[ Today's Readings ]
"He is out of his mind."
What is it that some people have a hard time understanding about Jesus? It is often a problem that the claims of Jesus are so all encompassing and absolute. There is no room for middle ground. He is not merely one teacher among many. He himself is the only way. One can't take the parts of his message that he or she likes and ignore the person of Jesus himself. Jesus himself is the message. Were he not the Son of God his message would have to be lies or insanity. People laying down their whole lives and hearts in surrender before him is something that people who don't know Jesus just can't get. Because knowing him is not an experience they have they assume their is no way that such claims can be substantiated. But the crowd knows better. They have seen the healings. They have heard the teaching with authority that no one else has. He is not simply a megalomaniac gathering around him a crowd of impressionable or desperate people. Jesus is who he says he is. The crowd know because as they stay near to him they themselves are transformed.
For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer's ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the Blood of Christ,
who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.
So let us come to Jesus. He is the way the truth and the light. His is the only name given under heaven by which we may be saved. It would be crazy were it no so true. The closer we come the more we experience the power of this truth in ourselves, in the depths of our very souls. Let us make ourselves thrones for his presence.
God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy;
the LORD, amid trumpet blasts.
Sing praise to God, sing praise;
sing praise to our king, sing praise.
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