(Mis)understanding Jesus

Introduction

Illustration: It’s interesting sometimes how different people can see the same thing and come away with totally different experiences. Any Star Wars fan can tell you that. If I bring up the movie the Last Jedi in a room with enough people it could start a pretty heated argument.

I mean, anyone here who spends any time on the internet knows there’s a lot more serious things that everyone disagrees about. It seems that for many people it’s getting harder and harder to see common ground on things. Everyone feels like their point of view is obvious and they can’t understand the other side.

This has been the case throughout history. People seeing the same things and disagreeing about them. Take the raising of Lazarus that we talked about last week. Where we left of at verse 45 of chapter 11 people were putting their faith in Jesus because they were amazed at the show of power and authority that Jesus displayed when He called His friend back from the dead. However not everyone responded with belief and following Jesus. That’s where we pick it up in verse 45 of chapter 11. We’ll compare this reaction of the Pharisees with a few other reactions to Jesus that are shown at the beginning of chapter 12.

John 11:46–12:11 CSB

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God. So from that day on they plotted to kill him. Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples. Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. They were looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? He won’t come to the festival, will he?” The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it so that they could arrest him. Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, the one Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there; Martha was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray him), said, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it. Jesus answered, “Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of my burial. For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Then a large crowd of the Jews learned he was there. They came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, the one he had raised from the dead. But the chief priests had decided to kill Lazarus also, because he was the reason many of the Jews were deserting them and believing in Jesus.

Remember that all these people heard about or witnessed the same events, but had drastically different reactions. That’s why I call this sermon (mis)understanding Jesus, with the brackets. Because we see two reactions of people misunderstanding Jesus and rejecting Him with a moment in the middle of someone responding the way that we should. So in order to end on a high note we’ll look at the two bad reactions first. We will see that in the Sanhedrin we have an example of people reacting to Jesus with fear, rejecting Him based on their perception of what they could lose by following Him. We see in Judas the reaction of greed, missing Jesus because of a preoccupation with possesions or other values. Finally we will see in Mary the example for all of us as disciples of Jesus. Extravagant loving worship for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Fear

Illustration: I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been afraid of something that we shouldn’t be. The most classic example being the pile of laundry in your bedroom that at 3am looks like a serial killer.

In general God gave us fear for a reason. Fear helps us to avoid and sometimes even escape danger, even allowing our bodies to go into hyperdrive, so to speak. Fear isn’t in itself a bad thing. Yet like anything, fear can be used for bad ends, or can be directed towards things that we should not fear. It’s possible to fear even the best things in our lives and therefore avoid or run away from the blessings that God has for us.

In the case of the Pharisees in our passage this morning, their fear in the end got directed towards God’s Chosen one Himself, the Messiah and Lord Jesus. They let themselves fear the one they should have loved, and this is the result. Now keep in mind that this passage takes place immediately after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. I split the passage between the people who reacted by believing in verse 45 and the opposite reaction that we see here starting in verse 46.

John 11:46–53 CSB

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God. So from that day on they plotted to kill him.

Now I want us all to notice something crucial here. Nowhere in this conversation does anyone even bring up the possibility that Jesus’ signs were fake. Not even once. They basically just admit that He can do miracles, and don’t even deny that He raised someone from the dead. You’ll remember last week I asked the rhetorical question, “how could you not believe after a sign like that?” Well, here we’re getting our answer. In a room of 70 religious experts no one is brave enough to even broach the possibility that these signs confirm that Jesus is the Messiah and they should listen to Him. Why is that? Well you’ve probably guessed from my heading what I’m about to say. This was fear. Just look at what they say in verse 48 about what will happen if they don’t intervene. They’re afraid that if they leave Him alone He’ll cause a controversy that brings the Romans down on them.

This is of course foolish thinking. If Jesus can really work wonders and is really sent by God than why should they fear Rome? Either they don’t trust God to look after His chosen one and chosen nation, or they are lying and this isn’t the real reason they oppose Him. I think it’s pretty significant when you stop and realize that in verse 48 they say the Romans will take away their “place and nation,” meaning their positions and their country. They put their positions above their country, I think revealing the real fear they have about Jesus. He’s going to take away their position of privilege and leadership. They are going to lose the power they love so much.

This is why they plot against him, and go so far as to try to murder another to cover up the evidence of a miracle they know is legitimate.

John 12:10–11 CSB

But the chief priests had decided to kill Lazarus also, because he was the reason many of the Jews were deserting them and believing in Jesus.

This experience is of course not exclusive to the Sanhedrin. There are people throughout history that when confronted with Jesus and the gospel meet it with fear. Afraid to lose the things that we love that Jesus cannot coexist with. The sins that we live by, the habits we know we should break. But probably most of all the little thrones we sit on where we decide our own destiny and identity.

Jesus doesn’t want to be your second in command. Your co-pilot. Jesus wants to be the Lord of your Life, the King of your every day, the ruler of your identity and all that you are. That can be a scary thing if we really truly face it for all that it is.

So my friends the question we need to ask ourselves is this; are we afraid of Jesus? Do we trust Him to be who He is, or are we holding on to the authority to run our own lives. Are we like the Sanhedrin afraid that Jesus will take away our place and unwilling to let His miracles penetrate our hardened hearts? Let us instead trust Jesus and obey His rule over our lives as the good shepherd that He is.

Greed

Illustration: Some of us know the sad and frustrating feeling of being used by someone. I used to have an old friend who after school really let himself go. He started living really irresponsibly and couldn’t hold down a job any more. We used to hang out and have fun but then it seemed like he was only ever reaching out because he wanted money, and he knew that I would lend it to him if he asked.

It stings when someone you care about and want to be friends with starts to see your relationship as a means to an end. As a way to get more from you or take advantage of your kindness. I can only imagine what it must feel like for God, knowing how many people in the world are taking advantage of Him for their own gain.

Take for example Judas Iscariot, the most famous of traitors in all history. The reason no one names their kids Judas. He was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. For context, He was one of the ones wthat Jesus chose to follow Him. He was given the power to heal and cast out demons along with the other disciples. He was taught the same life changing truths and saw the same signs and miracles. Yet we learn something terrible about Judas in our passage this morning, don’t we? Let’s take a look at 12:4-6:

John 12:4–6 CSB

Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray him), said, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.

Judas was using his privileged relationship with Jesus as a way to further his own material gain. He was giving in to the root of all kinds of evil, the desire of money. Imagine walking closely with Jesus in the flesh for 3 years, all the while stealing money from the ministry. Wow. The amount of guilt and shame this man must have walked around with, yet by this point was probably callous to.

He was given every opportunity to see Jesus for who He was and follow Him with all He has and instead chose Greed. He chose financial gain over gaining the very Kingdom of God and eternal life.

Yet just like the Sanhedrin, Judas’ story is not a unique one. Lots of people in this world choose their greed over Jesus’ Kingdom. In fact many people pretend to choose God’s Kingdom to further their greed. The world is tragically filled with vile men who come in the name of Jesus telling people that if they give their last dollar to their ministry that God will bless them. They use people’s faith to manipulate them so that they can fly around in private jets and wear expensive shoes. They are a cancer on the church, destroying people’s lives and selling the gospel for fleeting gain and undermining the witness of Christ with everyone they meet, sending people to hell in the name of the almighty dollar.

Yet as important as it is to call out these snakes for what they are, we can’t get distracted by these more obvious cases of choosing greed over Jesus and miss the more subtle ways this can happen in our lives. Let’s remember the story of the rich young ruler, who came to Jesus asking what he needed to do to enter the Kingdom. Jesus called Him to sell all his posessions and give to the poor and the man walked away sad because he loved his money too much to give it up for Jesus.

Now the call to sell everything for the poor is not universal to Christians, that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. The question we need to ask ourselves is this: Is there anything in our lives we wouldn’t be willing to get rid of if Jesus asked us to? Because that’s how we find our idols. How we find the ways our greed is holding us back from being disciples of Jesus. And those just might be the things we most need to get rid of to be the disciples that Jesus wants us to be.

So I invite you all to pray a dangerous prayer with me, that God would help us to find the places where our greed is holding us back from giving everything to Him. To ask Him if there’s anything we need to give up in our lives to be better disciples who make disciples.

Worship

Illustration: Some of us do crazy things when we’re young and in love. Or even just young and in like. I’m gonna embarrass my Dad a little here, because he has an infamous story about this kind of thing. One time when he was a young man there was this girl he really liked. She did not like him. Yet she told him that if he jumped off the roof of a building she would kiss him. So my dad being the wise and reasonable person that he is decided that this was a good idea, and not at all a sarcastic challenge from an uninterested girl. So he jumped off that roof and broke his leg. She did not kiss the girl.

I guess the moral of the story is that when you have strong feelings for someone, sometimes your brain sort of exists stage right, you know? You lose your ability to reason a little. Sometimes it makes for funny stories like this, but it also sometimes makes for really sweet stories that you tell your children or grandchildren some day. Sometimes it leads to grand gestures that show in concrete ways that you care for someone and moves them in appreciation.

This is the sort of thing I think about when I read the story of Mary anointing Jesus that we see in this chapter. This is described very briefly and beautifully in verse 3 of chapter 12.

John 12:3 CSB

Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

I think we need a little context here to really appreciate why this story makes me think of young people in love doing crazy things to show it. What Mary did here might seem pretty tame by today’s standards, but it was actually pretty scandalous. For one, this expensive perfume she used was worth an entire year’s salary for the average worker in the first century. So conservatively an estimate of around $30,000 of perfume. So if it wasn’t for Judas’ alterior motives you could totally see his point from a particular point of view.

The other thing we need to understand is how Jewish women expressed modesty with their hair. It was considered immodest at best to go out in public with uncovered hair in this time. In our culture of shamelessness today it’s hard to translate this to terms that are equivalent, so I won’t really try, but understand that what she was doing was considered an act of public indecency by undoing her hair so she could wipe his feet with it.

Understanding these two points brings light to why the room filled with criticisms of Mary. What she was doing was wasteful and indecent. Surely Jesus would rebuke her, right? Yet instead this is what Jesus says.

John 12:7–8 CSB

Jesus answered, “Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of my burial. For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Jesus is not so worried about the practical side of this moment because He sees this for what it is. Mary is worshipping Him. She is expressing her love for her master, possibly directly inspired by her brother’s resurrection. Jesus won’t rebuke us for our crazy acts of worship, if they are sincere. Maybe everything doesn’t always have to be about what’s most logical and practical. Maybe sometimes we should act like young people in love and do some crazy sappy things to express our worship to the God we love.

When’s the last time you worshipped God with reckless abandon? I remember that happening a lot when I was young in the faith, but sometimes our relationship with Jesus can become a ritual we do. It can become a mundane everyday thing that never goes more than skin deep. Maybe we need to get a little more sloppy and unprofessional in our worship of Jesus.

Conclusion

Throughout John’s Gospel there’s this sort of rhythm of going between Jesus’ miracles, or signs as John prefers to call them, and the reactions of the people who witness what Jesus does and says. I think it’s John and the Holy Spirit’s intention to show us how people react to the gospel and to ask ourselves who we are in this story. So the question is, when faced with the gospel will we be like the Sanhedrin? Will we let fear drive our lives and avoid Jesus so that we can maintain the control we think we have over ourselves? Will we be like Judas, distracted by material things and thinking of how to get more for ourselves from the gospel? Or will we be like Mary, recklessly abandoning ourselves to worship Jesus out of an overflow of thankfulness for the love He has shown us by dying for us, and the hope He has given us in the resurrection.

I think we know what the right answer is. So the time has come for our self reflection for the week. Let’s ask ourselves this week if we’re letting fear hold us back. If Jesus really has control over our lives or if we’re putting our own hand back on the wheel so to speak. Let’s ask ourselves this week if there’s any material things in our life we wouldn’t give up if Jesus asked us to, and if there’s anything we do need to give up to grow closer to Him. Here and now let us close out this service in a spirit of abandoned worship, thinking about what Jesus has done for us and how we can express our heart of thankfulness to Him in earnest.

Let us pray.