John 7:25-31
Hard to Kill
One of the many great things about the 90s was the action movies.
Typically featuring the talents of Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, Harrison Ford,
Sylvester Stallone, or Arnold! Let’s not forget Jean Claude van Damme and
Steven Segal for those that enjoyed the direct to video market. 6th
grade me was enamored with Steven Segal! I cannot tell you how many times I saw
Hard to Kill. I even had a bootleg VHS copy of it 6 months before it came out
to purchase! This was back when those required more effort than downloading
them from the internet. Hard to Kill successfully describes pretty much every
Segal movie ever (except Executive Decision which I maintain is a Kurt Russell
movie). No matter what the bad guys tried they never could kill Segal’s
character. Tonight, the pharisees start to discover that Jesus is also rather
hard to kill.
25 Now
some of them from Jerusalem said, “Is this not He whom they seek
to kill? 26 But look! He speaks boldly, and
they say nothing to Him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is [d]truly
the Christ? 27 However, we know where this Man is
from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from.”
Everyone is in Judea celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus
has been teaching at the synagogue. Can you imagine hearing a sermon from
Jesus? We talk constantly about the power of the Word of God.
Hebrews 4:12 “For the
word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and
of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for [c]instruction in
righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work.”
1 Peter 1:24-25 “The grass withers, And its
flower falls away, 25 But the [o]word of
the Lord endures forever.”
Can you imagine hearing the Word of God in person
from the living Word of God? One of my talents is public speaking. I can look
back at my life and see how God prepared me for a life of public speaking. I
took speech therapy classes for most of elementary school. My dad would take me
to county commissioner meetings so I could observe him speaking in front of
people.
I discovered in middle school that if I
volunteered to be the speaker of the group project I didn’t have to do anything
else. My classmates would spend all week on the work and I just had to stand in
front of the class and read what they did for roughly 3 minutes. Then they
thanked me for it! I even taught public speaking as part of the home schoolers
co-op for the previous 3 years until current events happened and prevented me
from continuing to do so. I’ve been speaking in public in some form of another
for most of my life. Yet, I have a love/hate relationship with rewatching my
sermons on YouTube. I watch and see what I messed up and what I can improve on.
Tone, Volume, pacing, mannerisms, oops that was the wrong verse! What I said
there was not even a word.
Jesus sermon here is perfect. His delivery of it is perfect as
well. It is no wonder they marveled at His words!
The crowd sees the negative reaction by their religious leaders.
Then they put two and two together. Wait, a minute! Isn’t this the guy they are
plotting to kill? He is right there! He is right there in front of them. If you
knew someone intended, you harm and had the capability to do so you would avoid
that person. You certainly would not show up at their place of work and draw a
crowd. The boldness of our Lord in
proclaiming The Gospel at every opportunity He had.
I have heard pastors say that the church lacks boldness. That is
not the case. Our boldness is misplaced. We have been bold in the last year
when it comes to expressing our opinions! Opinions about elections, protests,
masks and conspiracy theories. Yet, where is that same boldness when it comes
to the Word of God? When it comes to loving our neighbor as our self? When it
comes to acknowledging our own sins and seeking forgiveness? It is nowhere to
be found.
Convicted by the Word of God they had but 2 choices. Respond and
change or find a reason to ignore it. As heart breaking as this is I also take
comfort in it. If people responded this way to a sermon from Jesus, I shouldn’t
be surprised when people reject me when I speak either. They found a reason to
ignore it. We don’t know who this guys really is or where He is from. They
might as well have asked for his birth certificate. Also, if you thought
questioning where someone was born was a relatively new political concept you
are wrong. There is nothing new under the son.
28 Then
Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, “You
both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have
not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is
true, whom you do not know. 29 [e]But I know
Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me.”
For years when I read “Jesus cried out” I just assumed He was
yelling out of frustration. We can all relate. We have all lost our temper and
raised our voice before. Yet, that’s not
what is going on here. Cried out can be translated two ways. 1) To cry out of vengeance
or 2) to speak with a loud voice. Seeing as no one fell to the ground when He
did so (which is not always the case in John) it is the second one. The crowd
is murmuring amongst itself and Jesus raises His voice to be heard.
I know the Father and I am from the Father. The
crowds were perhaps confused about where the Messiah would come from, but Jesus
knew exactly where He came from. Jesus was not a confused man, wondering if He
was really the Son of God. His words were clear and powerful. Jesus is the Son
of God.
30 Therefore they
sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had
not yet come. 31 And many of the people
believed in Him, and said, “When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than
these which this Man has done?”
The pharisees and sadduccess
understood exactly what Jesus was saying. It is why they sought to take Him.
Yet, no one laid a hand on him because His time had not yet come. I am always
curious what the actual logistics of a thing look like. They sought to take
him. Were they just planning on different ways to do it? Did they try and they
were stopped? Did they all get struck with brain fog? I mean he was right
there! Surely, they had a way to remove someone from the stage that had gotten
out of hand. Whatever it looked like they were powerless. One would think that
combined with His words would be enough to convince them, but an unrepentant
heart is a stubborn thing. What is the end though result? People believe! As
many people as may walk away every time the gospel is preached let us not
forget the people that are saved when The Gospel is preached! People like you
and me.
Love it or hate it, today
marks the beginning of a new era. This era
demands clear-sighted action and relentless hope, which is only found in Jesus
Christ It demands that we distinguish between reality and propaganda, between
conviction and orthodoxy, between living peacefully with all people and violent
extremism. The Gospel demands that we speak honestly about sin, suffering and
hate and that we work daily to dismantle it in our lives. There is no fear in
love, but perfect love casts out fear. When we cast out fear we will cast out
hate as well.
We must begin to hold ourselves
to the standards set forth in the Bible: to be loving, to be forgiving, to be just,
honest, and compassionate. I would say every
one of us, regardless of opinion or ideology would prefer to live in a world
like that.
Hebrews
6:19-20 “This hope we have as an anchor
of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind
the veil, 20 where the forerunner has entered for
us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Ports were not dredged like they are now. It was
a very difficult thing to bring a ship into port with out wrecking it. They
would take the anchor and put it into a very small boat and send that boat out,
with the anchor in it, ahead of the ship. This small boat was called a
forerunner. Once that boat arrived into the port it would tie that anchor to
one of the huge rocks secured there at the port. Keep in mind the ship was
still out at sea but its anchor was already in the port, secured. Once the
anchor was secured the men in the ship would wait until the tides were right
then they would use the anchor rope to pull the ship into the port safely, and
securely.
You see Christ is our
forerunner. His death, burial and resurrection takes the anchor of hope beyond
the veil for us. What was behind the veil? The Holiest of Holies where only the
high priest dared to tread and even then only once a year. If the High Priest
was not right with God when he went in then He was struck dead and dragged back
out by a rope attached to him. You see behind the veil was the very
presence of God. Christ secured our hope for us, it’s nothing we need to, or
even can do on our own. No amount of fanciful prayer, scripture quotations, or
Ascetic lifestyle could ever achieve this.Christ made a way for us to enter
into the presence of God safely and securely with no fear of condemnation. For
there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. The Anchor of hope is
secured by The Rock of Ages.
Though the winds blow, The Anchor holds. Though
the waves crash, The Anchor holds. The storms will come, the planks will crack,
the sails will tear and the mast snap in half, The Anchor holds safely,
securely, guiding us into the safety of the harbor, bringing us safely into the
presence of God.
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