What part did you Play in the Story?

John 7:37-52

If you grew-up in 1950’s as I did you saw change, lots of change, and it’s easy to get nostalgic, yes, it is so easy to look back and long for the past, but then you remember the hot nights without air-conditioning and waking up with the bed sheet wet with your perspiration.  Yes, much has changed, and yet the character of people has not changed from the time Jesus walked on the streets of Jerusalem.  Place yourselves in the story; use that wonderful gift of imagination that you and I were given as a gift from our heavenly Father.  You are in Jerusalem for the feast of Booths, and it is the last day and almost time to grab the children and wife and return home with all the stuff you bought at the Jerusalem mall. 

This new prophet Jesus, who seems to have stirred up the Pharisees by claiming to be sent from God and able to forgive sin, stood up right in the middle of us and cried with a loud voice: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  (John 7:37,38)  I dropped my (Challah) loaf of bread that I had just purchased, what was this man claiming, some said, “This really is the Prophet,” and I heard others standing in the crowd saying, “This is the Christ.”  But I also heard others saying, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee?  Has not the Scriptures said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David; he comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”  Yes, it seemed that there was a division among the people over him.  In fact, the Jerusalem Times Herald has a news flash reported, that some of the leaders wanted to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.  It was also reported that the officers that were sent to arrest him were in big trouble with the chief priests and Pharisees, it is reported that they ask, “Why did you not bring him?”  And the officer’s answer was, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

It has been over 2000 years and the crowd is still divided on, is Jesus God, or is He a lunatic?  After much study, I’ve come to understand that you must choose one of those options; He did not leave any other options.  By faith and the grace that the Father has given me, I have bowed my knee to His Lordship, Jesus is the only Son of God, He is Creator, He is my Savior and Lord.  Now unlike my imaginary person in the story, I have the understanding of verse 39, that gives clarity to what Jesus said in verses 37&38, “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

If you put yourself into the story, what part did you play, were you one of the ones that said, “This really is the Prophet?”   Or were you part of the small group that said, “This is the Christ?”  Maybe you knew just enough Scripture to have reservations that the Christ was not to come from Galilee, or were you one of the officers who came to arrest Jesus but were blown away by the things He said?  Or last, were you the religious guy who saw Jesus as a threat and wanted to kill him?   Religion always leads to killing those who are a threat!  Who were you in the story?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice