IN THE MIDST
Luke 4:28-30 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
When Jesus comes around someone is always getting mad. Why does man have such a chip on its shoulder when it comes to God? Did God cause us to fall into sin? Does God take a little child, conceived with Adam’s inherited sin lying dormant in its little body, and lead the child into making decisions that will unlock the depraved symptoms of sin’s progressive encroachment? God is not to blame for our choices. God knows the plight of the child born in sin. Certainly, all of creation was changed when Adam sinned. But, the curse God announced was the consequence of sin and at the same time the curse He pronounced was the sentence for disobedience. Through this we learn that sin affects not only the individual but those and that which are around us. Yet, God did not only reveal consequence and justice through a curse, but mercy, compassion, and redemption through promise. He knows the sad end of the story for that child born in sin. So, God became the author and instrument of the cure. That promise and cure is found in Jesus Christ. Why do we have that chip on our shoulders against God?
It is ironic that Jesus began his ministry in much the same way it ended. As long as Jesus had kept to himself, remained just the son of a carpenter, and spoke truth in isolation, everyone was happy. But, as soon as Jesus hung his physician’s tile, so to speak, worked his trade as the Son of God, and proclaimed the truth abroad, men were ready to kill him.
In the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry the religious got angry with him. At the end of his ministry the religious got angry with him. In both cases they seized him and took him out of the city unto a hill to kill him. They thought to cast him down. It didn’t work in either case. “But he passing through the midst of them went his way,” Whether on a hill in Nazareth or a cross outside Jerusalem Jesus passed through the midst of them and went his way. The people couldn’t hold him, death couldn’t claim him, and the grave couldn’t keep him. Christ went his way and sits at the right hand of the Throne.
Luke 4:31 And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days.
Just like before Jesus will come down. His business here isn’t at an end. He has passed through the midst and is soon to come down. Christ came with the cure, to redress the innocence in our indiscriminate birth, and provide escape from destruction.
God passed though the midst to live in our midst. Not the midst of many, but the midst of one. God the Spirit lives in the midst of those who’ve received the cure. Not the fixing of the ravages of the disease, but the irradiation of the disease. The Holy Spirit lives in the sons of God as a reminder that though our lives are ravaged by the symptoms of sin’s disease, the disease is gone. And when the death of our body, itself a symptom of disease, overtakes us, the Holy Spirit links us with and to God. Death could not claim the spoils of victory with Christ. With the Holy Spirit in our midst death can’t claim the victory over us. We too, with God in us, will pass through.
If we are born, we will die. Are you willing to ignore the cure?
There is God’s justice that never compromises and is no respecter of persons. Numbers 21:6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
There is man’s acknowledgment and confession. Yet the confession and acknowledgment did nothing for the people. It held no cure or atoned for any sin. They went to Moses their priest, yet his prayers could not cure them. Numbers 21:7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
There is God’s mercy, provision, and only way. (How many people had searched for a cure? How many others claimed to know how to heal the afflicted? How many tried everything they could think of for themselves? How many did everything possible for loved ones? They all died of the bite even with every scheme, remedy, prayer, and concept they could devise on their own or through others.) When God makes the way for deliverance there is no other. Numbers 21:9 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
There is God’s mercy to all, yet only a few received it. Any one afflicted could receive the cure and live. It was only necessary to behold the way of God’s deliverance; to believe and lift up the eyes unto God’s outstretched, right, hand. The world can do the same. All we need is to look up to Christ, the right hand of God, stretched out and imploring, the only way to live through God’s judgment. Numbers 21:9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
God never once removed the serpents from the people. The people had been disobedient and were suffering justly the consequence and sentence for their sinful unbelief. He did, though, through mercy and promise, remove the penalty of death to the believer. The world today is suffering the curse through Adam; both the consequence and sentence for sinful unbelief. Our unbelief will lead to death and destruction, separated from God. All we must do is look, behold, and believe in Jesus Christ, the savior of the world.
Which would we rather have - life or death?
The answer seems obvious.
Yet, not everyone believes and lives.
