Food for thought--takes a lot of chewing...
Where Were the Dissenters?
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy! What is your decision?" All of them condemned him as deserving death.
--Mark 14:63-64
Mark tells us that Joseph of Arimethea was a "respected member of the council" (Mark 15:43). John tells us that Nicodemus was a "leader of the Jews" (John 3:1), which likely meant that he too was a member of the Sanhedrin. Both men were sympathetic toward Jesus. In John 3 we read that Nicodemus met Jesus at night for a conversation in which Jesus told him that he must be "born from above" (John 3:3). Nicodemus came to Jesus at night for fear of what the other members of the council would say about his interest in the teachings of Jesus. John notes that Joseph "was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews" (John 19:38).
Presumably, these two men were at the trial of Jesus early Friday morning. Although Luke does report that "Joseph...had not agreed to their plan and action" (Luke 23:50-51), none of the four Gospels records dissenting arguments by any of the seventy-one Sanhedrin members. Why didn't Nicodemus or Joseph speak up for Jesus?
|
|
Several years ago a man sent me an e-mail detailing a sermon he had heard as a boy some forty years before but had never forgotten. He had attended a small, rural church where the preacher that day had been the lay leader, a big man with a booming voice and a gentle spirit. The sermon was called "Standing on the Edge of the Crowd." In it, the lay leader described an experience he had had in the 1920s. A crowd had gathered on the edge of town, and he had gone to see what was happening. In the center of the crowd was a young black man who was about to be hanged. In his sermon the lay leader described his feelings as he watched the lynching, repulsed by it and knowing how wrong it was, yet too afraid to stand up against the crowd. The image of the young man being hanged and the memory of his own silence haunted this man forty years after the event.
Joseph and Nicodemus were respected leaders who were afraid to let others know they were sympathetic to Jesus and who seem to have stood by in silence as he was condemned to die. Are you willing to stand up and speak out when you see something you know in your heart is wrong? Or do you silently acquiesce to the crowd?
Lord, forgive me for the times when I have gone along with the crowd rather than stand up for others or for what I believed was right. Give me the courage to speak up when injustice is being done. Amen.
|
|
