Power Unchecked ...

Perhaps the most self-destructive gift the devil will ever offer humanity is unchecked power.  Even our imaginations of what having great power over others would be like, are usually far from ideal.  We dream of vengeance (that of course we call justice), we dream of getting even, of showing those who have it coming, just what they have earned.  Since the times of kings has past, and most of us will never have real power over anything, we often look to religion to do for us, what we are unable to do.  For those who have wronged us, we throw “the judgement” at them.  For we reason, no man will ever escape the judgement of God.  And obviously behind the judgement comes the fires of hell for the punishment our wrongdoers have so richly earned.  You hurt me, you will get yours, in the judgment of God, and ultimately in the fires of hell.  And in this kind of “revenge religion” thinking, we alienate those who might otherwise be open to the ideas of a loving God, who could forgive them their mistakes, and transform them into a person He intended them to be.  But that is not the God we present.  We seem to want a wrathful, angry God, ready to punish those who hurt us – even if “we” only want the forgiving side of God for ourselves.

But what happens to a person, when they are given unchecked power?  They tend to use it, badly.  Those guards at Nazi prison camps were just normal guys before the war.  No different than you or me, but sell them a lie, give them power, and all of the sudden a normal guy becomes a monster.  And it was not just during WW2 that Japanese, or German, or even Allied guards might have become monsters obsessed with vengeance or “justice”.  It happens even now.  When power goes unchecked, normal people start doing things normal people should not do.  And I imagine it happens slowly, not all at once.  I don’t imagine you jump from nothing to full-blown torture, but the journey there seems inevitable.  It happens across cultures, ideologies, and governments.  But the end results are usually the same, when no one supervises the power or keeps it in check, our violent tendencies seem to creep out.  But of course most of us would never see ourselves in this light, and by the same token most of us have never been in any position like this.  And perhaps it is another gift of God, to keep that kind of unchecked power away from us, so we never experience anything like that.

Take as a case in point, the job of Temple guard, back in old Jerusalem.  It was your job to keep order in the holiest place in the nation.  The literal or actual mercy seat atop the Ark of the Covenant lived in the place where you work.  This means the literal presence of God could be felt near you.  This was no ordinary prison guard gig, this was nothing like that.  Your job was to preserve order in the Temple, keep out the drunkards, make sure no fights found there way in here, secure the top brass of the Sanhedrin or Temple priests to keep them safe.  And when directed by the High Priest, you might be sent on various missions across the region to preserve the favor of God.  But to do this job, you very likely believed in the God who was supposed to be at the top of the command food chain you were subscribed to.  With God so close, and so baked in to your reason for being, you would think, the average Temple guard would have been upright, just, and a good mix of justice and gentleness.  They might strike us as sort of a religious policemen who was there to insure your safety at any given religious function or gathering.  And being largely of Jewish decent in the guards, you might have even thought the Temple guards were a light defense against Rome itself.

You would hope that these Temple guards were different, surely they were supposed to be, based on working so near God, and ideally for God.  But what happens when good men like this wind up working for power obsessed priests who use religion to control the people instead of uplift them?  What happens when the ministry is corrupted into a financial enterprise where profit is the ultimate goal?  Missions are less about order and more about control or worse enforcement or collections.  And over time the God who is so nearby is forgotten for the sake of the corrupt bosses who run the day-to-day.  And now tonight you will be part of the crew assigned to pick up some renegade Rabbi known as Jesus of Nazareth.  Your bosses think Him a total heretic.  He is a troublemaker with a large following and a reputation for miracles too tough to fake.  Your bosses want this Jesus contained; you know at least that much.  So how might you treat this assignment?  Most of us (with the benefit of hindsight) would probably quit before we took that job on for ourselves.  Better to be unemployed than to be caught up in this tragedy.

