Luke 22:66-71 I Am

This passage has always seemed awkward to me.  Jesus’ response to the question about if he was the Son of God or not.   I almost wanted him to just say yes or no.   Some translations make it sound as if he merely repeated what they had said without admitting anything.  Other translations more plainly show him answering in the affirmative.  

One thing for sure is that the trial was over.  They did not need any witnesses because he had admitted something from his own mouth.  It was enough to get the death penalty.  The prosecution rested its case.  There was no need of defense unless it would be for a possible plea of insanity. 

So Jesus was eventually executed because he claimed equality with God.  So then, the “religious right” of Jesus’ day killed the god they were fervent to protect.  (What kind of gods need protecting/defending anyway?) 

I wonder about fundamentalism that demands we all conform to a single rigorous standard.  A standard where a mere verbalization of dissent is met with unprecedented retribution.   Like a death sentence for blasphemy. 

Does the mere outward form of a religion constitute purity of that religion?  The very thing Jesus sought to change was that the heart of religion had died.  All that was left was the form. 

Form can be maintained by coercion and fear but the heart cannot.  I wonder if this is the purest expression  of idolatry.  Replacing the heart of religion with the outward shell and then legislating the form into law in the illbegotton(illegitimate)  hope that it will somehow replace the heart .   The form then becomes the focus of worship.   

I guess a compulsory allegiance to God is as good as any other?   Is it equal to a voluntary submission to God out of love and loyalty?  I say no it is not.  These are not equal.  One is the expression of a cowering soul to its master and the other is an expression of allegiance and devotion.   The Bible says that in the end of all things God will have both, but the event of Jesus demonstrates God would rather have the latter.  

Luke 22:63-65 "Undefended Innocence"

My beloved team of Belgian draft horses has moved on to a new home.  After 16 years and hundreds of hours working in a delightful partnership I had to say good-bye.  I am grieving like someone has died.  Even so, My life is very much the richer having made their acquaintance.  I have learned more about myself and life in general over these years that I ever thought I would.  I have learned about trust and what it means to have “heart”.   

Dusty and Prince depended on me to take care of them.  They were always willing to help me with a task.  We drilled oats into a 12 acre field in the fall of 2009.  I worked with the boys about 2 hours a day to get the job done.  I think Dusty would have worked until he dropped from exhaustion.  I knew that, so I never asked him to go that far.  I took my responsibility for their care seriously.  . 

One day waiting for customers in downtown Healdsburg at my carriage stop a young man approached me with a sullen look.  He said to me, “Don’t you think that is unnatural?”   He was referring to me using an animal to pull a carriage around town and give tours.  He was clearly becoming disgusted.   I wondered to myself, unnatural compared to what?  Did he envision huge herds of draft horses running free on the prairie?  These wonderful animals have come to live in partnership with humans.  They do not have any other “natural state” than that.  We work together and I take care of them.  They would have no existence without that partnership.  

I could abuse my responsibility and cause them to suffer.  I feel deep sorrow when I see an emaciated or crippled horse that has been abused by its owner.   I also feel sad when I see a horse owner demand the servant hood of his partner with threats of violence.  I never beat or whipped my horses to get them to work for me.  I just had to ask and they responded. 

All this horse talk brings me to think about “Undefended Innocence”.    There are times when I look around me and see the innocent being cruelly taken advantage of or injured by the strong.  It makes me mad.  Children abused by their parents, teachers, and religious leaders.  Dogs, cats, horses, being very badly treated by their custodians. The poor dying of starvation in countries where war and famine run rampant.  The ignorant being indoctrinated by radical ideologies. (And you can add some more I am sure.)   I have asked myself, “Does God get it?”  Does he understand this terrible burden that the innocent have placed upon them by others in places of power? 

I have been wondering about the three verses in Luke 22:63-65.  Why did Luke write them down?   Why was this story remembered and passed along?  Jesus is being beaten and mocked.  They blindfold him and hit him asking if can “prophecy” and tell them who did it.  He hasn’t had a trial.  He has no one to defend him.  There was no one with a cell phone to record the beating and call for an investigation of police brutality!   What I see is that Jesus experienced being innocent and undefended.  He experienced what it was like to be at the mercy of the merciless. 

So if God gets it, why does he allow it?   Either I make a determination that God is weak, ineffective, and doesn’t much care about what goes on in the world or like the weeds and evil forces of darkness I have looked at previously, the experience of “Undefended Innocence” is a part of life.  If so I still hate it!   Jesus went through it.  He experienced it without deciding that God was weak, ineffective and uncaring.  This is one of those things I think that I have no satisfactory answer for.  I have to assume that I can still trust God’s goodness even when I see examples of “Undefended Innocence.”  But I still hate it.

