Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Mark 12:12 records the religious leaders’ rejection of Jesus’ authority and Messiahship: “And they sought to lay hold on Him, but feared the people: for they knew that He had spoken the parable against them: and they left Him, and went their way.” Had these powerful rulers dared, they would have killed Jesus right then. Unwittingly, they were fulfilling Old Testament prophecy by delaying, for Jesus had to fulfill the typology of the Passover and die on that day (for example, I Corinthians 5:7d states, “For Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”). He was in control of the timeline of events; the religious elites were not. Their obduracy in evil is a revelation of the Biblical principles both of the hardening of the human heart when right is rejected and of the sad outworkings of sin. Certainly these men are dastardly examples of the frank warning of Romans 1:18-32, which concludes of such settled sinners that they are people “who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (verse 32). Lord, keep our hearts soft, humble, and responsive to Your kind call and enlivening love.