No Excuse

Posted on by korgrocker

“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. … They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father. This fulfils what is written in their Scriptures: ‘They hated me without cause.’”
John 15:18, 22-25 NLT

The first Advent had far-reaching consequences for the Jewish nation and for the world, and are still reverberating around the world to this day. Jesus came to Planet Earth with His teaching, His miracles, and His claim to be God’s Son. But there was a problem. In John 1:10-11 we read, “He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognise him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him“. And worse than rejection, Jesus was hated, and by association, every believer in Jesus has been hated as well. Isaiah could see in the Spirit what was going to happen. He wrote in Isaiah 53:3, “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care“. But Jesus never looked back, mourning the “what could have been”. He looked ahead to the awful day when those who had heard his teaching and had seen His miracles would be standing before Him, stuttering out some feeble excuse. Stand in the shoes for a moment of someone who was in the crowd shouting out, “Crucify Him!” What will they say before the Man on the Great White Throne? Or how about being someone who Jesus spoke to personally but they still rejected Him? Imagine their horror when Jesus said to them, “I remember you …”. Jesus will say to them that they have no excuse for their sin.

Before we pilgrims feel that we are off the hook because we weren’t around two thousand years ago, what Jesus did and said was timeless. The vivid nature of the Gospel accounts, backed up by the rest of the New Testament, eliminates any excuses we might try to offer in mitigation for our sins. But we wouldn’t want to live in our sins, would we? Our new birth into God’s Kingdom provided a remedy for our sins and put us into a place of right standing before Jesus. And the verdict from the Throne will be, “Not guilty!” 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ”. 

Superficially, we could perhaps think Jesus was puzzled and perplexed by the response from His fellow Jews. In spite of everything He had done, He said that the people, “still hate me and my Father”. But He knew this would happen and he quoted a prophesy from Psalm 39, “They hated me without cause”. And so it is today. Recently the church I attend put out some evangelistic leaflets in the neighbourhood around where we meet. One hate-filled response was received via social media asking us not to put any such literature again through his door. People still hate Jesus today. There is no reason why, we think, until we are reminded that Jesus confronted the sins of mankind, but with a solution that would provide right-standing before God. However, and inexplicably, people generally prefer to live in their sins rather than be set free from their consequences. 

We pilgrims carry on spreading the Good News about God and His saving grace. God’s love is there for all to experience. 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, “As God’s partners, we beg you not to accept this marvellous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it. For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation”.  It is indeed!

Father God, there is no excuse that will mitigate our sin-laden guilt before You. But, thanks to Jesus, we have a remedy for all our sins. Thank You. Amen.

The Three-Way Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you.”
John 14:23-25 NLT

The love of, and obedience to, Jesus leads to a three-way response. We know of course that Jesus loves us, because He demonstrated that through His death at Calvary, where He took onto Himself our sins and instead gave us His righteousness. Jesus also said that if we love Him and are obedient to His commands, then His Father in Heaven will also love us. But Jesus followed this with a remarkable statement – Jesus and His Father will make their home with us. And how else will He do that other than by the Holy Spirit? Earlier we read what Jesus said in John 14:15-17a “If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, …“. 

Perhaps it is easy to gloss over verses such as Acts 2:38, “Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. The four stage process in the initial decision to become a Christian was summarised by Peter into a few words, but working out what “repent of your sins and turn to God” means will take a life time of diligent application. And then we gratefully accept the “gift of the Holy Spirit” without really understanding the ramifications of what this really means. But if Jesus said that he will come and live with us through the Holy Spirit then we had better believe it. To refuse to accept such a gift from God goes against the whole premise of loving Him and being obedient to His commands. 

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself …”. And then we have Romans 12:1, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him”. This is serious stuff, having the Holy Spirit live in us, but I suppose some will resent this because they will feel as though they have a policeman living with them 24/7. They will consider the (to them) negative connotations that because the Holy Spirit is with them, they will have to stop doing certain things that they previously enjoyed doing. They perhaps think that there will now be many sins that they enjoy that will become visible to God, although he would have known about them anyway. God sees all. 