Luke 22:54-62 The Rooster Crows

One of my favorite farm sounds is the sound of a rooster crowing early in the morning.  I am an early riser anyway so I don’t mind the noise.  The posted picture above, is our favorite Americana rooster who used to sing for us every morning.  That is, until his demise in the jaws of a marauding bobcat.    Now the mornings are silent. 

Occasionally when I hear a rooster I think of the story Peter told about his night with Jesus at the High Priest’s Home in Jerusalem.  He said that Jesus told him earlier that before a rooster crowed the next morning he would deny that he even knew him.  And there in the courtyard of the High Priest’s home, warming himself by a fire, Peter denied that he even knew Jesus.  Peter said that as he made his third denial he heard a rooster crow.  He looked in the direction where Jesus was being held and their eyes met.  They both heard the rooster crow and "knew". Jesus had earlier predicted what Peter had just done, and Peter immediately realized what had happened.  The Bible records that Peter left the scene and “wept bitterly”.   

Sometimes events, smells, sights, etc trigger memories from our past.  I saw a television program about old-fashioned Scandinavian cookie making with a cooked press. As I watched I remembered my grandma making the same cookies when I was a kid.  I could almost smell and taste them.  When I hear a rooster I feel connected with the farm and farm life.  When Peter heard a rooster I am sure he would occasionally remember that night in the courtyard.  The look on Jesus’ face.  The feelings of sorrow and regret.   

I have experiences in my own past that I wish I could undo.  Things I never thought would happen, but they did.  Every now and then something triggers a buried memory and I weep a little inside where no one can see. I think I know how Peter may have felt when he heard a rooster crow. 

Luke 22:47-53

The Coyotes are out by the barn again this morning.  I can hear them singing.  We are down to one adult barn cat out of 12.   The one black and white cat that is left hisses at me when I feed her.  She should be a little more thankful.   The coyotes have been most efficient at hunting cats.  So far no attempts at killing goats but I am sure that will come soon when other game gets scarce.   I am about out of cats!  I have noticed that the coyotes would rather hunt at night than the daytime.   I guess because it is easier to be sneaky.  If you want to kill something to eat you don’t want it to see you coming before you pounce.  I guess that in this respect coyotes are a lot like people… they like the dark to hide activities that they don’t want noticed.  Jesus was betrayed by Judas and taken into custody at night.  It was dark because the sun was down and dark because evil had an appetite for blood.   As Jesus is being arrested He comments on those who have come to take him into custody.

“But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns.” Living Bible

I think I recognize 12 or 13 different insights from my meditation on this story about Jesus’ arrest.   Here are a few of them:

1. There are times when the power of darkness reigns.  (Some of the low points in life may be the result of evil spiritual forces.  It is not an abnormal spiritual walk to endure them.  They are a part of life like the weeds I wrote about last week.)
2. Sometimes the reign of darkness is necessary to advance the reign of light. (For a Christian there would be no Easter resurrection if there had been no death by crucifixion a few days earlier.)
3. Sometimes those in positions of power and leadership lead the way in doing wrong instead of protecting me from it.  (It was the leaders that led the crowd to arrest Jesus not a lynch mob coming to the leaders asking for his arrest.)
4. Some of these moments are personal.  No one else can fight to protect me from them.  (Jesus told his disciples to put away their swords.)
5. These moments are never fair; they are painted with irony, trickery and deceit. (Judas attempted to greet Jesus with a friendly greeting.) 
6. These moments happen when you are the most vulnerable.  (They did not try to arrest him when he was in the public’s eye but at night when he was alone with the disciples.)
7. Jesus was not powerless during this time. (He still healed the ear of the high priest’s servant.  I would probably tend to look at what was going wrong rather than what I still possessed.)
8. Jesus recognized that those who were doing bad things thought they were right.  (They considered Jesus a criminal and that it was the right thing to arrest him.  Very seldom do others or I do things that we do not feel fully justified in doing – right or wrong.)

We all experience times when a predator “stalks us at night” so to speak.  If you believe in good and bad spiritual forces like Jesus did, then a normal life includes attacks, when we are vulnerable, by others who feel justified in what they are doing.  We should not loose sight of the strength that we still have or the hope of a good final outcome in spite of all our spiritual battles.

