Wednesday, October 22, 2014

PSALM 141 - Don't Take the Bait!!


God, I look to You for help. I trust in You, Lord. Don't let me die. Protect me from the traps they set for me and from the net that evil people have spread. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, but let me pass by safely.   (Verses 8-10)

The world baits us. Ever notice that? Trying to trip us up in our faith or trying to make us become hypocrites. As a rule, the world doesn't need much. Because we are weak in our resolve and lax in nurturing our relationship with our Father, we are often quickly felled by those who would trap us into compromise. And I'm not just talking about things like the Houston mayor ordering the sermons of local pastors to be presented to her for her review and permission. That's constitutional violation as well. The traps set for us are often much more subtle and appeal to our wants and needs.

In the Bible study I taught last night, we came to the story in John 7 when the brothers of Jesus baited Him. They didn't believe in His divinity. Thought Jesus was trying to make a name for Himself. The men, including James and Jude, had heard about the things Jesus said He was doing in Capernaum and Galilee. The brothers weren't there. Some of the disciples other than the twelve probably hadn't seen the crippled man walk, the water turned to wine or the two fish and five loaves of bread multiplied to feed over five thousand people. With the Feast of Tabernacles fast approaching, His brothers said to Jesus, "This is the perfect time for you to show off in Judea! If you really are doing these fantastic things, go show yourself at the feast. No one who wants to promote himself does his stuff in private. If you really do all these things you and the people talk about, go show the world!" John footnotes, His brothers didn't believe in Him. What the brothers didn't know and Jesus didn't tell them was that the Jews in Judea already wanted to kill Him...and it wasn't time for that...yet. "You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come."

They left and Jesus went later, quietly, by Himself. He waited a few days then went to the temple to teach. Brilliantly. Stunning the teachers and the congregants. They marveled at Him and wondered where He obtained such knowledge since he hadn't been to seminary. "From Him Who sent Me..." Jesus began. Then He spoke to the baiting of his brothers: "Those who teach their own ideas are trying to get honor for themselves. But those who try to bring honor to the one who sent Him, speak the truth and there is nothing false in them."

It didn't work. The brothers of Jesus weren't able to make Him do tricks for the world to see...and for them to ogle at. Jesus could have done that. Just like He could have performed for Satan by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple and being saved by angels, turning stones into bread (He had, after all, created manna for years in the wilderness), or ruling not just Jerusalem, but the entire world. But all those lures were counter to His purpose. And Jesus was smart enough to know it. Single minded in His desire to do the will of the Father while He was the God-Man from heaven. That purpose was to purchase our salvation and to show us the heart of the Father. So going with his brothers to the feast in order to be the side-show for all to watch wasn't the way Jesus was to become famous.

It must have burned a little to have the younger brothers make fun of Him. Jesus had grown up in the same household with them. How much of His greater destiny they knew isn't spoken much of in the Bible. When Jesus was twelve, He stunned the teachers at synagogue in Jerusalem where He was "about His Father's business." His family, though, lost Jesus on their way home and had to travel back to town to find Him. Irksome, maybe. The brothers thinking their big brother a bit odd. But not the Messiah. Mary and Joseph had to have made clear the story of the birth of Jesus, the angels, the blessings of Anna and the prophecies of Simeon on the day of His circumcision. The brothers and sisters of Messiah had, no doubt, heard the stories. But it wasn't until Jesus was thirty that things started happening. So why now? Let's see what you've got.

What if Jesus had caved to the pressure of his half-siblings and gone with them to Judea to rock the city with His miracles? To reach out His hands to heal the sick, free the demon-possessed, feed the multitudes and accept the accolades. The whole fireworks show they wanted. What if He'd moved ahead of God and put on the spectacle of which He was certainly capable? Because His brothers made fun of Jesus. "I'll show them I'm really the Messiah! I'll blow them away! I made this planet and I can take it out!" We wouldn't be saved today. That's what. For Messiah did miracles only to point to the cross. To show us our deeper need. Multiplying bread to show us our hunger is not for bread alone. Healing our uncleanness to show us He can wash us new. Defeating demons so we would know we can be eternally free. Tossing out money changers at the temple because we were going to need fresh earthly tabernacles as the new temple in which God desires to dwell. All that would have been lost if Jesus had listened to the bait and wowed Judea with His powers. The brothers would have the notoriety they sought. Hey, look at our big brother, man! But all else would have been lost. Including their own salvation.

James probably didn't believe until Jesus rose again. I Corinthians 15 records that the risen Jesus appeared to James alone. Can you imagine what that looked like? No more doubt. Big brother now big Savior and a lifetime of living with Jesus was understood in the moment James looked at His feet and touched His hands. This is why I couldn't take the bait. And James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Devoted to the wholehearted knowledge that his earthly half-brother was indeed Messiah! Wrote the book of James in the New Testament. James died for that truth, hurled, according to Josephus and Hegesippus, by order of the high priest and the Sanhedrin after the death of Festus, into the Kidron Valley from the top of the temple area wall. James didn't die immediately from the fall and was mercifully clubbed to death by a passerby from Siloam in order to put him out of his misery. Fifteen years after Jesus died. No compromised faith. James was sure enough of what he believed to live and die for it. Not taking the bait of the religious elite himself, James believed in Jesus to the end.

I don't want to take the bait either. Never again. Money is more important than character. Power is better than integrity. Cheating will get me further than always telling the truth. Rushing into my own decisions is more effective than waiting on God. Just this once won't hurt. Gossip. Hate. Coveting. Looking the other way. Looking the wrong way. Always going for the shiny object. When greater destiny is at stake. No thanks. Oh, Jesus, let me pass by safely without biting.

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."  Jesus, Luke 21   Italics, mine

Amen.

 

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