DAY 136

WHAT’S THE PLAN NOW?

2 Kings 24 & 25 and John 5:1-24

Today is a sad day, but not unexpected. In the Old Testament we read of the final fall of the Nation of Judah and the City of Jerusalem. The Temple is looted and destroyed. The king and the people carried off. There is a bit of back and forth; it took Babylon a few tries, but ultimately the people of Judah are defeated. The Temple will never be as great as it was up to this point. The Temple of Jesus’ day is not this Temple.

One of the motifs that will now become a part of the Jewish ethos is loss: they have lost their nation and they have lost their Temple. It is a motif that continues through to today. The other two words that you will hear is “exile” and “dispersion” (or even Diaspora). These words refer the fact that the people were “dispersed” throughout the land and/or “exiled” in Babylon.

As we go forward in our reading we will hear these themes, and specifically how God speaks to the people – because here is the question: How does God, who is faithful, act to fulfill the Covenant. Think back to Genesis 15, where the animals were cut in half and a smoking pot and flaming torch passed between them. That was God saying “may I be torn in two if you (Abraham and your descendents) fail to keep the Covenant.” They have experienced what seems to be the ultimate destruction. They had a great nation, they were a great people, and now it is gone. What will God do next?

We will in the coming months read the prophets, the people who were the successors to Elijah. These people, with names like Isaiah and Jeremiah, will exhort the people to hold onto God’s faithfulness, and that God will send a deliver – a Messiah – to restore them.

This idea of Messiah is an idea that is planted in the fall of Judah and Jerusalem. It is a seed that grows in the minds and hearts of the people. It grows in a way that leads them to believe that the Messiah will come and “restore” them to the grandeur of old. A new Jewish king will sit on the throne in Jerusalem and they will not be subject to foreign powers.

Can you see the tension into which Jesus steps? He is on the scene some five centuries later. He is walking around proclaiming the Kingdom of God is at hand…but he is doing it all wrong. Wouldn’t the new kingdom look like King David’s or even better King Solomon’s? Yet He goes to the outcasts: the sick, the tax collectors and the prostitutes. He doesn’t collude with the Temple Authorities (yes there is another Temple, we will read about how in the coming weeks). He, in fact, challenges them at most every turn.

Today He is off healing on the Sabbath again. How dare He? His answer is simple. “Truly, truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing…” (Jn. 5:19). Jesus goes on to claim even more authority, the authority of life over death. The Gospels, all of them, raise one basic question as they present the story of this man Jesus. Is he who he claims to be? Is He the long awaited Messiah? Is He the answer to the question of how God will be faithful? Today he claims that He is – for He is the Father’s Son.