But the positive side of having the Holy Spirit dwelling within us is that he will lead us into all truth. When we make a commitment to be obedient to Jesus and love Him with all our hearts, we embark on a process of sanctification, where we start to eliminate all those behaviours that fall into the category of “sin”. So the Holy Spirit helps us at every step, as we listen to His truth.

When we become a Christian, a true believer in the full counsel of God, we find that there are three People loving us and living with us. God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, in our prayer times, there are three extra People there praying as well. We might think that we are on our own but that cannot be further from the truth. 

Father God. Thank You for the precious gift of the Holy Spirit who is with us all day and every day. We worship You today. Amen.

Love One Another

Posted on by korgrocker

“Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going. So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
John 13:33-35 NLT

Jesus poignantly told His disciples that He was about to leave them. The sadness hidden behind His “Dear children” was clear – perhaps Jesus could see in His Spirit what they would have to face into in the years ahead, without being there in person with them. And then Jesus made a statement that puzzled His friends, that although they would look for Him, they would be unable to follow Him to the place where He was going. Well, not yet anyway – they would join Him in Heaven soon enough.

Because Jesus was leaving them, He gave them a new commandment, that they were to love one another. This wasn’t a wishy-washy, sentimental sort of love, but one that would bind them together in unity. A love so counter-culturally obvious that the people around them would take note that these men had been disciples of Jesus. A love that set them apart from societal expectations. Jesus repeated His commandment to the disciples in John 15:12-13, “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. Paul picked up this theme, relating it back to Jesus Himself, “Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:7-8). That was the sort of love that Jesus commanded when He said, “love each other”.

Sadly, the “love for one other” that should be a feature of the Christian faith is far from obvious. In fact, in-fighting and denominational rivalries portray a picture to the world of Christians who are no better than anyone else and certainly not proving their status as followers of Christ. The media will always try and find a situation where Christians have fallen out with each other and secular journalists will relish stories of strife and love-less behaviour. The many occasions, where Christians do exhibit the love for one another that Jesus commanded, go unnoticed, conveniently overlooked in a Godless world.

The Apostle John wrote, “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). Believers look outward into their communities, looking for opportunities to show the world what God’s love looks like. They cast aside the “what’s in it for me” worldly attitudes and instead do good to others without expecting anything in return. And such an attitude must especially be present in our churches and fellowships. John continued to write, “We love each other because he loved us first” (1 John 4:19). That was John reminding his readers what Jesus said all those years before, “Just as I have loved you, you should love each other“. There is no other way.

Dear Lord Jesus. Your love for us is limitless and available to all who believe in You. Please be with us as we love others. In Your precious name. Amen.

Does God Have Favourites?

Posted on by korgrocker

“Now Jesus was deeply troubled, and he exclaimed, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me!” The disciples looked at each other, wondering whom he could mean. The disciple Jesus loved was sitting next to Jesus at the table. Simon Peter motioned to him to ask, “Who’s he talking about?” So that disciple leaned over to Jesus and asked, “Lord, who is it?””
John 13:21-25 NLT

The Gospel of John records that Jesus loved one of His disciples, who was assumed to be John, and the writer of the Gospel we are following. But does that mean that He showed John special favour? There was also the time when Jesus took three disciples with Him up the “high mountain” (assumed to be Mount Tabor), where He met with Moses and Elijah. We can read the account in Matthew 17:1-3, “Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus”. Was Jesus closer to these three disciples than He was to the rest? John was with Jesus on the visit to what we call the Mount of Transfiguration so why didn’t he include a mention in his Gospel, although it was included in the other three? 

