ALIVE: Chapter 170, Good News

Jesus knew that the destruction of the world was a harsh message to have to convey. He appreciated the intensity of human life as He never could before becoming human. To thrive as the Father intended, in spite of demonic adversity, human ego, and ignorance required guidance, warnings, and hand holding. He could see that He needed to raise up Saints among the people to shepherd them and teach, and heal them when He leaves the earth. He needed to multiply Himself in the world to fully achieve His mission which was to populate the new earth, the everlasting Kingdom of God, free from the pain and sorrows, struggles and suffering of this training ground of a world. Most of all, the people needed the Paraclete.

Jesus looked upon this world as both God and Man with pity. He saw babies as being born into a war zone. To fight the battles within and without, and for the human to advance to the next life, to the true life requires knowledge and skill and spiritual guidance.  Freedom was both a gift and a curse because the essence of being free means that each person, even a slave, could control his or her own mind, their own attitudes, and fight their own battles in a myriad of circumstances.

Jesus knew there wasn’t much more time left for Him to teach. Once His authority had been established by the healings and miracles, and He had the attention of the people, the teachings were key to raising Children of God to populate the new world.

It wasn’t enough, and He always knew it wouldn’t be enough to have selected just one  nation to be called His People. That nation, Jacob’s twelve tribes, taught by Moses and priests and prophets, usually remained stubborn and rebellious. Now it was time to make the message more clear. His last teachings had to be so powerful that they would transcend the ages of politics and cultures.

Humanity needed to know what was ahead for them, so He was quiet for a few moments to allow the fearful message to sink in.

Silence.

Then He cleared His throat to get their attention. Some eyes were closed, some heads bowed down in contemplation. At that sound, all eyes opened wide and faces looked up at Jesus with humble curiosity and a need to understand the scary message about the end of the world.

Jesus turned the warning into hope, “But then, the Son of man will come in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of Glory. Before Him will be gathered all the ethnicities of the world. He will then separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Certain groups will be sent to His right, and others will be placed to His left.

Then the King (aka the Son of Man) will say to the groups on His right, “Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.”

Then the righteous of the righteous groups replied in unison saying, “Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and took You in, or naked, and clothed You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and we came to You? The King will answer and say to them, “I tell you the truth, inasmuch as you did it to one of these my brethren, even the least, you did it to me, your King.”

Jesus paused again to give the meaning time to sink in.

Then He continued, “Then the King will say to those groups on His left.  “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. I was hungry, and you did not give me anything to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t bring me into your home for shelter. I was naked, and as repulsed as you were by the sight of it, you didn’t even offer me clothes. I was sick, I was in prison, and you didn’t visit me.”

The disciples had never heard Jesus sound so passionate before. Tears dripped from His words as He described the needy of this world.

“Then they will answer saying, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and we did not minister to you?” The King will answer them, saying, “I tell you the truth, inasmuch as you didn’t help one of the did least, you didn’t do it for me. These will be sent into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life. Those who have done good, will come forth to the resurrection of life. Those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”

Jesus raised his voice, “Now listen to Me! Love one another. Care for each other.”

Most of the people in the crowd felt convicted of the crime of caring only for themselves and their families. And even then, of malice toward certain people in their families, and especially of strangers and foreigners. They looked around at each other, and then at Jesus. No one had ever spoken like this before, with such passion and such authority. Where did this Man get this wisdom? Mark came to be healed of dropsy and instead his heart of stone, softened, and he looked at the others beside him with wonder about what their ailments might be, and their needs, and he felt different. He felt new for the first time in his long and pain ridden life.

Jesus closed by saying, “It is getting dark, go to your homes, pray to our Father that His will be done on this earth as it is in heaven, then our Father who hears you will call down heaven to earth, then heaven will enter into your hearts. Good night my brothers and sisters. It’s time for you to go home and sleep.”

As they turned to disperse as requested, emotions welled up in the hearts of many in the crowd that night. They had experienced a soft miracle, the miracle of love. Humble and powerful enough to change their way of thinking. Some wondered how that was happening. Was it His charisma, or the reasonableness of the message?

…

Jesus and His disciples headed over to their semi permanent camp in a secluded place on Mount Olivet. No one from the crowd followed them, so moved by the lesson and engrossed in their own repentance were they. More importantly, no Pharisee was in the crowd ready to pounce on Him.

As they sat around the campfire that night talking Phillip said, “It’s so hard to imagine how those Pharisees and even so many people still don’t believe that You are the Messiah.”

Everyone of them nodded in agreement. Traveling around the country and throughout Jerusalem, they had seen thousands of people and healed hundreds, and fed thousands, and still so many people minimized the wonders in their hearts or after a short time completely dismissed them and went back to their routines with nothing but the care of their own bodies to focus on.

