Competing Passions

To those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." (John 2:16)

Something in this seems to resonate in my heart today. I don't want to use it as a platform from which to criticize or condemn others, but neither do I want to ignore disturbing relevance that this has for the kind of mindsets that are all too familiar in the way we act and treat each other in the house of God. I want to listen to hear any convictions that the Holy Spirit may want to supply so that I am not found among those who need to be escorted out of the house of the Lord by fear of His presence.

This event in Jesus' life and the one very similar to it just before the end of His earthly ministry is seemingly uncharacteristic of what we usually think of how Jesus acted. The normal explanation for this is to assume that He simply made an exception to His normal way of relating to people in these instances and had an outburst of rage in which He acted out of character. This is very much like the kind of thing we might do if pressed beyond our patience and so we assume that God runs out of patience just like we do. But this kind of logic will always lead to faulty and dangerous conclusions about God. We must be extremely careful not to make assumptions about God's actions and motives based on our own ways of acting and feeling because this can cause us to fall into the trap of forming opinions about God based on our sinful ways of thinking instead of learning the real truth about Him from His viewpoint.

Because of this kind of logic I have seen all sorts of damaging outbursts justified in the name of “righteous indignation” which is what it is typically called. But the spirit that motivates such outbursts of anger and actions often involving force or anger against others is almost always radically different than the spirit that motivated Jesus during these times. It is usually a spirit of self-righteousness and false piety and of taking vengeance into one's own hands instead of a legitimate jealousy for the reputation of God. In fact, it is a similar spirit that tripped up Elijah when he moved outside the will of God for him on Mount Carmel and he consequently soon found himself cowering in fear under the threats of a single pagan woman as a result.

When it comes to outbursts of passion and jealousy for the reputation of God, I believe that it is extremely vital that one first be in perfect harmony with the pure love and compassion of God before they can ever be qualified to exercise the kind of open passion demonstrated by Jesus during this event. When humans attempt to exercise passion on God's behalf, they must first be swallowed up and purified by the holy fire of God's unconditional love and have their hearts filled with an attitude of unconditional forgiveness. Otherwise they will quickly become side-tracked by the contamination of an infection from earthly passions in their sinful nature that will distort the exhibition of God's character during such an event.

As a result of the widespread abuse of passion in the name of God, the very idea of passion itself has come to be considered by many to be inherently evil in some way. And it is true that nearly all of human passion has been tainted by our inherent and pervasive presence of selfishness and pride. That is why it is so dangerous to act out our passion or make decisions based on our passion in the name of God. We may have convinced ourselves that God needs our passionate input in order to defend His reputation or to protect His property, but that kind of thinking is not led by the Spirit of Jesus but rises from the spirit of a counterfeiter. It appears to be very pious and religious, but it does not convey an accurate picture of the Father as He would have us to do. Moses found that out after he allowed his own impatient passion to interpose between God's heart and the pictures of Him being molded in the minds of multitudes of people in the desert who looked to Moses as an example of what God was like.

But all of this does not prevent us from ever being able to experience or express the holy and pure, selfless passion of the Father as Jesus demonstrated. In fact, I am fully convinced that God's greatest desire for us is to become so unified with Him that we can all become safe channels of His immense reservoir of passion that flows from deep in His own heart. We were made for passion and it is wrong to make the assumption that just because passion gets us into trouble so often that it is wrong to live passionately. Instead of trying to avoid passion altogether, we need to allow God to transform us and heal us and rewire our minds and hearts so that the powerful currents of pure and holy passion can once again energize the circuits of our lives and bring glory to Him. When that begins to happen we will find ourselves more like Moses when his face literally glowed with the glory of God because of His close association with the passion and beauty of God.

That was not what I originally intended to think about when I started pondering this text. But having said all that, I realize that I need to have my own heart purified from all selfishness, pride and self-righteousness so that God can use me more effectively and safely to express the pent-up passion needed to clarify the real truth about His character. It is very clear that God's reputation has been maligned and distorted terribly and that He needs people who are willing to be filled with both the truth about Him and with His Spirit which can energize them with the same passion for His reputation that Jesus demonstrated in this encounter in God's house.

What originally caught my attention in this story was a sincere desire to know what it was about the people and activities going on in the temple that elicited such a response from Jesus. I am fully aware of how most people have come to reason this out, but I am highly suspicious of the accuracy of those conclusions given the outcome of their tactics to correct similar problems today. What I too often see is a spirit of sternness and hostility in the church towards anyone who makes too much noise or toward children who move around too much or towards anything that disturbs or challenges our formalism and so-called reverence.

