against Jesus so that they could put Him to death, but they did not
find any. Many testified falsely against Him, but their statements did
not agree. Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against
Him: “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human
hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’”
Yet even then their testimony did not agree. (Mark 14: 55-59)
Why? The coalition of religious and civil leaders understood the ministry and message of Jesus to mean the end of their position, power and privilege.
Concerned with their own survival, this ‘opposition’ did not recognize that Jesus’ message about the breaking-in of the kingdom, ‘the kingly rule of God,’
was about living in a mode other than their worldly preoccupation with correct observances. The attempt to convict Jesus through use of his own words
failed because they didn’t make sense on a legal level. Jesus’ speech was on another level - about the force of God’s power overcoming destructive, negative forces; cosmic and personal not political. This had been demonstrated often in Jesus’ healing and casting out of demons. The reference to the destruction of the Temple and the reconstruction of another in three days shows the opposition’s incapacity to understand the two levels of Jesus’ words. Earlier
Jesus refers to those who ‘see but do not perceive’ and ‘hear but do not understand.’
And ourselves, myself? Jesus’ words about the breaking in of the ‘kingly rule of God,’ of recognizing and entering into a powerful, transforming dimension
challenges us to get beyond the binding force of our everyday constraints. Unlike the ‘opposition,’ can we in faith peel off the layers of the familiar to perceive and enter the new realm of wonder and love promised in Jesus message? Or, like the Sanhedrin, do we resist change?
Lilias Morrison
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