds me of the untouchables moview......they cant get Capone on the crimes he is really committing, so they go after tax evasion. Not that I want to draw any parallels from Capone to Christ!
ReplyDeleteTo me, he is so foreign to them because of what he is bringing to the table. He is "relationship", they are pushing "religion". In other words, they are trying to be "good enough" by trying to maintain a set of rules. Jesus really isn't worried about the rules, cause he knows we are incapable of following them. He is more interested in us realizing that fact, and clinging to him as our complete SAVIOR. That word keep tossed around too much in our society.....but he is the ulitimate! Therefore, he wants our complete buy-in to him....relationally, physically, emotionally, psychologically....give it all to him. That's why he's so attractive to the crowds. To him, it didn't matter what your social standing was. It didn't even really matter the things you had up to the point that you met him. He is only interested in how you percieve him, and what you're reaction to him is.
They just didn't understand.
talk about rambling....