EVERY GOOD SPEAKER crafts their message for their intended audience. There are audiences that have a very close association with and interest in the speaker’s vision and core values. There are more generalized audiences, who have an interest in the basic subject matter but no real depth of understanding. And, there are audiences that are very familiar with the subject matter but may have diametrically opposing values. The core group in some ways are the most demanding, but they are also the most receptive and capable of understanding. This group and the speaker invest time in each other. The general audience is quite appreciative, far less demanding, and always necessary to invest initial time in, for they broaden the reach of the message. Those of opposing views are trying in a different way than the core group; they may become the hecklers, and every speaker has to have several strategies to keep them from subverting the message. And in this category, at the far fringe and very dangerous, are the enemies.
Jesus is clearly a master of speaking in each and in all of the depicted aforementioned scenarios. Each, because he faces them individually and frequently; all, because he must often-times speak in an open forum that has all three groups present at the same time. A careful study of such scenes elicits our admiration for how adept Jesus is as master of every circumstance. The clearest example of his core group teaching we see as he explains the key of all parables, the Seed and the Sower, to his close disciples afterwards. “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.” (Matt. 13:11-12) The greatest example of dealing with a broad audience is seen leading up to the feeding of thousands, which occurs twice. At the earliest event, “About four thousand men were present.” (Mark 8:9) Later, “The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.” (Matt. 14:21) In neither event is there any apparent discord, though there is an object lesson for the core group, who questioned how the crowds would be fed. Jesus told them, “You give them something to eat.” (Luke 9:13)
Consider two events in Jesus’ ministry, the first in a section from the Sermon on the Mount. Here he is speaking to a mixed audience, and at this point in time he has not yet built up a regular opposition to his teaching. His words are strongly cautionary; a house has been built on a foundation of sand, and “The winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matt. 7:25) The second event comes later in his ministry, and at this point the scribes and the Pharisees, with full support and direction from the Temple priesthood, have already decided to kill him. Jesus uses the metaphor of a house again, and against his detractors. “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” (Mark 3:23b-25)
In the earlier event, the crowds surrounding him on the mount are easy to speak with and to—they are receptive to the message. Those that surround him in the second setting have engaged him in spiritual warfare, and here he must be wary and aware of each word he speaks. In both events Jesus uses the metaphor of a house as the image of the realm of the individual’s identity, and as a place that must be guarded.
In the second, the consequences are more far-reaching. One is a teaching on spiritual warfare and the individual need for, literally and figuratively, foundational wisdom. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” (Matt. 7:26-27) The other also involves spiritual warfare, but it takes place in two realms of powers and principalities.
The battle in the lowest realm, reflected in the second example, is individual in the sense that it is Jesus contending against those who would take his life in the earthly realm. “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” (John 19:11) But this also pits Jesus against the power of Satan in a realm of principality above this physical realm, but which Satan directs through the physical means that he has at his disposal in the natural world. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers.” (2 Cor. 4:4)
As Jesus continues in his journey, every step brings him closer to the cross; each confrontation exposes him to more and more of the most dangerous of his enemies—those who seek his very life—and each scene becomes more and more confrontational. And in each and every tense confrontation, Jesus never mis-speaks his message. He is always on-target with the kind of encouraging words—including rebuke—that his closest disciples need to hear. “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:32)
He is always on-target with the broad comments that his less-committed audiences must hear to at least stir their interest, perhaps sting their conscience, and which hopefully in the stories that swirl around his impending death, might lead them to salvation. At the Feast of Tabernacles, many knew of the plot to kill Jesus. In the midst of controversy while teaching there, Jesus says loudly during an attempted arrest, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.” (c.f. John 7:25-34)
But as the cross comes in clear view, his message to his dangerous enemies in both realms changes. When he answers the false charges brought against him in front of the high priest, Caiaphas, his tone seems to them as one defeated. Caiaphas angrily demands, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” (Matt. 26:63) Jesus responds, we imagine quietly, simply, “Yes, it is as you say, but I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matt. 26:64)
This is all that his enemies have needed and waited for. This, finally, is the misstep in Jesus’ message, the thing that he says that gives them victory. This is what his enemies have sought, and now found, and their battle is won. He is weak, tired, he has given up. His life is over at this point; it is merely a matter of a few more hours, a few more legal formalities, and they will have in fact what they have just gained in position. Except for this one detail. “In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matt. 26:64)
In gaining what they have sought, the Jewish leaders have sealed the dire prophetic fate of the nation. If they had interpreted scripture correctly, which was their daily task, they would have understood that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, and the annihilation of the nation in 68 A.D. by the armies of Rome would not now be looming in front of them.
But that was never the plan. And Jesus never misspoke his message. In his death, designed and permitted by the Father, his message has gone clearly out into the history and destiny of those who live out their generation in the lower realm. Scripture tells us: “But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:12-14) His message remains as it began, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matt. 4:17) And his core group of disciples continue to say, “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
Q. Am I hearing the foundational message of Jesus?
Leave a Reply