It disturbs my heart to see the antagonism and harshness in the spirit of many Christians towards others who act differently than they think should happen in the house of God. The way this is often dealt with is to employ threats or veiled insinuations about God's anger against anyone who disturbs our version of what should go on in church. There is no shortage of horror stories about force and violence and bigotry being exercised against others who inadvertently offend some “saint” in the church who views themselves as God's appointed watchmen to keep sin out of the church. And this ugliness is usually perpetrated in the name of following the example of Jesus in cleansing the temple. But was this the example and spirit that Jesus engaged in when He did this strange act that day? Or was something very different going on here that we almost always completely miss in this story?

A great deal of discussion and debate is carried out over the details of what Jesus did or did not do during these encounters in the temple. Did He actually hit anyone or did He just threaten them? Did He lose control of Himself in His zeal or was this a calculated fit of rage that He couldn't control until after He cooled down? All sorts of speculations are carried on – but for what purpose? Are we trying to get into the head of Jesus and really understand what motivated Him or are we trying to come up with a formula that we might be able to follow in order to justify our own outbursts or prejudice against others?

I am not very confident that I have a very satisfactory answer to all of these questions yet. I am quite sure that most of the explanations I have heard are far from satisfactory, but having said that I still want to move much closer to understanding the real reasons and motives that filled the mind and heart of Jesus to take such bold moves in the face of such intimidating odds and fierce opposition. And maybe that is leading me to uncover my own true desires. For what Jesus demonstrated on these occasions was a spirit of boldness in its pure and holy form, a demonstration of boldness that is both safe and needed to reveal the real truth about God's heart of passion. This is in contrast to the kind of boldness born of self-righteous, self-justifying religious pride and prejudice.

I remember the prayer of the early Christians when faced by the intimidations of these same Jewish leaders just a few years after this event. When Peter and John were confronted in this same temple for causing a disruption to the status quo by bringing in a leaping, dancing, hollering, former lame man who had just been healed of life-long disability, they returned to their fellow believers and all realized that what they were really facing was a strong pressure to become afraid. Their real problem was not the potential violence that was threatened against them, it was succumbing to the fear itself that was their greatest danger. For it is fear that is the most powerful weapon of the enemy to steal away the boldness and peace that God intends should fill our lives as we live to demonstrate the real truth about Him in a world of deceptions and lies about Him.

As those early believers listened to the account of Peter and John they felt the old stirrings of fear rising up in their hearts attempting to neutralize all the joy and passion and courage that they had so recently received from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They were determined not to be sucked back into that prison of fear from which they had only recently escaped and so they all turned to God collectively and cried out to Him for one thing in particular – boldness. In their prayer they started out by focusing on the real truth about God that Satan was attempting to obscure in their minds through fear. Then they reminded themselves of what God had done in the past and of His Word in the Scriptures to get a proper perspective on reality. After setting this context firmly in their minds and hearts they then relayed to Him their current dilemma and asked for one thing only. That one thing was not deliverance from prison or persecution or anything else but freedom from fear itself. In essence they said, “God they're trying to make us afraid again! Give us boldness to speak the real truth about You no matter what happens.”

And the result of that prayer was a fresh infusion of power, boldness and love from the throne of heaven that filled them even more with the Spirit like that seen in Jesus. And this was the very same spirit that Jesus demonstrated in the temple when He chased out all those who were so terribly misrepresenting the truth about God. (Isn't it interesting that this kind of event was never carried out in the temple by any of His disciples in later years.) But it is vital to understand that Jesus was not acting in anger against people as we so often suppose but was angry about the misrepresentations and distortions of what God was like being carried out in the name of God in His house by those claiming to represent God.

Jesus loved those people He chased out of the temple just as much as He loved His own disciples. Until we factor that into the picture we will not be able to comprehend what was really going on here. It was not hatred or anger as we think of it or bitterness or prejudice that motivated Jesus to act as He did but was a desire to restore the Spirit of God into the house of God. And what was the spirit that was missing in the temple that needed to be returned? Well, take a look at the context and the implications.

Carefully consider the words of Jesus during this event. Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." This idea of business has deep implications that go far beyond just buying and selling merchandise in a physical house of worship. That view has been used to condemn many people for doing all sorts of things in a church building, but that is still not really getting to the root issue. We can easily condemn others for doing what we consider improper activities in a church building while at the very same time demonstrating the very spirit that Jesus was trying to expel from the house of God.

