25. Who is Jesus?
February 20th, 2010
Woe to you
We have seen Jesus in a battle against Beelzebub now we get to see Him battle against religion. This is actually a major theme in the Gospel of Luke. Over and over we see this conflict between Jesus and religious people. Religion is a fundamental set of beliefs and practices shared by a number of people. Our religion here is to be non-religious. We are ever, only, always about Jesus. The rules we follow are the commands of Jesus not the traditions of man. We follow Jesus in efforts to live like Him that we may become His disciples. Following Jesus doesn’t come with a list of fundamental practices. Jesus does not follow a strict set of rules He lives His life under the authority of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Religion is about practices, traditions, rules, and rituals. Jesus is not about regulation but relationships. Religion values beliefs over people. Jesus values people. He has come not to give us more rules but to save us from the burden of the law. Jesus goes against religion and putting them together is like mixing country and music. The two just don’t go together. Jesus battling religious people: this should be fun.
The religious leaders are playing games. They goofing around with the rules and picking needless fights to position themselves in authority. In the process they are treating people like pawns and honest, God-seeking people are being hurt under the whim of selfish religious rulers. These religious people come into Jesus life to pick fights with Him. They use their interpretation of God’s Word to try and argue with God. Life lesson: this is a bad idea. Arguing with God is dumb enough don’t try to use His own words against Him. Jesus doesn’t start this fight but He is going to finish it.
We are in Luke 11:37. Jesus has just shown us what turns us into religious people. In Jesus day they didn’t have electricity. When it got dark they would go home and light a lamp and put it in the center of the room so it could light up as much of the house as possible. The light was the center of their lives. The light is what enables you to see in the darkness. That what Jesus is, He is our light and everything we see should be through Him. We should put Jesus and His truth at the center of our lives so He can illuminate everything. The religious people they don’t want to subject themselves to Jesus authority so they try to hide Him under a bowl. The light doesn’t go out and so they close their eyes so they don’t have to see Him. This is conscious rebellion against God. This is what religious people do. They know what Jesus says, light is in their lives but they don’t like it, they don’t want to follow it, so they close their eyes and ignore it.
Jesus is going to have an encounter with some very religious people. After all the excitement from Jesus casting out a demon a Pharisee invites Jesus over to his house for brunch. This seems weird since Jesus and the Pharisees really don’t get along. Pharisees represent the ultra-conservative party of religious organization. They started off as layman who saw the problem of Israel as their continual unfaithfulness to the commands of God. So they decide it was time for a change. They separated themselves from the rest of their people by strictly applying Old Testament commands to every part of their lives. Their original goal was good: get God’s people to follow God’s commands so they may live under God’s blessing. Like kids left unattended in a candy store they have indulged themselves to the point of intoxication. The Old Testament contains 613 laws. The Pharisees decided that wasn’t enough. So they made more. They replaced God with the law and people became objects to be ruled over not human beings to be loved.
They invite Jesus over for a meal and He agrees to come. We have already seen that Jesus eats with sinners. The religious people don’t really understand why. How come mechanic spends so much time with broken cars? It is their job to fix them. Jesus spends time with sinners. He doesn’t approve or condone their sin but He spends time with them. Jesus eats with sinners because eating by yourself gets lonely. The religious people have forgotten that they are sinners too. They think their adherence to all the rules negates the fact that they sin. Jesus doesn’t just eat with sinners He eats with religious people as well.
Lk 11:37 When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. Lk 11:38 But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised. Lk 11:39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. Lk 11:40 You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? Lk 11:41 But give what is inside └ the dish┘ to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
Jesus gets invited over for a meal. When He comes in Jesus doesn’t wash His hands. Howie Mandel and all his germaphob friends freak out. Gross Jesus didn’t wash His hands, He is going eat with dirty fingers. Trying to have a meal with Jewish leaders is like hoping for a Christmas bonus from Ebenezer Scrooge. These guys have lots of rituals about cleanliness. They have rules upon rules and interpretations on top of the rules. It’s like trying to have a discussion at the dentist, it’s not going to be fun or pretty. This washing was not for physical cleanliness it was a ceremonial act of cleansing.
Jews were supposed to wash their hands with at least half an egg shell worth of water. Where on earth they got this idea I don’t know. Who sets a broken shell as a standard of measurement? They would pour the water over their hands with their fingers pointed down so the water would wash the sin off instead of up to your sleeves. I just hate it when I get sin on my sleeves, then you got the special sin spray to get out, if you wait to long the sin totally sets in and then the shirt is ruined. These ceremonial washings could get pretty ridiculous. They have different requirements based on the people you came in contact with during the day. If you bumped into a teacher you might just need the typical half egg shell of water but if you bumped into someone like a used car salesman you might need to scrub all the way up to your elbows. It was crazy. Religious people like to make rules for God. When Jesus doesn’t play their stupid game they accuse Him of being ceremonially unclean. Jesus responds by accusing them of being spiritually unclean. They just challenged the Son of God to a duel. This is going to be fun.
