21-day challenge Day #7: John 7

Read: John 7

My Key Verse: John 7:46 "No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards declared.

My Reflections: Jesus is speaking in the most visible location at the most attended event in the region. He waits until the very busiest day to give his message that carries the most weight.

The Pharisees have had enough and send temple guards to arrest him, but the guards return emptyhanded. They don't talk about the riot that would have happened if they'd grabbed Jesus in that setting--that may have been excusable. They chalk it up to belief.

"No one ever spoke the way this man does," they tell their bosses. In a time of high profits and social unrest (hmmm...sounds familiar) they are struck by the message they hear. Not really a feel good message, but one of confrontation mixed with hope--but a hope couched in terms they'd never heard before.

It made an impression. It gave hardened military men reason for pause...reason to doubt their orders from their superiors. Who was this Galillean that some called the Prophet and some called the Christ and who spoke of himself as Bread from heaven and the Well of life?

My Prayer: My God, don't ever let me forget that the draw is Jesus. Not programs or experiences or sermons...those things have their place, but lifting up a winsome Jesus who confronted the moral complacency of his time... the lack of social justice... and the self-pleasing, self-centered religion. Jesus, the rebel, still draws people to himself...people on the fringe; people who have little hope; people who society has labeled losers; people who've experienced wealth and power and found that they don't satisfy. Help me lift up Jesus.