We know that at a basic level, every child of God is His favourite. He does not provide special favour to one person and refuse to grant it to another. But the reality in practice is that God chooses certain men and women for special assignments. This does not mean favouring one person over another. We can’t all be Peters. Or Johns. Closer to home and our own age we can’t all be pastors, or missionaries to foreign lands. We also know that many who God has seemingly favoured over others end up in a difficult place, persecuted and suffering. We look at the life of the Apostle Paul and wonder about the hardships he suffered – we can find out what he recorded in 2 Corinthians 11. Perhaps being in a favoured place like Paul is to be avoided!

But we pilgrims have a special and favoured relationship with God. He is our Heavenly Father and we are His children. His love for us is limitless and one day we will be with Him in Heaven. That surely is favour enough.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your grace and favour, Your love and kindness. We worship You today. Amen.

Jesus’ Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end.”
John 13:1 NLT

It must have been really difficult for Jesus. On the one hand He was facing a horrendous experience leading to His death just a few hours away. But on the other, He knew that he would be leaving His disciples behind, in a hostile environment where any followers of Jesus would be persecuted. And Jesus’ pain was made worse by the fact that He loved His disciples. Ever since the day when He chose them, even Judas who later betrayed Him, Jesus had shared His life with them. He had prayed for them, taught them, encouraged them, corrected them, all the while with a gentle but firm loving hand. 

The Apostle John later wrote in his first letter, “But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (1 John 4:8-10). This is a breath-taking Scripture, in that God not only said He loved human beings, but He demonstrated how much by sending His Son to die in our place, as a sacrifice for our sins. Romans 5:8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners“. And all through His ministry here on earth, Jesus demonstrated God’s love without limit. 

God has always loved His creation. After all, He created human beings in His image, as we read in Genesis 1:27, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Isaiah declared how much God loves us, “For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you” (Isaiah 54:10).

We pilgrims are the sole dispensers of God’s love to those around us. There is no-one else. Our secular politicians know nothing about God’s love. Neither do our medics or lawyers. God had a different plan, as we read in 1 Corinthians 1:16-29, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no-one may boast before him.” That’s us, folks. We don’t need a PhD, or any theological credentials, no matter how impressive, to tell others about Jesus. A quote from David Pawson: “Every single person in your church could do something great for God and say something great for God, by the power of the Holy Spirit; even if you have no natural gifts, even if your heredity is all awry, even if your environment hasn’t given you a chance, everybody could do this, for the Holy Spirit is no respecter of persons and can use anybody who is willing”. Are we willing? Of course we are, with a resounding “Yes Lord!”.

Father God. We echo Isaiah’s words – “Here I am, send me”. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Looking for Jesus

Posted on by korgrocker

“It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover began. They kept looking for Jesus, but as they stood around in the Temple, they said to each other, “What do you think? He won’t come for Passover, will he?” Meanwhile, the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report it immediately so they could arrest him.”
John 11:55-57 NLT

The Jewish Passover feast occurs in the Spring, but looking back over the previous months of Jesus’ ministry, we find that He was in Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles in the Autumn (Fall) (John 7) and there again for the Feast of Dedication (John 10). But a lot had happened in those six months or so. Jesus did amazing miracles to support His claim to be the Son of God and spoke often that the only way to receive eternal life was through Him. We remember the man healed of his blindness from birth. And the crescendo that resulted from the raising of Lazarus from the grave. Many people came to believe in Jesus and the Pharisees and other religious leaders were becoming alarmed, to say the least. So Jesus was a marked man and the Jewish equivalent of “wanted” posters were everywhere.

John recorded that “many people from all over the country“ were in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival and they were looking for Jesus. “They kept looking” but Jesus was not yet to be found. So the people’s anticipation was building but their expectations were dampened by the arrest warrant issued by the religious authorities. But a new act was about to open up on the stage of Jesus’ ministry, as we will find out when we turn the page to John 12.

