witnesses?” he asked. “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you
think?” They all condemned Him as worthy of death. Then some
began to spit at Him; they blindfolded Him, struck Him with their fists,
and said, “Prophesy!” And the guards took Him and beat Him.
(Mark 14: 63-65)
When I was given a choice of scriptures on which to write a
meditation, this one leaped off the page at me. The reason it had this
appeal for me was that its message is so contemporary and
universal.
Just before this exchange between the High Priest and the people,
Jesus has claimed to be the Messiah and His use of the phrase “I am”
implied that He claimed an elevated status equal to that of God. This
of course flew in the face of the perceived wisdom. The High Priest
asks the people, “Why do we need any more witnesses?” Jesus has
offended their cultural sensibilities! He implies that they should not
even have to question whether what He has to say is of any value.
And they fall into line like a herd of sheep.
Sometimes it is very difficult to differentiate between the perceived
wisdom of our culture and God’s wisdom as revealed through the life
of Jesus. But often we don’t recognize the disparity only because we
have failed to question what we have always been told by our
(supposedly) wise men. We just say to ourselves, “Why do we need
any more witnesses?” Whether or not we realize it, many of our
values that are commonly considered to be in line with Christian
values and are accepted unquestioningly are just the prevailing
beliefs of the secular culture in which we find ourselves.
If Jesus came to America today as a total unknown and told a rich
man that in order to be acceptable to God he must first give all of his
wealth to the poor, what would the talking heads on our television
say about Him? I think they would say He is just a crazy fool and a
socialist. Everyone knows that in a capitalist society, it’s every man
for himself, and if you earn a lot of money, you have the right to
enjoy it. If you didn’t, you only have yourself to blame. That isn’t
what Jesus said. We need to remember always that we cannot serve
two Gods. Sometimes the Christ-like thing is counterintuitive or even
radical. OMG!
Carol Kightlinger
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