But that is not what happened that night, there were more than enough guards to get the job done.  They caught Him.  Jesus was now in custody.  The priests were setting up His trial, so the prisoner was left in the custody of Temple guards.  We know how the Romans would ultimately treat Jesus, keep in mind they had zero reverence for the Jewish religions, rules, or God.  But how would the Temple guards treat Jesus, guards who did believe in God the Father, the Messiah, and all the rules of mercy our God’s law of love demands of us?  Luke gives us a chilling account in the 22^nd chapter of his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  He picks up at the end of this chapter in verse 63 saying … “And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him.”  The torture begins.  This was a prisoner in your charge and what do you do?  You smack Him around.  Why?  Is it because Jesus is resisting arrest or confinement?  Does Jesus swear at you using fowl language insulting your mother and belittling your manhood?  No Jesus is not a problem prisoner.  He is meek.  Gentle as a lamb.  Jesus does nothing to make your job harder, He is instead the model prisoner every guard should hope for.  Jesus is not a hardened criminal, in fact He knows nothing of being a criminal.  And how do you respond to the Lamb of God who takes no revenge, and makes no resistance, you smack the crap out of him, right in His face.  Why?  Because you can.  Because it’s fun.

And this is what unchecked power has done to your heart.  It has made you into a monster who derives pleasure from smacking the crap out of a restrained Rabbi because His eyes keep showing you mercy and love.  You hate that.  You want it to stop.  Jesus is supposed to be a radical Rabbi troublemaker, not a meek and mild Lamb.  Perhaps if you smack Him, He will get mad and show He is human, perhaps Jesus will show His true colors if you hit him enough, if you make Him bleed.  Once Jesus sees His own blood He will finally get mad and lash out (but no worries He is restrained, so none of this should be dangerous to you).  So you take it up a notch.  Luke continues in verse 64 saying … “And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? [verse 65] And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.”  So we move up from torture to blasphemy against God.  They challenge His abilities as a prophet.  They ridicule Him as thinking He might be the Messiah, let alone the Son of Man, or Son of God.  Are we any different?

Oh sure none of us could imagine ourselves being in any Temple guard shoes.  But then we turn around and sin against God in our day to day lives pretending as if God does not see us, or does not know it was me who did it.  Then we blaspheme, asking questions and making statements like … well, God made me this way.  He could have stopped me if He wanted to.  So since He did not stop me, whatever I did was His fault.  His fault for making this way.  His fault for not stopping me.  If you think about it, its God fault this whole world of sin exists anyway.  He allowed the tree of good and evil in Garden, and He did not do enough to restrict it from us.  Should have stopped snakes from talking, or Eve from eating, or Eve from leaving the side of Adam in the first place.  So we lay the fault of sin at the feet of God and blaspheme against God in the process.  And it is a modern Temple guard we have become.

And if you think things have changed today, how well do we treat prisoners today?  Do you think prisons are comfortable places?  Do you think medical care there is what it should be?  Sure, people who have committed crimes may have forfeited creature comforts as part of the punishment of their crimes while in prison.  But do we ever offer them a chance at redemption even after they are out of prison.  The words “convicted felon” hang around a person’s neck as a permanent branded wound from which they will never fully recover.  Forget voting so representation is mostly out.  Forget working anywhere decent for no “decent” place wants a convicted felon working there or living nearby.  We still treat those who have made mistakes, those we have power over, not very well.  And we reason, we are not treating Jesus this way, we are treating a criminal this way.  But Jesus says, as you did it unto the least of these, you did it unto me, and who might be more the least of these, the least deserving than a prisoner, current or former.

I submit it is a mercy of God that humanity is not meant for wielding power.  Only God is qualified to do that, as the life of Jesus testifies power was only ever meant for the benefit of others, not for the punishment of them, even when they deserved it.  Jesus did not come to this earth looking for justice, He came here looking to show us what mercy looks like.  Perhaps yet another reason to follow God, is to let go any ideas of power, or the need for power, or the desire for it.  Perhaps in following God, and leaving the power with God, we are free not to have to be worried by it, or burdened by it, or with the guilt of having used power badly.  To be free, truly free, we can just follow Jesus and leave all the leading up to Him.  I pray for all the correctional officers in our world, that they fall not into temptation, and can instead reflect the love of Jesus even to the hardest criminal.  And I pray for me and my family, that we fall not into temptation, and can also reflect the love of Jesus to those we come in contact with, from the greatest, but especially to the least of any.  For in faces like that, I begin to see the face of Jesus Christ.

 

Prepared to Lose Everything ...