In the meantime, do we share in the anticipation about Jesus? We know that He will be returning again one day, but that seems a long way off, although we don’t know when. But we mustn’t forget that Jesus is alive and well, and through the Holy Spirit He is with us today. We don’t have to stand around in the Temple, or in any other church building, looking for Him. Many people have in the past, and some even today, undertake a pilgrimage to a holy site somewhere. For example, the Pilgrim’s Way in England is a route followed by many people from Winchester Cathedral all the way to Canterbury Cathedral, where the martyred archbishop St Thomas Beckett was buried. We too are pilgrims but not on an earthly pilgrimage. We are on a journey through life, disciples of Jesus. And we will not end up in a cathedral somewhere viewing a tomb containing a human being’s bones, but instead we will find ourselves in Heaven enjoying eternal life with Jesus.

There are those around us who are searching for fulfilment. But in our secular world, they will fail to find it, although hedonistic methods are employed in the process. Earthly tools and processes come to nothing, and many a person goes to their grave feeling disappointed. But when we turn to Psalm 23, we find that there is only one place where God can be found. We read through the Psalm and find all the encouraging and supportive helps the we need in our journey, and then we finally arrive at the last verse, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6). We pilgrims will one day truly find Jesus in the real “Temple”, in Heaven. 

Dear God. To know that Your love pursues me through every day of my life is truly amazing. I wonder how You could ever love imperfect beings like me, but I know that You did indeed, when You sent Jesus to die for me at Calvary. I am so grateful. Amen.

Jesus Wept

Posted on by korgrocker

“When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept.”
John 11:33-35 NLT

John records in his account of the Lazarus story that Jesus wept. In the verses today we see the situation where the Son of God Himself shed tears when He saw Mary and the other people there weeping and wailing. Showing grief in such an open way was part of the culture of that time, and still is in some parts of the world today. But when Jesus experienced the distress of others, including His friends, He became very emotional. In His spirit He empathised with them. He didn’t weep because His dear friend Lazarus had died, because soon Jesus knew that He would live again. He wept because of the deep distress within those around Him. His love and compassion welled up and showed in a few tears. But perhaps the distress around Him was also because of their unbelief, their refusal to accept that he was indeed the Resurrection and Life.

There was another time when Jesus shed tears. Luke 19:41-42, “But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes”. He knew that in just a few years, Jerusalem would be attacked and history records that over a million Jews were killed in AD70. Jesus shed tears of compassion and love for His people, deeply saddened because they had rejected the One who had brought them an opportunity to live forever with God Himself.

We human beings are prone to crying. We are emotional people, and we shed tears at times of intense grief or joy, even us Western males with the British “stiff upper lip”. Crying is a natural response because God created us that way. We are created in the image of God, so why would we be surprised if God feels the deep emotions that we do? 

We pilgrims need to weep over the unbelievers around us, as we feel God’s compassion for people, even if they have rejected Him. In our families there are those who know what we believe but have refused to follow the same paths. Sin has a hold over most people, and they prefer to live in the way they do, ignoring what will happen after they die. But we never give up sharing with them and extending God’s compassion in all that we do for them. And we pray, often in tears, for their souls.

Dear God. You wept over Your people and their refusal to believe in You. You must still be reduced to tears today, as sin and evil ride rampant in this sad world. Please help us to feel Your pain for the lost, and reach out to them with Your love and compassion. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Father’s Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”
John 10:17-18 NLT

Jesus said that His father in Heaven loves Jesus, His Son, especially because He was willing to sacrifice His life. Jesus’ obedience in fulfilling His mission of saving the world was one that we see develop through the pages of the Gospels, starting from an animal’s feeding trough and ending on a Roman cross at a place called Calvary. Jesus never wavered from completing His mission. He remained steadfast right through to the end. Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy the following, “This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all” (1 Timothy 1:15). Isaiah, the prophet, looked down through the tunnel of time and could see the Messiah coming. About Jesus’ mission he wrote, “For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed” (Isaiah 50:7). Jesus’ primary role was “ … to seek and save those who are lost” (Luke 19:10), and His Father loved Him for His obedience for being willing to sacrifice His life to make it happen. 

