No Safety For a Savior
23 Mar
John 13:31-35
Let’s re-imagine the days leading up to the death of Jesus. Let’s suggest just for a moment that Jesus did not intend to die-at least not yet.
What if, on this night, rather than gathering together his disciple to serve them and to say “goodbye,” Jesus had gathered them together to devise a plan and plot a route to escape to safety. Where could Jesus go without being killed for saying things like “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Or “I and the Father are one.” Where could Jesus and his friends go while still telling people that he was the Savior and find a safe haven.
Some places are safer than others, not just for Jesus but for all of us. Some time ago University of South Carolina scientists gathered decades
of death related data to determine where people were most at risk of falling victim to an unforeseen trip to the afterlife. Their study didn’t track the likelihood of death by crucifixion. Rather the group created a county by county map of the US, measuring the risk of hazard-related deaths due to natural events such as floods earthquakes, or extreme weather. Some dubbed it the “Death Map.” For example, hazard mortality is most prominent in the South where scorching heat, hurricanes, tornadoes, and flooding along the Gulf Coast are a reality. Surprisingly, according to the research we should all consider moving to Southern California in order to avoid an untimely demise. Well, back to Jesus. Where should he go to hide out and avoid the persecution? Where would Jesus be least likely to die for doing his thing?
I. The first suggestion of a safe place could be Nazareth. Surely his hometown would be a safe place.
But, going home can be difficult. Just ask the small-town boy who has made it as a big-city lawyer or the little girl who has gone to college, earned a degree and has now seen as much of the world as Mom and Dad. When Dr. Smith heads home to New Hampshire, she is still little Sarah to some and when the father of five visits his folks back in Iowa, to Mom and Dad he’s just one of the boys. Many times when we go home, people around us struggle to see just who we’ve become because they are comfortable with who we used to be.
Jesus fought this. He had been home and proclaimed his role. But, his home town did not respond favorably. He was not received at all with love and acceptance. In fact, they took him out to the cliff to kill him.
Like many folks today who encounter Jesus, the folks in Nazareth didn’t want to deal with his claims that “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” They wanted the Jesus who was just a good boy all grown up; a good man who made his folks proud. Not a “miracle-working” Jesus or a “one-and-only Messiah” Jesus, but a hometown boy who lived an honorable life. That’s it. Anything else is uncomfortable. So that means that Nazareth would not be a safe place for Jesus.
II. Well, if Nazareth would not be safe, maybe Jesus could go to Caesarea Philippi and hide out.
CP was a place where worship of anything, done in any manner was fair game. There were no limits. Jesus surely would have been safe there. He would have been seen as just another crazy cult leader among many. He really could have blended into the culture and disappeared from danger. But, I don’t know if you have noticed, those tolerant people who embrace the “all-roads-lead-to-the-same-God” mindset, and whose mantra is the virtue of tolerance, are often the same people who are extremely intolerant of those who claim exclusivity. And Christianity is indeed a very exclusive. Jesus himself said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me.” As a general rule people who have found a god they enjoy don’t like someone coming around and telling them they have it all wrong. This means Jesus would have had to change his message to some sort of “all kind of paths”message.
Caeserea-Philippi was not a safe place.
III. The truth is nowhere was safe for Jesus. Wherever he went he would face nothing but hostility.
Regardless of where he would go on a map, conflict with people who would refuse to confess him as Christ is inevitable. Then and now, there are those who want a human Jesus, not a divine Jesus. There are those who would rather have a Jesus made in their own image, a Jesus who allows them to keep worshipping their own gods. There are those who want a Jesus who’s just a good teacher of truth and not the ultimate embodiment of it.
There will always be those who’d rather kill Jesus and stay comfortable than bow to him and be transformed.
Jesus refused to take the safe way. This meant hiding out in some hazard free zone was out of the question. He went to the heart of the opposition Jerusalem.
It was there, on the cross, where the conflict between who Jesus claimed to be and who the world wanted him to be came to a head. It was there, as the world killed a man people thought was a lunatic and a liar, that Jesus initiated his reign as Lord, shedding blood for their sin and procuring their future in the Father’s family. And when those who killed him were confident they had proven him wrong, Jesus would quietly but confidently come back, assuring the world everything he had said was true.
We too must realize to stand for Christ means that there is no safe zone. We understand that truly presenting the gospel will very often find opposition. Many people don’t find an exclusive gospel appealing even in our day today. We live among a lot of CP people who want everything their own way. They want to determine what way they will use to get to heaven. But, the gospel is just as exclusive today as it was then. This is not a popular message. We will suffer opposition. And we must go into the heart of opposition. We must go to our Jerusalem. Jesus refused to take the safe way. We must not take it either.
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