Today’s reading has Jesus arguing with Jewish leaders.
Today, the showdown with the Jewish leaders continues. Yesterday, they argued about Jesus healing on the Sabbath and he tells them that he is the Son of God. He tells them that they should require no more testimony than that, but he knows they don’t believe him, so he talks about others who have testified about him.
He starts with John the Baptist. He tells them that he knows they sent a delegation to John asking about Jesus and John told them that he was the Messiah. Jesus tells them that he doesn’t need human testimony about who he truly is. In other words, God doesn’t rely on humans to prove that he is God. But, Jesus is mentioning John’s testimony so that perhaps they will believe John’s word about him and be saved. The Jews had more respect for John’s word than Jesus’ word.
Jesus goes on to say that John was a “lamp that burned and gave light and you chose for a time to enjoy it.” The past tense may indicate that John had already been imprisoned or executed. But, the Jews never were truly comfortable with John’s message either.
Jesus says that he has an even stronger testimony than John’s. The miracles that he has performed should prove to them that he is from God. But, they don’t know who God is.They studied every tiny detail of the scriptures hoping it would make them holy and righteous, but they missed the fact that the scriptures pointed to Jesus as the Messiah.
Then, Jesus gives them an unexpected twist. He tells them since they have put all of their faith in Moses and in what he had to say, Moses will be their accuser before God, not Jesus. He says if they really believed Moses then they would believe Jesus because Moses wrote about him. Jesus is probably referring to Genesis 49:10. “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor.”
So what does today’s reading mean for us some two thousand years later? I think today’s reading is kind of hard for us to grasp because it’s basically a debate between Jewish scholars and Jesus, who was also a Jew. These arguments sound strange to my Christian ears. We’ve seen miracles surround Jesus since his mother Mary was visited by Gabriel. Why in the world are these Jews so hard-headed?
We have to keep in mind that we live on the Easter side of the cross and they didn’t. They believed in their hearts, that they were protecting Judaism, which was always under attack. They thought they were honoring God, because they were looking for something else, a different kind of Messiah. We too, can miss blessings when we look for something to fill our preconceived notions.
Jesus cared enough about these people to try and convince them of the truth. He could have refused to talk to them and who knows, maybe he did change a few hearts. We know the majority weren’t convinced, but maybe a few were. To Jesus, every soul counts. What do you think about today’s reading? I’d love to hear from you.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