Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”
John 8:58
People don’t like it when you confront their beliefs. The post-modern world we live in has even gone so far as disliking the idea of there being an objective truth to believe. Everyone is expected to “play nice” and keep their truth to themselves, lest anyone’s emotional toes get hurt by someone inadvertently (or vertently) stepping on them.
Jesus the offensive
Jesus, however, doesn’t seem to worried about people’s toes, particularly the toes of the people who are sure they have it all together. In John 8 Jesus gets in some serious trouble with the established culture and religion of the day when he calls himself equal with God and rebuffs his opponent’s by calling them offspring of Satan and natural born liars, concluding his rebuke with the massive statement, “because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.” (v.45)
Jesus stands his ground on the declaration of truth and the scene ends with a group of pastors, business leaders, grandfathers, and other seemingly respectable grown men getting ready to throw rocks at him like some angry group of third grade boys.
Killer moments
It’s easy to read scripture with a monotone mindset as if you’re reading a history text book, but this was no monotone moment. Grown men don’t come to the point of throwing rocks while talking in calm, reasoning voices. There’s serious tension going on in John 8. The kind of tension that draws crowds because they know there’s going to be a fight. Yet Jesus stands his ground.
When to stand your ground
We need to be people who are willing to stand and declare truth in the face of that kind of fierce opposition. Men and women who won’t be intimidated into being quiet about what is true. We need people who will stand their ground on God’s word about what is sin, about who is Lord, about heaven and hell, and about the breath-taking grace that is available to all, even the ones throwing rocks.
Even when the ones throwing rocks are the pastors and church leaders who have hundreds or thousands of people who follow them.
Even when the ones throwing rocks have millennia of theological history to point to.
We need men and women who are willing to risk their lives for the sake of making the truth known.
When to disappear
We also need men and women who know when the time has come to stop standing and leave the truth there, ringing in the ears on the onlookers.
In verse 59, “Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple” before the stones could fly. We don’t get an explanation of why he chose this moment to leave, but Jesus knew that the moment had come for him to leave that particular fight. He does not, however, stop declaring truth. The next verses follow Jesus as he heals a blind man, breaking the religious leader’s rules about what to do on God’s holy days. He leaves the fight, but doesn’t stop making truth known. The end of John 9 Jesus declares to some of the same group who had been about to stone him previously, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” (v.41)
Modern opposition
Friends, be ready to stand against opposition of all sorts when you declare truth. Fierce opposition to the point of murder is the normal response to truth in a world blinded by sin. We, however, are not blind; we are led by the Spirit of the living God. Like Jesus we will listen to the Spirit and follow his leading about when to stand and when to back down in order to continue the fight elsewhere. If, like Stephen in the book of Acts, he calls us to be stoned for the truth, so be it. We will stand. And, most importantly, we stand inspired by a massive, unstoppable love for the people who are about to stone us. Just like Jesus.
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