Jesus Suffered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMIvyfSUUBE&feature=related

This video blows me away.

It's so easy to forget how much torture Jesus went through on our behalf.

I can't believe the people whipped him.

After all the miracles he did for them.

After all the wisdom he taught them.

I usually like to think it was an entirely different group of people that were yelling, "Crucify him!"

Certainly it couldn't have been the people that he taught right?

But people are crazy like that, we love someone one day and then hate them the next.

It's very odd, how fickle our mind and emotions are. We are all over the place really.

The reason the people were angry with Jesus was that they were mad that he did not save them from the Romans.

The Jews at the time were under very strict control by the Roman government, and they were told through the prophets, that a Savior would come and deliver them. They were probably thinking it would be much like the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt.

However, there were prophesies of both Jesus' first and second coming in the old testament which were completely different. One told of him coming as a meek servant who would be the sacrificial lamb.

Another talked of him coming on the clouds with glory and power. That is his second coming, which I think is just around the corner for us.

They thought his first coming would be his second coming.

So they were extremely disappointed, and this disappointment turned to hatred, and the hatred led to them wanting to kill him. They were like, "Fine! If you won't give us what we want then we would rather that you just die!"

He didn't deliver them. He didn't give them what they wanted.

They wanted him to do things one their terms.

It was all about what could He do for them, rather then what they could do for Him.

So they wanted to crucify him, kill him in the worst possible way.

Also, all along the Pharisees were jealous of Jesus. They felt replaced. All these years they had been leading the people and telling them what to do.

Then Jesus came and he told them different things, since he was reforming the covenant of God with his people, from works based to grace.

The Pharisees did not understand. They thought if Jesus really was from God, was God, he would reinforce the old covenant and the old way of doing things on a works based religion.

He not only replaced them, he derided their teachings and their authority.

In leading the people to God, they started to seek to become God himself for the people.

They committed the sin that Satan did. This is why Jesus was so incredibly angry with them all the time.

Ezekiel 28 says regarding Satan:

"In the pride of your heart
you say, 'I am a god;
I sit on the throne of a god
in the heart of the seas.' "

The Pharisees added countless laws to the 10 commandments, and they LOVED being able to use religion to control the people.

That is why Jesus called them "a brood of vipers." He knew that their hearts were black. They did not actually love God as they posed. They were simply all about controlling others. That was all they cared about.

I once heard a sermon called Power Vs. Love by Tony Campolo in which he said, "Sexual drives are not basic. The basic drive of every human being is to dominate and control others."

So true.

May we all release our desire to control others. That is God's job, not ours. Amen? Amen :)