Jesus shrugged His shoulder and responded by adding, “The words of the prophet Isaiah are being fulfilled. Remember what he said about this very situation?”

Jesus quoted Isaiah by memory, which also surprised the disciples:

‘Lord, who hath believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed.

For this cause they could not believe.’”

Jesus looked around at His disciples, reaching for their eyes and added, “Isaiah also said.

‘He blinded their eyes, and he hardened their hearts;
Lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart,
And should turn,
And I should heal them.’

These things Isaiah said because he saw My glory; and he spoke of Me.”

Matthew said, “Some of the rulers actually do believe You.”

Andrew inserted, “True, but they are afraid of disturbing the Pharisees so they don’t defend You for fear of being expelled from the synagogue.”

Jesus said, “They love the glory that is from men more than the glory that is from God. What can we do? Nothing. They will do what they want. Because they are free, and the Father wants freedom more.”

Thomas said, “And for how long will that last before they sink into their graves and are forgotten, them and their short-lived glory! How free will they be then? Pity them. Look at what their political power has done to them. Their souls are withering in the vine.”

Jesus nodded and pronounced solemnly, “True. He that believes in Me, doesn’t only believe in  Me, but in Him Who sent Me. And he that sees Me sees Him Who sent Me. I am come as light into a dark world, that whoever believes in Me may not dwell in the dark. And if any man hears My teachings, and doesn’t behave as the teachings tell them, I will not judge him because I didn’t come to judge the world, but to save the world.

Whoever rejects Me, and My teachings, is judged by the teachings themselves. The teachings will be their judge on the last day. I never spoke merely from Myself; but the Father Who sent Me gave me a commandment to teach you these lessons. I know that

His commandments lead to eternal life. You need to know, and believe that I am telling you what the Father asks Me to teach you.” A whispered chorus of “I believe’ ensued.

As He was speaking Jesus saw that this was the right time to tell His disciples about the crucifixion. He had been holding it in and intuited that this was it.

“You know that after two days it will be the Passover.”

Bartholomew said, “Yes, of course; that’s why we came to Jerusalem.”

Jesus said, “Yes, but this Passover, the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

The disciples were too stunned to even gasp. Their hearts felt great pain as they wondered how it was possible that the Father God would deliver His Son to such a horrific murder.

Jesus stood up and said, “Brothers, there is nothing more to say. Let’s go to sleep.” And He turned and went to His bedroll.

The others sat still in dismay. One by one, a man trickled back to his bedroll, while others stayed and glared into the dying flames and wondered what life would be like without Jesus.

What is worse, the event or the anticipation of the event? We can’t even imagine what the disciples felt at that moment. The anticipation brims with sorrow, fear, it seems to have no end.

Each disciple, and Jesus, the target of their wrath, spent a sleepless night tossing and turning on the cold hard ground. Jesus was savoring His last days on earth, listening for guidance from His Father, but His resolve was as strong as ever. This is what He was born for.  He needed to go to Hades. The Son of God, the Giver of Life was assigned to become human for the purpose of entering the place of the dead. How could He know what to anticipate there?

Young John wept quietly, his head turned away from the men. He didn’t understand how or why Jesus had to suffer the most humiliating death. No one in the scriptures was ever crucified. He had no frame of reference, no consolation except knowing to trust the Father. For a moment, John wondered if God would make a switch at the last minute like he did with Abraham who was about to slay his son Isaac. John lulled himself to sleep wondering how that could happen.

Judas didn’t take Jesus seriously. Exhausted from the emotions of the day, he assumed that Jesus was exaggerating and fell asleep quickly.

Peter and Andrew spoke to each other, vowing to defend Jesus and protect Him from such a heinous victimization.

….

Two hours after daybreak the following morning the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered as scheduled at the court of the high priest, Caiaphas. The din of cross chatter was high pitched. Caiaphas hollered, “Stop talking! Order! One person speak at a time PLEASE! This Galilean, Jesus, must be stopped. We have allowed it to go too far already. Who has a plan? Raise your hand. I want to hear ONLY one person at a time!”

A short bulbous elder with blue eyes and a messy salt and pepper beard raised his hand and receiving the nod, he spoke up, “I think we should abduct Him and carry Him away to a secluded place and kill Him.”

Caiaphas said sarcastically, “Great idea, now who wants to do that?”  All the others just looked at the fool with sour expressions on their faces.

One man looked directly at the fool and spoke up, “We can’t kill! It’s against the law, stupid!”

Another said, “Especially during the feast! Do you know how many people, when they find out will come after all of us? We want to kill Jesus; we don’t want to start a riot.”

Another deliberator said, “Don't you remember that we said that we are going to get the Romans to kill Him for us.