Jesus has just broken the first rule of civilized meals. He ate without first going through the ceremonial hand washing rituals. This is the Biblical version of double dipping. Sensible people are going to object to this barbaric behavior. Jesus can give us His life but not His germs, forget that. The religious leaders were obsessed with looking clean as religion tends to be very appearance focused. Jesus says you guys look clean but you are missing what is really important: being clean. Jesus does this on purpose. He is saying: I do not acknowledge or accept your rules. Your religious behavior means nothing to me. You look clean but your insides are like the content of Mad Magazine, dirty and gross. If you to impress me than clean up the inside. Which is not the nicest thing in the world to say and Jesus doesn’t stop there.
These guys are trying to impose their own rules on Jesus as if they are the rules from God. Jesus is like: dude I’m not schizophrenic I would have remember making up such a stupid rule as this. Jesus is confronting their religious system because they are putting the rules about Jesus. Rules are all about the external not about the heart. External appearances are all about a person’s location, the heart is about a person’s transformation. Jesus cares more about where a person’s heart is then which ceremonial cleansing they do before dinner. This sort external focus creates judges who look at a person and say: they don’t look right. Jesus looks at the heart and says; but you are just not right. Religion is set up to judge the appearance of a person’s life. Relationships evaluate not just where a person is but where they have come from.
Religion equates opinions with God’s law. I don’t like this thus it is wrong. We like instruments in worship therefore God wants instruments. We don’t like alcohol therefore alcohol is a sin. There are some very strange people don’t like to eat meat. That’s ok that’s your opinion. The rest of us think you are crazy but whatever. When you start telling me that meat is murder because we are killing God’s creatures and so it is wrong and it’s a sin. I’m going to say: if meat is murder it is tasty tasty murder and I am fan of tasty murder. Your opinion is not the same as the will of God. That is what religion does. If the Bible doesn’t say it, neither can you. There is no book of 1 Opinions in the Bible. There is a 2 Opinions but keep those to yourself.
Here is the problem with these religious people. They are sitting comfortably at their nice table with all their fancy food. They can throw extravagant parties to show off. Outside their diner parties are people who are struggling to get enough to eat. There are people begging for scraps and they are sitting in comfort enjoying their lavish lives. They have become so disconnected from the people around them that they no longer care for those in need. Jesus says to them: “you know what. If you really were as clean as you look then you wouldn’t be so afraid of getting your hands dirty to help those in need.”
Lk 11:42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. Lk 11:43 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Lk 11:44 “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.” Lk 11:45 One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Lk 11:46 Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
Jesus critique continues. Religious people are dedicated to destruction. They are committed to things that do not matter while they ignore the things that do. You tithe mint leaves from your garden which is ridiculous. Out the garden pulling off leaves: nine for me…one for you. You get the details of the law right, but you miss the point. They are missing the fourth of July for a sparkler. They are serious about the law but they don’t really love God. It’s like getting every question on the final right but still failing the class.
These guys are concerned more about their own glory than the glory of God. They want people to know their names, to open doors for them, to offer them the best seats, and to marvel at being in their presence. They want to be kings, they want to be God. They want big titles and respect even though they haven’t done anything to earn it.
Jesus says you guys are like unmarked graves. One of the quickest ways to become defiled was to come into contact with the dead. Even walking over a tomb would make you unclean. They white washed their tombs and put markers in the ground to warn people because if you stepped on a grave you became unclean for a week. Well that is what the Pharisees were doing to their people. Religious people are spiritually dead. Jesus is saying not only are you guys not clean, you’re an infection. You are a disease that makes everyone who comes into contact with you unclean.
An expert in the law speaks up, and I love this guy. He is a tool. He protests Jesus rebuke. This guy is a lawyer also likely a Pharisee. He is one sharp cookie. Jesus has been laying into them for awhile now and he goes: “Hey…I don’t like what you are saying.” Welcome to the party pal. Now this scribe represents an elite version of the Pharisees, so they have an elite version of their superiority complex.
Jesus didn’t distinguish between elite Pharisees and regular Pharisees so this guy is asking Jesus to clarify. Certainly you are not talking about me, Jesus. This dude presents what is in a lot of our hearts. When someone finally tells us the truth we need to hear calling us to repent and change our ways and we often try to ignore it by convincing ourselves that Jesus isn’t talking about us.
Lk 11:47 “Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. Lk 11:48 So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Lk 11:49 Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ Lk 11:50 Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, Lk 11:51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all. Lk 11:52 “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” Lk 11:53 When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, Lk 11:54 waiting to catch him in something he might say.
The scribes had the keys to knowledge. They knew the correct interpretation of Scripture but they kept it hidden. They did not enter in to the kingdom of God but they also refused to let anyone else enter. Religion hinders redemption. They knew the truth but wouldn’t teach it. The problem with religion is religious people care more about how things look then how things are. Religious people care more about their rules then God’s rules. They care more about power then people. Everything is about control. Religion does not save. Religion stands in the way of those who are truly seeking salvation. Religion is a system that forces people to be like each other instead of being like Jesus.
The only thing that really matters is Jesus. Religion is not an addition to Jesus. It’s all Jesus. It’s only Jesus. Anything else is an idol that pulls us away from Him. Religion is about rules but what Jesus does on the cross is makes us righteous. We live then not to earn His favor but in response to His grace. Jesus gave His life for you. The life He offers us is a gift. We can accept it by living our lives in response to His great love. It’s not religion it is a radical new lifestyle where fallen man can live in a relationship with God. Jesus didn’t die to give you more rules. Jesus died so we could be reunited with God.