This attitude or mentality of business that had become so prevalent in the temple that Jesus wanted to expel is far more subtle many times than the open demonstrations of it in Jesus' day. It can be seen in the way people treat each other in the church using policy rules or legalistic attitudes to discourage and manipulate those around them. It is seen in the subtle or not so subtle power struggles that go on all the time in the body of Christ. It can be seen in the callousness we often have toward the pain and problems of the weak or the abused among us while over-emphasizing an intellectual religion. It is even described in the book of Revelation quite clearly in chapter 18 that climaxes with a description of the merchandising of men's souls.

The very way that most churches are structured corporately lends itself to a business mentality much more than the family atmosphere that Jesus intended should pervade His house. We like to give much lip service to pretending that we are all living like family, but not far underneath most people know that this is often only a ruse, a pretension to make us more attractive to drawing others under our control. But what we are too often seeking are positions of influence and recognition more than increased opportunities for genuinely and selflessly serving others in love and humility. I am afraid that if Jesus were to show up in our churches today that He would be just as resented and unwelcome as He was in the temple 2000 years ago. We may be using His name and singing His praises with our mouths, but what is the real condition of our hearts?

This is something I want to think about more. I feel impressed that there is much, much more to this story than what I have seen so far. I want to listen to the deeper messages that I sense the Spirit has for me as I allow Him to unpack this passage to me more thoroughly.

Seeing the Kingdom

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. (John 2:23)

Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

I am intent on getting much deeper into the significance of this part of my Bible. I feel compelled to find the real truth about these issues and most importantly experiencing them for myself. Every time I take the time to dwell on these passages and listen to the impressions of the Holy Spirit I feel I get a little bit more, but I also feel that the container just keeps getting deeper. I have never felt like I really broke through the lid completely so I can see more clearly the deeper reservoir inside these chapters that can energize and motivate me the way I want to live. I hear the words and I keep putting pieces together but it only makes me hungry for much more.

Clearly this is a passage that is more direct about addressing the condition of the heart much more than just a mental religious experience. That is why I am here immersing myself in this passage, because I am increasingly hungry for a much deeper heart experience. I have lived in a head religion for all of my life but it has only been a few years since I even became aware of the reality of my own heart and have begun to address this part of me. I am so thankful that God is in charge of this process and is making me hungry to have a real heart-based relationship with Him. I am simply expressing the desires that He is feeding into my soul and asking for more real spiritual food and more heart training.

But truth is not only a heart experience though that must be the primary base of function for it to be authentic. God designed for us to use both our left and right brain, both our intellect and our heart in our relationship with Him. And just because I have lived around people who have over-emphasized head knowledge for most of my life does not mean that I should walk away from that part of it too far. Much information that is needed by my heart and emotions to properly connect with God has to come through my left brain first because it is in the form of words which have to be processed by the left brain. There are other ways my right brain can receive directly, but words have to be interpreted through the left brain and then made accessible to the right for interpretation into deep feelings and spiritual insights and the transformation of gut-level beliefs.

What I am seeing in these two verses this morning is right along these lines. There are two parallel kingdoms happening at the same time and depending on which one we belong to will depend greatly as to the meaning that we place on key words in this passage. It is very clear that John keeps repeating certain words that seem very important for him. Signs, authority, belief and now this idea of seeing. In these two verses most of these show up together though not necessarily using those words.

The Jews were living under the more familiar kingdom of externally-based religion that nearly all of us find ourselves living under today. The new kingdom that Jesus came to reveal more clearly was a kingdom based solidly in the heart, not on external control of men's minds and external beliefs. Because of the stark contrast between these two kingdoms the associated assumptions about the meanings of these words can be subtly but significantly different. I cannot assume that the first thing that pops into my mind when I read these passages is necessarily what Jesus or John had in mind when they presented them originally. I need the Holy Spirit to guide and instruct me from the context of the Word of God to unlock the deeper meanings and open the doors that prevent me from entering into a much deeper experience with my God in this new kingdom.

John seems to be implying here that when the kingdom of God shows up there will be signs that can be seen or observed by those not yet in that kingdom. Whatever these are, they can be cause for those who are honest of heart to be able to believe in such as way as to be able to enter into that kingdom by faith. In doing so one comes under the full authority of the head of that kingdom which means that they surrender all other claims of authority over their life. Again, what is meant by believing carries different meanings depending on which kingdom provides the definitions. What keeps becoming more clear to me is that this belief spoken of here is far deeper than just an intellectual belief or an assent to factual truth or doctrines no matter how sincere or intense that may be. I see no reference to Jesus trying to get anyone in this story to believe any doctrines so that they can join His kingdom. I see Him trying to get people to wake up at the heart level and enter into a much deeper level of belief than even that which I have ever experienced myself.

