The Thorn Bush

~~Ezekiel 37:21-28~~(Psalm)Jeremiah 31:10, 11-12abcd, 13~~ John 11:45-56~~

...If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.

The Pharisees were quite happy with their prestigious positions.

They felt threatened by the good things Jesus was doing.

They wanted to be the ones who were the 'good' people.

The problem is the Pharisees wanted to appear good in the eyes of the Romans.

The Pharisees were considered by the Sadducees to be the 'dissenters'.

The Pharisees became intensely focused on the words of the holy texts;

rather than on the ritual sacrifices.

The leaders for the Pharisees were given the title of rabbi 

meaning master or teacher.

The Romans eventually came into power over Jerusalem.

The Romans are brutal, even killing the priests at the altar.

Herod, a Jew, comes into power and tries to keep the peace.

He tries to keep the Romans and the Jews happy which is a great challenge.

Herod does a good job. He keeps the peace among the Jews 

and the Romans are pleased with him as ruler.

The Pharisees were willing to do most anything to keep their position in society.

They were also willing to dissolve anything that caused unrest;

anything that might jeopardize their place of good favor with the Romans.

So in defense of the Pharisees they were afraid of Jesus.

They did not have the strength of character to Jesus as doing good.

They did not want Jesus to tell them what they were doing wrong.

They plotted to kill Jesus in order to save the nation 

from the wrath of the Romans.

...Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to kill him.

Once they had made their decision Jesus had to flee from Jerusalem.

He retreated into the desert; no longer spending

time with his Jewish friends.

The danger was intensifying, but Jesus was a devout Jew.

They began to speculate as to whether or not 

he would return for the feast of Passover.

Jesus moves to a place of hiding.

He too was acting in fear.

Fear plus fear does not equal peace.

Fear causes people to act irrationally.

Getting rid of Jesus would solve all of their problems.

Life would return to the status quo 

and all would be well in regards to the Romans.

Sometimes we fall into the same trap of deception.

We believe if we get rid of a situation which we deem as threatening

all will return to the previous state.

We see this played out among our politicians everyday.

I won't bore you with examples, which I am sure you can easily find.

Jesus was about peace.

He does not choose violence to achieve his peace.

His peace is achieved through unconditional love and forgiveness.

The relationship between the Pharisees 

and the Romans was like a giant thorny bush.

The Pharisees were not about to get tangled in the thorns.

It was much easier to just kill Jesus.

Get Jesus out of the way and ignore the thorn bush...the Romans.

They plotted to kill Jesus to maintain 

their false sense of peace with the Romans.

Jesus is the one who has the true peace.

He blesses us with his peace.

He calls us in turn to pass his peace on to our neighbors.

Fear is prickly...

Peace is resting in the Lord.