Thoughts From Luke - Day 97

                                        Luke 22:63- 23:12

⁶³ The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. ⁶⁴ They blindfolded him and demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” ⁶⁵ And they said many other insulting things to him.
⁶⁶ At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and the teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. ⁶⁷ “If you are the Messiah,” they said, “tell us.”
Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, ⁶⁸ and if I asked you, you would not answer. ⁶⁹ But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.”
⁷⁰ They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?”
He replied, “You say that I am.”
⁷¹ Then they said, “Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips.”

23 Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. ² And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.”

³ So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
⁴ Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”
⁵ But they insisted, “He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.”
⁶ On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. ⁷ When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.
⁸ When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. ⁹ He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. ¹⁰ The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. ¹¹ Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. ¹² That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.


           Have you ever been falsely accused? How does that make you feel? What is the first thing that you want to do? Isn't it to set the record straight? You tell as many people as you can find to listen to your side of the story. You might even post it on Facebook, tweet it, or if you are desperate enough, take out an ad in the newspaper. In this day and age people can rate you as a business on things like Yelp, etc. I just googled my name and saw I have a 4.8 out of 5 rating on some site. That is near perfect, yet it bothers me to see that someone didn't think I was perfect. When I go to the site I see someone says that I like to do C-sections. That bothers me because I have the lowest C-section rate in East Tennessee. See, I am defending myself here, I can't help it.

         Jesus, in this passage, is falsely accused of opposing taxes, subverting the nation, saying He is going to tear down the temple, blaspheming, and being nothing but a powerless wannabe. He is beaten, mocked, ridiculed, vehemently accused and yet He doesn't defend Himself. Why? First of all He knows who the true judge is and the true judge knows the truth about Him. Why do we care so much what people think when God, our audience of one, our judge knows the truth. Secondly, it says in Isaiah that this would happen and Jesus was fulfilling scripture. Jesus knew scripture so well that He would never do anything to violate it. How well do you know scripture? Thirdly, His mission was to die not vindicate Himself. He did not want to prove He was God because He wanted to be crucified for blasphemy. He sacrificed His reputation, His manhood, His integrity for God's cause, to save us. Are you willing to be mocked, falsely accused for the sake of the gospel, or is what people say about you the most important thing to you? Aren't you glad that Jesus loved you so much that He didn't defend Himself but just allowed the false accusations to be heaped upon Him in order that you can have His true accolades undeservedly placed on you!

          Thank You Jesus for taking this abuse so that I might be called a child of God. Amen