A meditation for the middle of Holy Week...

(Tim) Too many hop, skip, and jump through the Christian year, from Palm Sunday to Easter to the Fourth of July to Christmas. Even among those who are more observant, though, almost none of us include the cleansing of the Temple, the cursing of the fig tree, and the condemnation of the elders, stated clerks, and pastors in our Holy Week festivities.

So, dear souls, why did the religious leaders hate Him so? Why did they spend a night suborning perjury? Why did they hound Him to death? And what occupied Jesus' time between the cries of "Hosanna to Son of David" and these, a few days later: "His blood be upon us and upon our children! Crucify him!"?

Earlier today, a comment was posted elsewhere on this blog that included this statement:

I simply think we need to be careful before generalizing a particular trait to an entire class of people. Categories are useful for us humans, but I don't think God sees us in those terms...

To which I responded with a comment that, by private e-mail, a reader requested I post here on the front page. So here it is, my own meditation for the middle of Holy Week:

Dear (Reader),

There's truth in what you write, but the minority report is stunning...

(A)s it is written, "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3:10-18)

And:

One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith.... (Titus 1:12, 13)

What to do?

We have a category called "Feminization of discourse" for a purpose. Men (not "humans," and used inclusive of women, just like Scripture's usage) need to realize the soft ooze which carries most communication in our time is incompatible with many of God's truths, and that even those truths it's not incompatible with, too often, are substantially corrupted by its slime.

So, for instance, on this Holy Week, we should note not simply that our Lord rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees and cleansed the Temple, but that His rebuke was stinging and hard-edged and sarcastic and direct and angry and consisted entirely of what men today would call "stereotypes" and "generalizations." Or take the Apostle Paul in Galatians: same thing.

Then we ask ourselves whether any of the method of communication used in Scripture is profitable, too? Not just the message, but also the method?

Postmoderns, being raised in an evil age which has chosen the ephemeral over the concrete, intuition over reason, image over word, emo over faith, and Sophia over Christ will require God's grace of conversion before they'll be able to accept most of Scripture's content, whether message or method.

Today, many believe they have heard and believe the Word of God in Jesus Christ when in reality they are scandalized by it and refuse to listen. The metrosexual affect of postmodern communication lies at the heart of the modern dilemma. It is the pomo's flesh, the desire of his mind which assures his destruction.

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Ephesians 2:3)

But we--we are to reject such corruption, living in the obedience and Truth that have set us free.

Thank God for the manhood of Jesus, perfectly visible in His words and actions between the Triumphal Entry and His betrayal on the Mount of Olives.

Yes, He is our Priest. But He is also our King and our Prophet. And those who won't have Him as their King and Prophet shall never have Him as their Priest.