For a while in our recent history, there were a number of folks who reasoned the end of the world was coming and they needed to prepare for it.  They would move away from civilization and live “off the grid” with no electricity, cell phones, or even indoor plumbing.  They would choose instead to live as our forefathers did, off the land in as remote a place as they could find.  Some would bury canned foods in preparation for the inevitable coming food shortages.  Obviously living this way is not for everyone, and not mandated by scriptures in any way.  But fear does weird things to people.  And it does beg the question, how could anyone possibly prepare to lose everything.  Do you need to buy a gun for that?  Would you be willing to use it?  Is the life of another the price you are willing to pay to secure your own?  Sounds horrible.  But perhaps there are lesser steps you might take to at least acknowledge some level of preparedness to lose the things you hold most dear.

Take for example the gospel letter of Luke, written to his friend to enumerate what we believe and why.  Jesus had been living with His disciples for a little more than 3 years.  They went everywhere with Him.  If they had a question, they just asked Him.  Even if they did not understand everything He said they were always with Him, and stayed with Him, hoping that someday they might understand.  Living that way with God literally a few inches from your fingertips might have given them hope abounding.  Living with our God just nearby in the person of Jesus, might have given them such comfort.  They still mistakenly believed that Jesus would soon take up His role as Messiah leading all of Israel out of Roman bondage, and making them, His first followers, all prominent leaders in the new independent kingdom.  This was their chief ambition.  And in chapter 22 they had just been recently arguing about which one of them might be the chief ruler among the others proving their mistaken belief had yet to be released.

But the time had come when that hope was to be completely crushed.  And with it, the loss of having Jesus right at their fingertips.  God, in the form of Jesus, was about to undergo the most cruel torture and death.  And even after His resurrection it would not be the same as it was before.  He would only be with them from time-to-time and then He would ascend to heaven forever until He returned to take us all home with Him.  That is the equivalent of losing everything.  From one moment you are right there with God, right beside Him, right there talking to Him, asking Him questions, listening to His every word hoping to understand as much as your poor brain was capable of understanding.  Then the next minute, He is ripped away from you by the powers of darkness.  And mystery of mysteries we shall never fully understand,  Jesus will allow this to happen.  As disciples, you will lose everything.  Everything you believe in, everything you have lived for, everything you have hoped for.  There could be nothing worse.  So how do you prepare for that?

Jesus begins by setting a change in how the disciples will be living for a while.  Luke picks up in verse 35 saying … “And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.”  Up to now Jesus had asked them to take no preparations at all.  This was done to kill the human instinct in them to trust in oneself instead of in God to handle all our needs.  Can you imagine an evangelist coming to your area with no preparations made today?  No, in today’s world evangelism is handled more like a full-blown marketing campaign, with media interactive presentations done well ahead of time.  It is not handled like a spur of the moment thing done because the Spirit moves us to do it, with words given only at the time they are needed.  But the disciples recall their time with Jesus noting they never lacked for anything, even though they should have.  But miraculously they did not miss meals, or catch colds, or lose garments to wear and tear.  Every need was met up to now.  They all agreed they lacked nothing.

Jesus continues in verse 36 saying … “Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”  Wow what is changing?  That should have been the question that tops the disciples’ minds.  Why do they go from needing nothing, to now, needing to take coin purses, or paper money, and swords to defend it all.  They have never needed swords.  In the minds of the disciples, they may have thought that the Messiah was about to emerge.  To stand against Rome finally as they had hoped.  They may have thought that taking up swords now was just Jesus being practical with them all, solid advice if a conflict was coming.  And ironically a conflict was not only coming, it was here.  The weight of the separation with the Father was already pressing down on Jesus.  To be counted among the transgressors of the Law of Love was by nature to keep Son separated from the Father.  Jesus could not see what was coming next, not in full anyway.  But Jesus could see His time with His disciples was at an end, and the Comforter had not yet been sent by the Father.  His disciples were to be alone for a while.  So Jesus tries to take practical measures to keep them prepared … to lose everything.  At least to prepare as well as anyone could for that kind of tragedy.

