Stone ...
Joh 9:29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.
Joh 10:33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Reading the account in the Gospels of the Jews rejection of Christ, or at least the priestly Sanhedrin rejection, one feels some sympathy. They were facing a dreadful quandary: if they accepted Jesus and he turned out to be a false prophet they'd look ridiculous, their authority savagely undermined, yet in accepting Jesus as Christ, historical Jewish culture would be at an end, certainly their priest-craft. They were surely in a catch 22, locked into personal survival mode: thinking with their deadly lower instincts - it's Him or us. That's what I said, this world eats you up, the lower emotions tugging hard on the reins. How inveigled it gets, there's just no way out if you're sitting in the scullery.
And then, here were a people surrounded with false prophets, and a body of sacred literature warning of the woeful consequences of following would-be-prophets. In that respect our own times share some major similarities. God knows the number of new age fads and Osho's and Raelians that claim to stand in some relationship to a higher authority, that proffer themselves as mediators between Man and the Divine. It works too, a proven method for hauling in the sluts and moolah. Let's look at it, there are millions of suckers being led into oblivion by one Joseph di Mambro after one David Koreshi after one Jim Jones. How many crazy dogs make themselves out to be God? You're either easily led, a cautious skeptic or a cynic - and neither one nor the other yield much return. No one wants to be a dupe, but we are in the flesh, so what can you expect?
How would we respond today as individuals in a similar predicament to that of the Sanhedrin? That's a reasonable question to ask yourself. There is a time in all our lives where we are faced with this dilemma, and vanity is never far away worrying how she'll be perceived. Shall we accept Jesus as Christ, as our only hope of salvation? Shall we resist this or that particular temptation? Jesus Saves. Jesus is Alive. Our senses object, our reason wants none of it - where are the certainties and proofs, the hard evidence? Yet we have this choice and if we so choose then we must walk a tight rope with faith and hope as our only balancing stick. It would be very easy to reject Him all over again - afterall the world has always rejected Him, and ever full of reasons, rationales, logics and watertight recidivisms. On the other hand it is very easy to embrace Him: it is finally a matter of discernment. In this land of captivity, though we be fallen creatures, the Light comes from above, which is deep within, the light comes from without which is beyond the little man called me, myself, I - the plurality of being - that is me, me, me ...
Joh 10:33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Reading the account in the Gospels of the Jews rejection of Christ, or at least the priestly Sanhedrin rejection, one feels some sympathy. They were facing a dreadful quandary: if they accepted Jesus and he turned out to be a false prophet they'd look ridiculous, their authority savagely undermined, yet in accepting Jesus as Christ, historical Jewish culture would be at an end, certainly their priest-craft. They were surely in a catch 22, locked into personal survival mode: thinking with their deadly lower instincts - it's Him or us. That's what I said, this world eats you up, the lower emotions tugging hard on the reins. How inveigled it gets, there's just no way out if you're sitting in the scullery.
And then, here were a people surrounded with false prophets, and a body of sacred literature warning of the woeful consequences of following would-be-prophets. In that respect our own times share some major similarities. God knows the number of new age fads and Osho's and Raelians that claim to stand in some relationship to a higher authority, that proffer themselves as mediators between Man and the Divine. It works too, a proven method for hauling in the sluts and moolah. Let's look at it, there are millions of suckers being led into oblivion by one Joseph di Mambro after one David Koreshi after one Jim Jones. How many crazy dogs make themselves out to be God? You're either easily led, a cautious skeptic or a cynic - and neither one nor the other yield much return. No one wants to be a dupe, but we are in the flesh, so what can you expect?
How would we respond today as individuals in a similar predicament to that of the Sanhedrin? That's a reasonable question to ask yourself. There is a time in all our lives where we are faced with this dilemma, and vanity is never far away worrying how she'll be perceived. Shall we accept Jesus as Christ, as our only hope of salvation? Shall we resist this or that particular temptation? Jesus Saves. Jesus is Alive. Our senses object, our reason wants none of it - where are the certainties and proofs, the hard evidence? Yet we have this choice and if we so choose then we must walk a tight rope with faith and hope as our only balancing stick. It would be very easy to reject Him all over again - afterall the world has always rejected Him, and ever full of reasons, rationales, logics and watertight recidivisms. On the other hand it is very easy to embrace Him: it is finally a matter of discernment. In this land of captivity, though we be fallen creatures, the Light comes from above, which is deep within, the light comes from without which is beyond the little man called me, myself, I - the plurality of being - that is me, me, me ...
posted by + at 16:54
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