Luke 22:39-46

The southwest corner of our farm is part way up the side of a 2,480-foot tall mountain.   (OK maybe a big hill?)  The mountain is called Mount Olive.  There are no olive trees growing on the mountain and the mountain is covered with brush so thick you cannot walk or crawl through.  I met a local Native American elder one afternoon hiking around looking for a rock outcrop that was supposed to be important in a local Native American legend but he could not find it.  I asked him why the mountain was named Olive but he had no idea either. 

The Biblical Mount of Olives in the Middle East is 2,676 feet tall and rises East of Jerusalem.   About the same height as my Olive Mountain.   It was named for the groves of Olive trees that were there.   I saw a picture of the modern day Mount of Olives and there is not much green to see.  Lots of rock, dirt, a big hotel, cemetery, an ancient convent and a few olive trees and tourist attractions.  In the Bible it was mentioned as a favorite place for Jesus to visit.  Reminds me of how we often take something beautiful and cover it up with a “memorial”.   Where you once used to go seek a peaceful place to pray becomes a “tourist attraction” so we can visit the spot where that “peaceful place to pray’ used to be.  I can just hear some parent saying to their kid, “Look Son, that’s what a peaceful place to pray looks like!” 

After Jesus had supper with his disciples they left Jerusalem and went out to the Mount of Olives to a garden called “Olive Press”  (Gethsemane)  This was one of his favorite spots.  He went there to pray and prepare himself for the ordeal he was about to endure.  Someone must have heard him praying because they recorded his prayer request.  He asked God if what was about to occur could be avoided in any way.  In any case, he told God he was willing to accept it, nonetheless, if it that is what God wanted. 

I grew up in church hearing about the details of how Jesus died.  All the grueling details which included the preacher pounding on the pulpit to simulate the sound of the hammer driving the nails into his hands and feet.  You could almost hear the flesh tear and the bones crack.  Roman Crucifixion was a horrible way to die.  And Jesus was innocent of any crime deserving that kind of death sentence.  I was encouraged to repent of my sins because Jesus had gone through all this and died for me!  But as I was meditating on this passage I came to realize that this horrible death is not what Jesus was asking to be delivered from.  There were a lot of other people who were tortured to death by crucifixion besides Jesus.  His death was the same as theirs.  Nobody pounded the pulpit to simulate his or her horrible end.  They died in obscurity. Jesus was not asking God if he could avoid dying. 

Why don’t we talk about what cannot be fathomed about Jesus’ death?  Why don’t we speak about what that cup was that Jesus asked about avoiding?   In Isaiah 53:12 is a hint into what I think Jesus was concerned about.. “…for he bore the sin of many…”  I have tried to imagine what this might mean.  I cannot illustrate this sin bearing in any way that is significant compared to what it must have meant to Jesus, to God.  I do not get it.  I get what it means to me but not what it meant to them.  Maybe that is why we can’t get past the gruesome details of the crucifixion because we cannot illustrate the more gruesome details of becoming a sin bearer.  It is much easier to faint at the sight of blood than at the sight of sin.  It is easier to wretch at the smell of physical death than its spiritual counterpart. 

I am going to be reminded of this inability of mine to comprehend what really happened when Jesus died for me every time I work in the field and look South West to my own Olive Mountain.  It will be a “memorial” that I did not build anywhere except in my mind. 

  ¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
   and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
   and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
   and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:12

Luke 22:35-38

I have such a bountiful crop of star thistle this year.  It seems to grow better than anything I plant on purpose.  If I were alive in California during the Gold Rush I would not yet see a single star thistle in anyone’s garden.   Someone brought star thistle seed to America about that time.   It is not a native plant.  I have read one estimate that there are now 15 million acres of this invasive species growing in the United States.     I think I have more than my fair share.  But before I complain too much I have to admit that weeding in the field I have learned something about my life.  It is a lot like battling weeds from season to season.

In verse 35 – 38 Jesus reminded the disciples of how in the past they did not have to worry about food, money, clothing, their personal safety.  No worries.  Now He said things were about to change.  They needed to have money, a packed suitcase, and be prepared to defend themselves.   What had changed?  Sometimes life goes along without too much turmoil sometimes it is incredibly difficult.   Jesus’ explanation for the change was that his life was following a path.  This change of circumstance was part of a cycle.  It was part of a design.   It was not a reaction to any thing that was happening at the moment. (I do not agree with those who want to see every disaster as God's attempt to punish us.)