It is interesting that Jesus also said that the sacrifice of His life was followed by His being able to “take it back again”. It was difficult enough for the people listening to Him to absorb and accept what Jesus was saying about laying down His life, but then to say that He would “take it back again” was beyond their understanding. But Jesus made the point that His death was His to control. Only He had the authority to lay down His life. No-one else could make that decision. The act of crucifixion normally left the poor unfortunate victim no choice in the way it was carried out and the consequence of a slow lingering and extremely painful death. But it was different with Jesus, because he had the power to avoid the cross altogether. He could even have removed Himself from the cross at any time. But He fulfilled His mission right to the end, even providing reassuring words to the adjacent criminal who, in His dying breaths, reached out to Jesus for forgiveness. Jesus was in total control of His life right to the end.

So to is no wonder that Father God loved His Son, because He did what He had been commanded to do. We will never fully understand that relationship between Jesus and his Father, but we see its consequence in our faith-filled, everyday lives. The same love that Father had for Jesus is also poured out on us, His children. 1 John 3:1, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognise that we are God’s children because they don’t know him“. Ephesians 1:4-5, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure“. So we see God’s love and try and emulate it, in a humanly limited way, in our Christian lives. And in the process, perhaps those around us get a glimpse of the Father’s love.

Father God. We sing about Your amazing love, but it goes beyond a song. It started at Calvary and has poured out on all mankind ever since. We are so grateful. Amen.

Jesus the Door

Posted on by korgrocker

“I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognise his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.”
John 10:1-5 NLT

Jesus continues to tell His listeners a bit more about who He was, why He had come and what His message to His immediate world was. To do this He used another illustration that would have been very familiar and relevant to the people of His day. As He described it, the life of sheep and shepherds was accurately portrayed, but in a later blog we will find out the spiritual meaning behind His story. The people of His society knew all about sheep and shepherds so we can almost see them nodding and hearing their words of approval at what Jesus described. 

If Jesus came in to 21st Century Western societies, what illustration would he have been able to use? Our society seems so much more complex and there are so many professions and lifestyles, and then some only apply to certain age groups. But throughout His ministry, Jesus related the everyday life of the Jewish people to spiritual equivalents. Sheep, fields, shepherds, farmers, family life, all relevant to the generation in that place at that time. God’s timing for when He sent His Son was perfect.

Today, we pilgrims have a challenge in finding something relevant to those around us. Urban city dwellers are unaware of the lives of sheep and shepherds, so how can we reach them with the Gospel message appropriate to them, and then present it in a way that connects them with the Master Himself? Perhaps we can use an analogy of Jesus being the door to God’s house. The people around us may not relate easily to the professions we find in our societies, but we can imagine and describe a house, and to most people it offers a degree of security, much like the sheepfold described in this parable.

We share the Gospel message across a relational bridge to those around us and God will help us as we allow His love and grace to flow into the lives of those we know and love. There are so many needy people in our societies and God’s message is just as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago. The sheep in Jesus’ day knew the voice of their shepherd, and that was the person they followed. Jesus is still calling out the ones He knows and who are yet to know Him today. People who would otherwise be lost in their sinful lives. As Jesus’ hands and feet today, we deliver that message, and the Holy Spirit will provide us with the keys, the illustrations, even intimate details, to unlock the door into their hearts. We pray too for God to provide us with the words we need to derive a spiritual meaning from everyday natural lives so that a connection can be made to God’s Kingdom. Jesus is the Door and we know where to bring people so that they can find it. And as we do so, we are reminded that the Door is there for us to walk through as well.

We pilgrims are not believers who fail to participate in the happenings behind the Door, where we find God Himself and His ways. We leave our dirty linen, our sins, at the foot of the cross and then walk through into God’s very presence, worshipping the One who made it all happen at Calvary. What a Saviour! Perhaps today we can find a quiet moment when we can imagine that door and pass through into God’s presence once again. And what we find there will overwhelm us as we fall at the feet of our Lord and God, with deeply grateful hearts full of worship.

