“Until then have the house you’re making”

If you’ve been reading recent Infos for Islanders you may feel that you’re beginning to know what kind of people the scribes and Pharisees were back in AD 30 Jerusalem. And maybe, like me, by thinking about them you’ve recognized people you may know personally who have similar attributes and attitudes and lives. 

Maybe, like me again, you’ve begun to feel that these educated religious and political leaders were so wrong that they must not be listened to or stay on as leaders – as blind guides.

All that we’ve heard so far about these educated religious, politically-aware people is from Matthew’s biography of Jesus. The words in bold above were stated by Jesus in the final few hours before he was wrongfully convicted by two separate courts as guilty of criminal offences deserving the cruellest of deaths. Within hours he was dead. Within days he rose again. 

If you were required to make a judgment, what might you decide was the greatest evil of these play-actors? 

 

Jesus was very clear about their most critical desire. He said this, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her young under her wings, and you didn’t want that.

Jesus wanted to gather the people together under his wings like a hen with her chicks but they did not want that to happen. They were decidedly against it. They decided to put this good man to death.

To Jesus this wasn’t a matter of getting people to go to church and outwardly appear to be good – that’s what the scribes and Pharisees were doing quite effectively. His objective was personally to gather his young under his wings so they might know him and trust him for everything.

They – these educated leaders – didn’t want that. The AD 30 Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees wanted him killed. He was to be done away with so their leadership could remain and thrive despite its covert uncleanness. After all, they were the successful ones and had a right to remain well-off.

What should Jesus do to them? He actually did absolutely nothing. Here’s what he told the scribes and Pharisees, Look and see, your house is left to you, ruined…. Your house is left to you, ruined, because I am saying to you that you may not see me again, until you may say, ‘Worthy is he who is coming in the name of the Lord.’ 

No retaliation by Jesus. No escape from the death they and others are planning for him. He’s decided to go under – to submit to all their planned evil against him. 

 

Can you understand this? Where, where is his “me”? Why not fight back? Is it because by going to that cross – and rising again – he will achieve his objective – the gathering of his young chicks under his wing?

In fact, he is going under, under death, so as to be able to forgive his enemies – even the scribes and Pharisees and high priests and people who put him to death. That’s exactly what he did. He died his death for others that Friday afternoon and rose again that first Easter Sunday AD 30.

What of the educated play-actors? Their house would, through their own covert wickedness, become desolate until they would see how worthy was the one who had come – and would come again – to them in the name of the LORD God. 

"Until then, have the house you’re making...."