I mention in my last post how faith seems to survive regardless of circumstance.  One of the ways I am learning to mentally survive turmoil is to recognize that sometimes hardship is as much a part of life as weeds are a part of farming.  Farmers were doing battle with weeds before I started farming and they will still be battling weeds when I am gone.  Some things about life are just like weeds.   Having weeds is not a sign of personal failure.  (Maybe letting them go to seed and having more of them next year is?)   I hope you get what I mean.  I think I should not take every bump in the road of my life so personally.  The next traveler will hit the same bump. The problem is with the road not the traveler.

I also think that the best way to survive weeding is to discover that everyone else has weeds too.   Does your life have a good healthy crop of thistle?  We should probably let each other know. 

Luke 22: 31 - 33 (continued)

When I was about 8 years old our family took at trip to visit Grandma in Louisiana.  Dad had been raised on a farm near Winnfield Louisiana along with 8 other brothers and sisters.   There were fig trees on the farm when dad was young.  During a trip to the now abandoned farm, dad dug up some small suckers from the fig trees to bring to California.  I remember we hid them under the seat to make it past the agriculture inspection station coming back into California.  We planted them in the backyard where I grew up.  Every place that I have lived, I have planted a cutting from the trees dad planted at my childhood home.  If I lived in an apartment I had a tree in a planter.  When we moved to Kelseyville one of the first trees that I planted was my dad’s fig.  That tree has become a symbol of something that has lasted generations.  Not only has the tree endured but as I watch it grow I feel connected to something that lasts.  Something that will continue to endure long after I am gone.

Farming has been harder than I had ever imagined. At times it has tested my faith.  (I have to admit that at times I have blamed God for it being so hard.)   How does one’s faith stand up during a trial?  What does that type of faith look like?   Jesus told Peter that this “sifting” the disciples were about to endure was so severe that it was necessary for Jesus to pray for Peter’s faith to endure.  I have experienced events in my life that should have driven me away from my faith in God.  I have at times doubted the validity of my own walk with God.  I have questioned if I even had any faith at all.  And then like a trick birthday candle that relights after you blow it out, a spark from somewhere unknown snaps the flame, ever so small, back into existence.  I do not will it.  I do not seek it. It is as if it seeks me.  Yes I know that those who mock my faith, from a position of never having had any, would suggest that I am flawed in this respect.  Yet I am not interested in convincing them otherwise.  They may have their fantasy and I shall have mine… or perhaps more correct.  My so called fantasy shall have me.  

My observations about the disciples “sifting” experience and their faith:

1.  Jesus’ prayers are always answered.  Jesus said, “When you have returned” not “If you return”.   God preserves faith without human help. 
2. Wherever Peter was returning from, his faith had never left him on the journey.  Where was he and what was the journey like?  I think I can compare my own journey with Peter's.
3. He was humiliated. He had boasted that he would die for Jesus.  In the past I have said a lot of things about my faith in God.  If they could see me now.
4. He was grieving.  After he denied Jesus, Jesus looked him in the eye and Peter recognized what he had done.  He ran off and wept.  I have often felt sorrow about my own weak faith.
5. He was afraid.  When he saw Jesus was going to be executed he was afraid he would end up the same way since he was his follower.   I have sometimes wondered if my weak faith would bring disastrous results in my life.
6. He hid.  Peter lost his courage and ran away to protect himself.  I have run from God and other people to try a find a safe place to be.
7. He was disillusioned.   He had lost his focus.  One of the gospel writers mentioned that Peter went back to fishing.  He went back to doing what he had done before he met Jesus in the first place.  Out of my struggle for spiritual clarity I have been looking for a safe haven in things that have brought me peace in the past.
8.  He was wondering.  I am sure Peter wondered about his own faith in Jesus.  He had spent three years of his life a disciple and now that was over.  Enough said.
9. Peter’s faith, that endured, had no outward evidence of its existence.  He ran away.  Jesus predicted he would deny him three times.   I should not be so quick to judge who I think, has, and who I think, lacks, real faith.  I should be kinder to myself and the other Peters I meet in my life.
10.  Peter could not tell that his present faith condition would be gone in a matter of hours.  He said, “I am ready to die for you”.   I should be careful when I think my own faith feels invincible.
11. "Faith without works" (as is often quoted from the book of James) may be dead but works do not in of themselves demonstrate the faith that overcomes some trials.  That type of faith must be a gift from God and that faith outlives works.  I am thankful that when my own experience with God seems to lack any real dynamic, there is something still alive in the relationship.  I have not been abandoned.
12. If Jesus is praying for me I can be sure of the eventual outcome. My dad had a favorite hymn.  It is an old hymn written by David Whittle in 1883. The words of the chorus go like this, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day".