The Outlaw

  I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday. I know I promised the "Money" post over the holiday but I am having a real problem with a few graphics that are imperative to my writing the post the way I want to. I know that makes me a dirty, rotten, filthy liar but I just can't post it yet.

 

MOM! Joey doesn't have his life jacket on! MOM! Joey's on the roof! MOM! Joey's wearing your clothes, AGAIN!!

Hey! How'd that last one get in here. That last one is NOT true. I SWEAR!!

I've been tattled on and usually it was deserved but never for raising the dead.

MOM! Joey's raising people from the DEAD! That just sounds wrong on so many levels.

Of the group of people that witnessed Jesus raising someone from the dead, many believed, as you might would expect. But others, unbelievably, run and tell the Pharisees and the Pharisees reaction kinda' shows where their heart has been at for these 3 years of Jesus' ministry. They haven't been concerned with someone coming and leading the people astray. They weren't concerned that there was a heretic on the loose, changing the great teaching of Moses that was the Hebrew religion. No. They were afraid that the people would deem him more "popular" and they would lose their "standing" in the community as is made clear in verse 48. So Jesus now becomes an Outlaw-Wanted: Dead.

   The problem with the Pharisees, at this point, is a most common one. Every time that they see a miracle or hear a teaching of Jesus and don't surrender to Him, completely, their heart gets a little harder and less open to Him. And we are like that, too. We sit in church for years and hear about Him but if hearing about him doesn't lead to total and complete surrender, the heart gets harder. Or if we come to Him again and again but don't surrender, it gets harder and harder to surrender at all. We seem to think that it is ok, to keep Jesus waiting but it's not. Jesus doesn't like to be flirted with. He only wants total commitment.

   In this group of religious, arrogant blowhards, Caiaphas would be the chief blowhard, the blowhard of blowhards, Don Blowhardio, the mayor of Blowhardville. He is the one that will oversee Jesus' trial and will ask Jesus whether He is the Christ, the son of the Living God. Jesus' positive response to this question causes Caiaphas to dramatically tear his garments and condemn Jesus. He will also later have His battles with Jesus' disciples, once having John and Peter flogged. And then God did what he often does, he used an enemy to glorify Himself. Like Pharaoh. Like Judas. With Him or against Him, God can use you for His purposes. Might as well be with Him, yeah? He causes Caiaphas' statement endorsing Jesus' death to be a prophecy of just why Jesus came to the earth. It's amazing:

 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all!  You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

 

   So we move on to the 12th chapter below and we enter the last week of Jesus' life on earth. Can you jump John 11:45-57? It's only about 7 inches. I know you can make it.  I'll meet you on the other side, my friends. Go ahead everyone, JUMP:

 John 11:45-57- Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. ⁴⁶ But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.   “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” ⁴⁹ Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰ You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” ⁵¹ He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, ⁵² and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. ⁵³ So from that day on they plotted to take his life. ⁵⁴ Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. ⁵⁵ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. ⁵⁶ They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, “What do you think?  Isn't he coming to the Feast at all?” ⁵⁷ But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest him.

   Did everyone make it? OUTSTANDING!!

  Are you weirded out because Jesus is sitting at a table eating with a man that used to be dead. Don't be. Happens all the time in the spiritual sense.

  Martha here gets caught serving again. This time, Mary isn't sitting at her Master's feet, soaking in His words. This time, she is using her hair to apply expensive perfume to His dirty, dusty feet. Mary seems to get it. One of the disciples, who have now been with Jesus for 3 years and have seen and heard it all, obviously doesn't get it. Judas, talks about the poor and sacrificing for the poor and selling this expensive perfume for money to give to the poor. All great things to do. WE should do those things. But the guy suggesting these good things is about to sell Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The guy who said these things will be dead in a week of suicide. He heard every sermon and he saw every miracle. He prayed with Jesus and slept in the same room with God Almighty. But: 

John 15:5- I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

  That doesn't mean you can't do anything. That doesn't mean you can't give to the poor or volunteer at church or the Lot Project or teach kid's Bible stories. What it means is if you are not IN CHRIST and He is not IN YOU, none of it matters. Not even a little bit.

Romans 8:1- Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 1:27- To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

    In this culture, the culture during the time of Jesus, a women's hair was of great importance, a sign of her feminine beauty. Mary is saying here, that she surrender's all, that nothing is more important to her than Jesus. And washing someone's feet, which Jesus will do very soon for His disciples, is saying that there is no task to low, if it will glorify my Master. And Jesus tells Judas that it is proper, what she is doing. He says, "You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me". The poor can wait?! This expensive perfume can be used to wash feet?! Only Jesus can say these things and it make any sense at all?

  One last thing to point out, then we'll be done:

  Lazarus, is there. A living, walking miracle that proves that Jesus is the master of Death itself. And many believed in Jesus because of what He did in bringing Lazarus back from the dead. And the Pharisees want to kill Lazarus because of the people believing in Jesus  as a result of this miracle. Really nothing to add to that.

 

John 12:1-11- Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. ³Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. ⁴ But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, ⁵“Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” ⁶ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.   ⁷ “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. ⁸ You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” ⁹ Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ¹⁰So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, ¹¹ for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.