John 7:45-53

 John 7:45-53

Missing the Forest for the trees. 

to not understand or appreciate a larger situation, problem, etc., because one is considering only a few parts of it.

Overall, 2002 was a rather rough year for me. I will not get into it but if anyone would like the details, I will tell you in person some time. One of the few highlights of the year for me was the release of the first Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire. Prior to this movie superhero movies were at best mediocre. I loved this movie so much I saw twice in the same day! I saw it a total of 7 times in the theatre. One of those times I took my friend J to see it. After the movie I was like J what did you think? J said well this one scene the background changed slightly between cuts. I am like that is it? He is like yeah. Talk about missing the forest for the trees! Here was one of the greatest movies of all time and he is focused on a background inconsistency! J if you are somehow watching this know that I love you and I forgive you! Tonight, we see how the Pharisees miss the forest for the trees with Jesus. 

Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?” 46 The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” 

Jesus is teaching at the synagogue during the Feast of Tabernacles. People are rejecting Him but people are also believing in Him! The pharisees want nothing to do with this. They failed attacking his words, they failed attacking his education, they failed attacking his background and birth. Now what do they have left? A show of force! They send their own private police force to arrest Jesus. They fail at this also. 

The arrest was unsuccessful, but it wasn’t because the arresting officers were incompetent. It was because the time wasn’t right yet, and it was impossible for Jesus to be stopped until it was right in the Father’s timing.

They come back empty handed. The pharisees are like what’s going on? You had one job! They answer “No man ever spoke like this Man!” We talk about this before. Can you imagine hearing a sermon directly from Jesus? A red letter Bible come to life! It would have been the perfect sermon! In content, delivery, volume, tone, etc. Let’s keep in mind that this is coming from the Temple Police. They worked in the temple day in and day out. They had heard hundreds if not thousands of Rabbis speak over the years. Yet, Jesus stands out. 

As some of you know I had about a 6-year concert going phase from 98 – 04. I went to sold out coliseums and tiny hole in wall places to see bands. I easily saw over 100 different bands in concert. Pastor Dave and Pastor Drew were with me for a lot of them. I even have some permanent hearing loss in my left ear as a result! Yet one concert in the spring of 2000 stands head and shoulders above them all. I saw the Kenny Wayne Shepherd band at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro with several of my friends. KWS is a talented blues guitarist and had just released his third album. He played for 2.5 hours straight. He did a double encore. He played two guitars at once. When he broke a string on his current guitar, he would toss it behind him and grab the next one. He finished his double encore with a 15 minute extended cover of Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Chile. He was in the zone playing I’m not sure he was aware there was a crowd around him. He finished the song, tossed the last guitar behind his back and walked off the stage. Then the lights went up and everyone left. Me and my cousin Jared rode home in silence for the first 20 minutes processing what we just saw. To this day I haven’t seen anything like it. 

The Officers tell the Pharisees No Man ever spoke like this! We miss some of the implication here.  In the Greek the word ‘man’ (Anthropos) occurs in the emphatic position at the end of the sentence and implies by contrast that he must be more than an ordinary human being. He’s more than just a man the officers say. 

47 Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived? 48 Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”

The Pharisees respond here is the very definition of missing the forest for the trees. They refuse to consider the words of Jesus because they are coming from Jesus, a commoner, a man of Galilee, a common town full of common people. They despised the common people and looked down upon them. None of us “special” people believe in him (which wasn’t true) so you shouldn’t either! Only heathens believe in Jesus! 

 50 Nicodemus (he who came to [j]Jesus [k]by night, being one of them) said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?” 52 They answered and said to him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet [l]has arisen out of Galilee.” 53 [m]And everyone went to his own house.

Nicodemus tried to reason with the religious leaders, warning them against judging Jesus hastily. He even points out the law, the very thing they claimed to be zealous for, as his reasoning. We are only fans of the truth when it benefits us. When it doesn’t we will reach super far for anecdotal evidence to support our views. Nothing new about this. 

They shoot him down immediately! Are you also from Galilee? No prophet has ever arisen out of Galilee! They knew who Nicodemus was and where he was from. They never would have let him join if he was from Galilee. No prophet has ever come from Galilee also was not accurate. I imagine they knew and didn’t care. 

At least two prophets were from Galilee: Jonah and Elijah. Potentially, Nahum and Hosea as well. Their contempt for Galilee and desire to be right at all costs made them lose sight of historical accuracy. After all these years of awaiting the Messiah. He was right in front of them and they refused to acknowledge it. 

While preparing for tonight’s message I ran across the following quote from AW Tozer. “One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. A.W. Tozer”