BP – justice delayed but certain

“Instead alas to you the Pharisees, in that you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass by the justice and the love of God. But it was necessary to do these things, not neglecting other things.” (Luke’s AD 60 research report re Jesus: Chapter 11:42-54)

Jesus is breakfasting in the house of a certain Pharisee who is dismayed that Jesus had not undergone the compulsory religious cleansing rites. (See Info BO) Jesus has explained that the key issue was not external things at all but whether or not a person was clean within – was “made of light.” Now, above, he, sorrowfully, points out another neglected key issue – that of teaching and living out, daily, “the justice and the love of God.” By neglecting “the justice of God” do you think they became callously harmful in their lives? And what about neglecting “the love of God”? Would that have had a similar effect? What were they like – inside? “Alas to you the Pharisees in that you love the best seat in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces.” It seems that, inside, the Pharisees wanted to be seen to be somebody. What happens when that becomes the important thing in my life? How then do I treat others? “Alas to you in that you are like unmarked tombs, and the people, those walking over, do not know.” Do you feel uneasy when walking off-path in a Jersey cemetery? Ordinary people there had no idea how close they were to hidden corruption.
But one of the legal experts, responding, stated to him, “Teacher, stating these things you also abuse us.” But he said, “Alas to you the legal experts also in that you burden the people with oppressive burdens and you yourselves do not tap the burdens with one of your fingers.”	.
The “legal experts” were concerned to differentiate themselves from “the Pharisees.” Maybe they did not demur from what Jesus had said about the Pharisees. But the “legal experts” were a sorrow for Jesus in other serious ways. First, their legal authority had caused them to “burden others with “oppressive burdens” whilst not placing those “burdens” upon themselves or helping others to obtain relief. Do I try to burden others with obligations I don’t myself keep? Do I try to enforce those obligations? “Alas to you in that you house-build the tombs of the prophets but your fathers killed them. On that basis you are witnesses and you approve the works of your fathers, for they themselves indeed killed them, but you yourselves house-build.” Through this also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send out into them prophets and apostles and from them they will kill and they will pursue,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, that having been shed from the foundation of the cosmos, may be required from this generation, from the blood of Abel until the blood of Zechariah, the one destroyed between the altar and the house. Yes, I state to you, it will be required of this very generation.” Second, please note the unusual phrase used by Jesus – “house-build the tombs of the prophets.” Were they erecting monuments? Or was it that, by their legal expertise, they were “house-building” a religious system that buried the prophets? Buried them and their constant, repeated calls for repentance towards God? The ultra-seriousness of it all was that they would become responsible for “the blood of all the prophets.” How so? Was it because Jesus himself sees that these “legal experts” would shortly be responsible for his own “blood” – the Son of God on the cross? “Alas to you the legal experts in that you took away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter in and you hindered those entering.” Third, the “legal experts” had failed to let the people know the way back to Almighty God – open to them all. Worse, they had “hindered” them.
He himself going out from there, the theologians and the Pharisees began to be terribly hostile and to question him closely about many things, lying in wait for him, plotting to ensnare him in something from his mouth.	.
Absolutely everything inside Jesus was good. Was that their problem?

Sinner Syvret

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