Luke continues in verse 37 saying … “For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. [verse 38] And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.”  Jesus was about to put Himself in harms way by choice and without defense.  All that power in the Son of God would NOT be used to save Himself from any of this.  This had been foretold in scripture but was now coming to pass in front of them, and of course they still clung to mistaken beliefs that would make it even more difficult for them to accept.  And for those of us who think we must each have a gun to defend ourselves now, you may notice Jesus was never talking about guns at all.  And only 2 swords were ever produced, to defend 12 people, Jesus, plus the women who followed, and these measly 2 swords were enough according to Jesus.  Surely that would have never fended off the Roman army.  Nor would it prove enough to fend off even the corrupt priests and their temple guards.  They were only symbolic pacifiers as if for children who still might look for them.  Jesus was not advocating war, and in point of fact not even defense.  It was meant to calm the disciples and keep their grief and feelings of helplessness slightly in check during a time when they watch it all slip away.  Jesus knew fear would eat at them, He knew the first questions they would ask is “what now”?  The purse, script, even swords were not advocated to replace faith, but to be practical when their faith would seem all but lost.

Most of their lives, the concept of a Messiah was always far off.  It was only recently that the Messiah had become real to them, real and in person.  And it was now time for the fulfillment of the mission of our redemption.  But the disciples had chosen not to understand that, for it would undo all of their previous hopes and beliefs.  But still they clung to Jesus.  Dinner was over.  Jesus desperately needed to pray.  So Luke continues in verse 39 saying … “And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. [verse 40] And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.”  You will notice now, the most practical advice that could be given is offered.  Notice too, that Jesus does not even ask for prayer for Himself in all of this.  He asks them to pray for each other, and for themselves, that above all they do not enter into temptation.  Not for forgiveness of sin, but for the avoidance of sin before it can even become sin, to avoid any situation that could turn into sin.  To avoid sinful thoughts, desires, and or opportunities to sin.  To keep a pure faith when the world is crashing down around them.  Keep in mind they too were in the midst of losing everything, even if they did not understand that yet.  And still, as always, Jesus asks them to pray to avoid temptation.  Is there a lesson there for us as well?  Do our prayers so often focus on what we want, that we forget to ask for the thing we need most?

Luke continues in verse 41 saying … “And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, [verse 42] Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. [verse 43] And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. [verse 44] And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”  Luke may not have caught the full sequence of events just as they happened, but he does present an accurate summary of the highlights here.  Jesus repeats this same prayer more than once.  And He is ultimately strengthened by Angels from heaven, or He may have never made it out of the Garden of Gethsemane.  But Luke does catch something we often look over, the sweat of Jesus was so intense he was dropping great drops of blood on to the ground around Him.  He now bore the brunt of His separation with His Father.  Jesus was alone as bearing our sin demanded.  The Father must allow His Son to take on the mantle of our sin, He must allow His Son to die, and for the first time in either of their lives, to be alone from each other.  The Father must sacrifice and sit still during all of this.  The Son must bear it alone.  And Jesus did not know now, as it finally came upon Him, whether it would work at all.  Perhaps having been stained with our sins, His Father could never look upon Him again.  All of this for nothing, all of this not enough to purchase our redemption, man still lost, and now He along with us.  The weight of it is too much.  And the intensity of it so great, he sheds blood as we do sweat.

Luke continues in verse 45 saying … “And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, [verse 46] And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”  Luke credits the disciples with falling asleep in sorrow.  Perhaps the sadness was palpable in that place, or at least in the face of Jesus, who had never borne such grief in His life.  Perhaps the devil had just been pressing down on His disciples to make them so tired they could stay awake not another minute.  But as Jesus approaches, He repeats the same advice again, waking His disciples and warning them to pray to NOT enter into temptation.  Even now, that prayer to avoid temptation is still top of mind for Jesus.  That is His best and only advice for us now that we are deeply in the process of losing everything.  If the world is truly coming to an end, what advice does Jesus offer – to pray to avoid entering into temptation.  For ONLY God can keep us from falling into temptation.  Have you ever considered that?  Your willpower is not enough.  Your best efforts are not enough.  You encouraging each other and trying to be supportive of each other is still not enough.  You must pray to avoid even temptation of sin, let alone sin itself.  Jesus in the midst of the greatest trauma of His own life, still cares more about His disciples, about us than He does about Himself.  And Jesus knows best what we need.  And prayer to keep us from temptation is still what we need.

