Father, please direct my thoughts and actions. It is way too easy to allow my own thoughts and actions to take over…and that is never a good thing. You “must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” John 3:30 NLT
Luke 23:27-31 (<<click here to read the passage)
How many times do we go through the motions of what we think is the right thing to do, when in truth we are clueless?
When I was fresh out of college, my first ministerial opportunity was as a Minister of Music at a nice-sized congregation in suburban St. Louis. (My degree is in Church Music.) It was a wonderful opportunity! I had a great choir, lead congregational singing, and coordinated special music. You get the picture.
I hadn’t been there quite two years when a big point of reality set in. The senior pastor had big ideas for where he felt the Lord was leading the church but there were quite a few congregants who felt it was the wrong direction to go.
I had grown up in the church and my father was a pastor, so you think I would have figured it out. But sometimes youth is not all it is cracked up to be!
It came down to a congregational vote. One member suggested that the proposition be tabled so it could be looked at in more depth. The pastor was leading the meeting and decided that everyone would vote by standing. So, the first vote was to approve the delay – I thought it was a good idea, so I stood, and boy was that the wrong decision! Needless to say, things went downhill from there! Eventually, the pastor resigned, the youth pastor stepped down, and I left shortly thereafter – sad but true.
As Jesus is trudging along toward His pending execution, He stopped to speak to women who were a part large crowd of the people who were following Him. Some of these women were mourning and wailing for Him. He said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”
There were doing what was socially acceptable. They were doing the right thing. But in truth they were clueless. Some may have known Jesus. Others, we might call ambulance chasers – they didn’t know Him, but they knew it was an awful situation in which to find yourself.
Now Jesus was doing the right thing for the right reason and by no means was He going through the motions. No one else saw the reality of it all…but He did. He admonished them not to weep for Him but for themselves.
It looked like His time was soon to be up but what they didn’t realize was that sooner than they realized their time would be up – along with all of Jerusalem and all of Judea. Within 40 years, Jerusalem and the Temple would be utterly destroyed by the Romans.
Jesus’ last recorded statement here is, “For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
In essence, He was saying, “If the innocent has to suffer what will happen to the guilty.” (Amplified Bible note)
He was suffering unjustly as, truly, He was innocent of all accusations…all sin. But what would happen to those who were truly guilty?
We are in the same boat. We think we’re doing the right things in life, but we are clueless. Only by falling in with the Truth – Jesus – can we have any assurance. We may not know when and where our life will end but we can know what will happen to the guilty, if and only if, we have surrendered our lives to Him. May it be so.
Jan 11th, 2021, Mon, 6:65 pm
