~ A Stabilized Orbit ~
(A 10-part series on John 7:11–John 8:59)
Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards declared.
“You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. “Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?”
They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
Then each went to his own home.
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. (John 7:45-8:1)
TWO REALMS , not just worlds, are on an impending collision course, and when the representatives of these two cosmological bodies impact one another, the magnitude of force and the collateral damage to the adjacent bodies in lesser orbits will be great indeed. The champion of heaven has come to dethrone the one cast down from heaven. The outcome is inevitable, foretold by Isaiah: “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth. You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.” (Isa. 14:12-15)
Jesus well knows this, but it is hidden from the Pharisees—they who have diligently searched the Holy Writ, yet rejected the very one for whom they are looking. They are merely pawns in a much larger game, and as they mutter in their obsessive rage, Jesus leaves to refresh himself in prayer and solitude at the Mount of Olives. It is but a half-kilometer away, and from there he can look down upon Jerusalem and weep. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matt. 23:37-39)
The guards, held hard in lesser orbit by the gravitational pull of the Pharisees, have encountered something completely outside their comprehension—a celestial visitor of incredible mass, on a different orbit, not from a different galaxy, but from a trajectory out of heaven, who has shaken the very foundation of the earth. They are confused, confounded by the sheer power of Jesus’ presence, and uncertain of their mission: “No one ever spoke the way this man does.” (John 7:46)
We would not be surprised to see shards of enamel splintering off the teeth of their masters, so vehement is their response: “You mean he has deceived you also? Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.” (John 7:47-49) Only Nicodemus remains a voice of reason. “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?” (John 7:51) The situation remains unresolved for now to all these onlookers, at least to those who only have their own outcomes in mind. In fact, the end result has already been predetermined, and now it is only a matter of the fullness of time.
We are impatient, all of us who whirl in the lesser orbits—always in such a hurry to accomplish what we think of as our part in the big picture. Our time-line is short, and linear; perhaps seventy-eight years or so. But the arc of time involved in creation is much longer. Is that measured by atomic clocks, or in geological ages? The scientific guesstimate of the age of our earth at thirteen point eight billion years is almost comprehensible to us; but then, our already tenuous perception becomes hopelessly distorted as we attempt to comprehend a viable vision of the Creator, who has always been, is now, and evermore will be. (cf. Rev. 1:8) Only he knows the big picture; it is laughably presumptuous of us to think otherwise. There is no firm place for us to stand to gain an objective perspective of such transcendent reality—at least, no physical, literal spot.
There is however, a way to put our enquiring minds to rest, and it is a way that is in one way good enough, and in another, all that we can know, and in another, the best way possible. It is this: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)
Q. Is the center of gravity that acts upon my axis firmly fixed?
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