Luke continues in verse 47 saying … “And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. [verse 48] But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”  And while He was yet speaking.  Jesus was still in the middle of telling His disciples to pray to avoid temptation, when Judas led the mob to Jesus to betray Jesus to them, marking Jesus with a kiss so they would know Him in the moonlight.  Judas was an object lesson of what happens when we have already fallen into temptation.  Satan was now in him.  Judas had far less control than he wanted having already yielded himself to temptation, that had grown into full blown sin.  Jesus calls to Judas through the fog of Judas’ mind, do you intend to betray me with a kiss.  You would use an act of love to send Me to my death.  Jesus knew Judas was not strong enough to get through all of this.  Judas had refused the faith he needed to survive it, to claim and receive the forgiveness Jesus was still right there willing to offer.  But Judas felt his own unworthiness and could not bring himself to ask.  And the weight of sin, that was crushing Jesus, would smash Judas like a bug for only his own crimes against our God.  But our own sins are no less, and we are no more worthy than Judas, but we must find the faith to ask for and claim the forgiveness Jesus still offers us.  He paid this price for you, for me, to make it all possible.

Luke continues in verse 49 saying … “When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? [verse 50] And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. [verse 51] And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.”  Now an object lesson about using a sword to defend the faith, to defend Jesus Himself.  He does not need it, does not want it.  He wants us to sheath our swords even in the face of certain torture and death.  To be like Him, to have power but refuse to use it to any detriment of others, even in the most extreme circumstances.  We cannot use the faith as our justification for “defending ourselves”.  For Jesus would not allow it then.  He never had.  In prior dangerous circumstances He just disappeared, He never allowed His disciples to draw swords and protect Him anytime, or anywhere.  Jesus simply reminds the disciples to suffer this, and anything else thrown at them, just like He is.  But Peter jumps the gun and cuts off the servant’s ear, which Jesus picks up and promptly heals.  No blood spilled in defense of our God, but even then healing to His perceived enemies.

Luke concludes this early part of the story picking up in verse 52 saying … “Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves? [verse 53] When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”  Jesus calls out to his killers and reminds them they could have easily taken Him in the Temple anytime with no sword or spear.  But that would have required taking Him in front of an audience.  They wanted this kept secret and out of public view.  How many sins are committed just so, in secret, out of public view.  Sin craves the darkness to keep from being identified as sin.  Betrayal prefers secrecy and darkness to cover its heinous damage.  But covering sin does nothing to reduce its damage to us or to those we claim to love.  Time passes by and the damage and pain is only increased.  For to one sin we add others, deception, and more.  Until we are so riddled with sin we look worse than Swiss cheese with holes in our souls that we put there ourselves.  How could these enemies of Jesus have been prepared to lose everything?  How can we?

Jesus harkens back to a single theme, a single set of advice.  He asks us to pray that we enter not into temptation.  That we allow God to change what we want, what we desire, in order that temptation is no longer temptation to us.  It is like God fixing the addict to no longer be an addict.  For whether we like to think of ourselves as addicts or not, we are each of us addicted to sin in one form or another.  But hope remains in knowing that our God does fix addicts, from end to end, and completely, so that temptation is no longer even temptation anymore.  And finally, we are freed from needing forgiveness because we transgress no more, through His power to transform us into the new creations He intended us to be.  Same advice even when we are in the midst of losing everything.  There is no set of circumstances when Jesus does not offer this same advice.  Our transformation is not accomplished by force of will, but by the submission of will to Him.  This is why we need Jesus who alone offers to do this for us, and begs us to ask for it, ask for the avoidance of even temptation.  There are not multiple pathways to God, nor many concepts of a one true God, there is only what the Bible lays out for us.  One God, who loves us one way, who gave everything for us.  He wants us back that bad.  He is willing to forgive us anything, even Judas, even Peter, even me, even you.

We do not need to get “off the grid” to be prepared for the end of everything.  We need instead to get on our knees and pray as Jesus has asked us to pray, to avoid entering into temptation.  And for many who sleep and keep sleeping whether for sorrow or not.  Jesus says again, Rise!  And when awakened He asks again, to pray that we enter not into temptation.  Can we still ignore the words of Lord, especially in a time when we could be facing the loss of everything …