FEBRUARY 12 - Power challenge

Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him."… John 14: 5-7

The race for power has really got under way - cut-throat politics -– who come May, will reign supreme as Great Britain's next Prime Minister. I say “who” will reign supreme, because I gain the impression that it's more about the ambition of the individual, than the individual's ambition for a particular political Party! Party Leader's and also-rans jostling for prime position, digging the dirt on the opposition, and, under protection of Parliament rules, not hesitating to use slander as ammunition, confident that, unless repeated in a public forum, they are safe from criminal prosecution. Modern politics! we think. But not so.

Take Pilate as an example, the Roman Governor who presided over the trial of Jesus - – the politician at the time of Jesus. It can be difficult to know what a biblical character was really like, and views are mixed on Pilate. Some feel that he was basically a good man who had got caught up in a difficult situation, while other's consider him to have been weak and indecisive – certainly he didn't listen to his wife's advise when, following a disturbing dream. She sent a note to her husband advising him to have no part in the trial of Jesus.

Two pointers to Pilate's character stand out for me. 1. His over-riding desire ?to please the crowds at all cost by setting Barabbas free and condemning Jesus to death....after all, weren't the crowds his potential voters? 2. This lies in something he said to Jesus. During His trial Jesus had said, “I have come to tell the truth.” And Pilate's reply? “What is truth?”

I am – In the Greek language, “I am” is a very intense way of referring to oneself. It would be comparable to saying, “I myself, and only I, am.” Several other times in the Gospels we find Jesus using these words. In Matthew 22:32 Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6, where God uses the same intensive form to say “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” In John 8:58, Jesus said “Truly, truly I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.” The Jews clearly understood Jesus to be calling Himself God because they took up stones to stone Him for committing blasphemy in equating Himself with God. When the soldiers came seeking Jesus in the garden the night before His crucifixion, He told them “I am he” and His words were so powerful that the soldiers fell to the ground (John 18:4-6). “I am the way and the truth and the life” is one of seven “I Am” statements of Jesus (John 14:6).

What was this “truth” Jesus had come to tell? These words reflect the very name of God in Hebrew, Yahweh, which means “to be” or “the self-existing one.” It is the name of power and authority, and Jesus claimed it as His own. To Pilate, Jesus had thrown down a challenge to his position of power. But what was the “way” Jesus spoke of? The way – Jesus used the definite article to distinguish Himself as “the only way.” A way is a path or route, and Jesus was saying, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The exclusive nature of the only path to salvation is expressed in the words “I am the way.” To Pilate and the crowd, all of this amounted to blasphemy and warranted the death sentence. And “the Life?”

Jesus was claiming Himself to be the source of all life. In John 10:17-18, Jesus declared that He was going to lay down His life for His sheep, and then take it back again. He spoke of His authority over life and death as being granted to Him by the Father. In John 14:19, He gave the promise that “because I live, you also will live.” The deliverance He was about to provide was not a political or social deliverance (which most of the Jews were seeking), but a true deliverance from a life of bondage to sin and death to a life of freedom in eternity.

There are some people who try hard to live by what they believe. They would rather live in obscurity. There are others' who don't hesitate to lie, slander, or wash their hands to get and maintain a position of power. But the really scary ones are those who don't believe that there is any truth, any right or wrong, at all. I think that's the kind of person Pilate was.

(www.gotquestions.org) and Bob Hartman, Bible Baddies.

Today our song will be “Then Came the Morning” - Live, by the Gaithers.  To listen, click on the picture of Jesus and a saved lamb.