Dear Lord God. Thank You for Your grace, love, and protection through Your Son Jesus. We worship You today. Amen.

Is It legal?

Posted on by korgrocker

““Is there a single one of us rulers or Pharisees who believes in him? This foolish crowd follows him, but they are ignorant of the law. God’s curse is on them!” Then Nicodemus, the leader who had met with Jesus earlier, spoke up. “Is it legal to convict a man before he is given a hearing?” he asked. They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Search the Scriptures and see for yourself—no prophet ever comes from Galilee!” Then the meeting broke up, and everybody went home.”
John 7:48-53 NLT

There appeared to be a meeting of the Pharisees and the other religious leaders, possibly convened to follow the attempt to arrest Jesus and bring Him before them to face charges of blasphemy. The dynamic of the meeting is interesting, in that there appears to be one person speaking for all those present. But there was dissent from a man called Nicodemus. We remember him as the man who went to Jesus by night for a meeting. We read in John 3:1-2, “There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you””. But from what Nicodemus said, it appears that the Jewish leaders were going to kill Jesus without a trial. John 5:18, “So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God”. How they were going to kill Him in the Roman-governed province was unclear.

To the religious leaders, the Law of Moses, as they interpreted it, was of paramount importance. It must have been a nightmare for the Romans, because there was effectively two legal systems in operation. But the Jews walked a tightrope between the demands of the Law and restrictions placed upon them by the Roman occupiers. They knew that if they stepped too far out of line then the Romans would brutally deal with them. But as we can see from Jesus’ trial, the Romans were quite happy to allow the Jews to judge religious matters, though with restrictions when it came to capital issues. John 18:31, ““Then take him away and judge him by your own law,” Pilate told them. “Only the Romans are permitted to execute someone,” the Jewish leaders replied”. 

It is interesting that so much of our legal system here in the UK is based upon the Law of Moses, and it is only in the recent past that more radical changes have been made. For example, the mandatory death sentence for crimes such as murder was only repealed in living memory. But sadly, the UK is becoming increasingly secular with the Christian witness and influence slowly dwindling away. The gap between the state and the church is ever widening, with our politicians introducing laws that would have been unheard of in the mid twentieth century, and with negative consequences resulting. Abandoning God’s laws and replacing them with modern Godless ideologies is a dangerous strategy that will increase the devil’s influence on our societies bringing chaos and strife.

Nicodemus asked, “Is it legal to convict a man before he is given a hearing?” Having to ask that question is a long way from the intent of the Law. Jesus was later asked about what was the greatest commandment, and His reply was to love God with all your heart, and to love your neighbours as yourself. Such a message seemed a long way from the venom and anger of the Pharisees, intent on upholding their interpretation of the Law regardless of God’s plan for human decency. But before we pilgrims make any comment we have to ask ourselves the question about our own responses to others, particularly when we start using Bible verses in judgement of another. God has a higher law based on love, and when that becomes the starting point, a journey can be commenced that will eventually bring resolution in times of conflict. Jesus is recorded as saying in John 3:17, ”God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him“. Instead of bringing judgement and punishment Jesus said, ”For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost“.

Jesus’ teaching and message was a long way from that dispensed by the Jewish leaders, which was probably why they hated Him so much. God has a law much higher than that followed by the Pharisees and it is based on love and grace. He is not a stern figure with a policeman’s hat and a truncheon leaning over the banisters of Heaven reaching down to beat us at every sinful opportunity. He is a loving Father, who corrects us when we stray and who affirms us when we do well. The question “Is it legal” doesn’t apply in the courts of Heaven.

Dear Heavenly Father. We thank You for Your love, grace and mercy. Where would we be without You? We worship You today. Amen.