Love your enemies

Pilate wanted to set Jesus free, so he appealed to the crowd again. But they shouted back, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’

Pilate said to them the third time, ‘But what crime has he committed? I cannot find anything he has done to deserve death! I will have him whipped and set him free.’

But they kept on shouting at the top of their voices that Jesus be crucified, and finally their shouting prevailed. (verses 20-23)

Read Luke 23: 13-25

They didn’t want him. Why? What crime had Jesus committed? These were the questions that haunted Pilate as he considered the fate of Jesus. Why did these people want to kill a healing, teaching, godly man? When all was said and done, the only real reason was that he was guilty of blasphemy. The people knew their Scriptures and they had heard what Jesus had said. They knew that in so many ways he, a mere carpenter’s son from Nazareth, claimed to be God. This is why they rejected him.

And it is still the same reason that many reject Jesus today. Yes, they believe that he lived two thousand years ago. Yes, they believe that he was a healing, caring, godly man. But as for him being God incarnate, as for the resurrection, as for the absolute claims of Jesus and the church-no way.

Christians are not necessarily better people than others. Rather we are a people who recognise our need for help, and we recognise that we are helped only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Dear heavenly Father, I pray for all those who oppose you. May they hear your word and put their trust in your Son, so that they might live forever. Amen.

by Greg Graham, in ‘Guidance for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2002)

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