Thought for 7 March

 Matthew 22:29

Jesus replied, ‘Your problem is that you don’t know the Scriptures and you don’t know the power of God’.

In the first four books of the New Testament, my bible shows the words that Jesus said in red type as opposed to the usual black type.  Much of this red type in all four books appears after the entry to Jerusalem.  Queen Camilla was on breakfast tv this morning saying that reading was good for our mental health as well as for education and, indeed, for entertainment.  We could all do a lot worse than taking her advice at this particular time of year and reading a whole lot of the words that are shown in the red typeface. 

I find there are always stories or bits of stories that we may have forgotten over the years or maybe never heard before that keep turning up when we read our bibles.  I attended a service on Monday evening when the main address was about Jesus having dinner with Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead and his sisters, Martha and Mary.  This is where Mary had anointed Jesus with expensive oils.  In John 12 v10&11 we are told that the chief priests had also decided to kill Lazarus for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.  I must have read this passage many times but I felt I was hearing this about the risen Lazarus for the first time.

During Holy Week, Jesus seems to spend a lot of time dealing with questions from the Pharisees and Sadducees that were deliberately worded in attempts to trip him up or maybe to try and get him to give different answers to the same question when it was put in a different way.  It must have been a bit like when a witness is cross-examined in a courtroom setting these days.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were two different sects within the Jewish religion in those times who probably had largely similar interpretations and approaches to their faith but differed in their belief and interpretation of some aspects.  Is it not possible that there is a parallel to the different Churches and Denominations that stand under the overall banner of Christianity?

Jesus faced a procession of questions from the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees.  On more than one occasion, it is written that ‘His reply amazed them’, but still they kept trying.  At a service tonight, the worship leader told us that in the four gospels, Jesus had been asked a total of 183 questions throughout his ministry.

In conclusion, when we do read and consider the words that Jesus taught and the answers he gave to all these many questions, one thing in particular stuck out for me.  In all the answers Jesus gave to his examiners or to anyone else who wanted to ask him things, not once did his reply begin in a way that just looked that Jesus was putting forward an idea or just offering his opinion.  His answers never began with ‘In my opinion’ or ‘what I think is’.  When he gave them their answers, there was never any uncertainty, he answered with complete authority given to him and him alone by the Father.

Prayer – Loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us when we were dead in our sins and for bringing us into your family, simply because we trust the Lord Jesus as our Saviour.  Lord, we want to love you with every part of our being.  May we love you meaningfully and try to live our lives as you would have us live.  In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.