What Made Them So.....ANGRY?

 

Friday, May 13, 2022

As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.  He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him.  His rule is eternal—it will never end.  His kingdom will never be destroyed.  Daniel 7:13-14

Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Well, aren’t you going to answer these charges?  What do you have to say for yourself?”  But Jesus remained silent.  Then the high priest said to him, “I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”  Jesus replied, “You have said it.  And in the future you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.”  Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy!  Why do we need other witnesses?  You have all heard his blasphemy.  What is your verdict?”  “Guilty!” they shouted.  “He deserves to die!”  Then they began to spit in Jesus’ face and beat him with their fists. And some slapped him, jeering, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah!  Who hit you that time?”  Matthew 26:62-68

These two texts, Daniel’s vision of the Messiah of the future, and the answers Jesus gave the High Priest at his trial, seemed the cause for the religious leaders rushing to their guilty verdict.  But this was just the dog-and-pony show, a pseudo-righteous legal stunt upon which to lay their cold, calculating, almost sociopathic extermination of (what they saw as) another pretend Messiah.

The High Priest wasn’t leaping to any sudden judgment; they’d been planning this for months on end.[1] 

But the question remains, WHY?  Why were the High Priest and the Sanhedrin Council so angry?  It seems the only answer that fits from any angle is, simply, what Jesus was claiming was true!  And, if that is the simplicity of the matter, there are only two possible outcomes in the case of the religious leaders seeing truth standing before them: 

#1.  According to Jesus, the truth will set you free – and it is unquestionably so that did not happen here; anger definitely does not free the human soul.  Just the opposite, anger enslaves and shrivels the human soul.

Which leaves only the alternative:

#2.  The unvarnished truth scared them stupid! 

When humans allow anger to rule them it leads to outcomes of violence, such as what we have witnessed in 21^st Century culture with alarming regularity, and increasing brutality…from video games to Olympic games, the nightly news is overwhelmingly filled with blood and mayhem.

Being scared-stupid never has a pretty outcome.  In this case the outcome was jaw-dropping, as it always is when human despises the Divine; it never gets uglier than that.

For You Today

James Russell Lowell penned the words that define what the High Priest and Sanhedrin were about that day:

Truth forever on the scaffold, 

wrong forever on the throne.

Make certain your life is surrendered to turning that around.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Matthew 26:4, Mark 11:18, 14:1, Luke 19:47, John 5:18