I am not trying to write these things as a means of making myself an authority on these subjects but as a way of processing through my own search for a deeper understanding and experience in this kingdom myself. It is more of a dialogue between my mind, my heart and the mind of God asking Him to release my soul perceptions to be able to encounter Him at a much deeper level than ever before. I crave to have consistent belief like that described in this passage – genuine, authentic, life-changing belief that is rooted deeply in the gut-level feelings and emotions, in the heart and soul of my existence. I want to perceive the signs of this kingdom which still seem like a mystery to me. The very fact that they feel like a mystery clues me in that I am not yet fully integrated into this kingdom. I do not want to pretend that I have all the answers about this because that only pushes me back into the counterfeit kingdom of logical, intellectual religion which has never satisfied the deeper longings of my soul. I want to have a belief experience that is founded much deeper than simply good explanations for words and religious phrases strung together to prove a theological position. I want to know deeply what it is like to believe with all my heart and soul and spirit without reservation.

This issue of authority is a key one in my own life. Just the word by itself is enough to elicit a reaction deep down inside my gut, a reaction that can many times be even felt at the physical level. Because I am keenly aware that anything that triggers such an automatic reaction is always a symptom of an unresolved false belief buried deep in old memory containers, I continue to pray for release from these deep, hidden lies. I realize that God needs to take me back to those memories and unmask those deeply embedded lies and expose them for what they really are before I can be freed of them. Ignoring them, suppressing them or denying them will never give me the freedom that I long for. I have to have the Spirit of God take me through an effective healing experience where I face them head-on and receive the healing freedom from their grip and the liberating truth from God's Spirit in my soul.

I have received bits and pieces of this healing over time and have found much more peace in recent years than I ever knew in my earlier years. But I am also frighteningly aware that there is still a deep reservoir of pent up pain that still remains buried very deep that could sabotage me at any time. It still causes me deep fears at times and makes me keenly aware that I am very vulnerable to acting in ways that will bring much shame on the reputation of God, not to mention my own reputation. That is the part that really frightens me the most. It is bad enough that I can easily embarrass myself by the stupid things I am all too capable of doing in life. But the more I come to admire and appreciate the real truth about how good God is, the more fear I have that people will be misled in their opinions about Him by seeing the inconsistencies in my life because of these deeply hidden lies in my heart causing me to have a public meltdown in ways I shudder to even imagine.

I pray earnestly that God will provide the means and circumstances and community needed to take me on this healing journey soon. I know that the fear that will be stirred up inside of me if I were to face these dark places in my heart will be far greater than anything I can handle alone. That is why I need much closer connections with others in the body of Christ who might be willing to lend me their joy capacity when I come to that time of healing for my soul. I have no idea when or where or how it will take place, but I have no doubt that it must take place or I cannot myself fully enter into this kingdom that Jesus talked about with Nicodemus.

In fact, I can really identify with the frustration and questions posed by Nicodemus to Jesus. Nicodemus also came from a similar background of intellectual religion just as I have. He was living under very similar assumptions about the meanings of words and had similar priorities in life that most people have being raised in the kingdom of religion as we know it. So the confusion that he was going through in this chapter is very relevant to what I have been feeling for many years. There is nothing in this passage that indicates that he was able to fully grasp it anytime soon after this encounter with Jesus. It was only after the death of Jesus on the cross that he is mentioned again and then it becomes clear that the truths implanted by Jesus in this discussion had finally taken root and produced outward fruit resulting in his taking sides openly with the disciples of Jesus.

I have spent many more years than even Nicodemus pondering these words of Jesus about this alternative kingdom that seems so strange and different from anything I am familiar with. So it would stand to reason that enough time has passed that I should now be ready to step more fully into that kingdom and begin to live in it more openly myself. For I know that it is only by living within this real kingdom that is rooted firmly in a heart connection with God that I can truly thrive and enjoy complete fulfillment and peace.

So I choose to sit at the feet of Jesus for as long as it takes to get my dense heart and mind to absorb the real truth about these words. I want to see the signs of this kingdom for myself. I want to live under this authority with joyful abandon. I want to see with new eyes and to believe with all my heart and mind. I want to be fully absorbed and swallowed up in the passion of God that I have caught a glimpse of over the past few years, this passion that is the very atmosphere that pervades this kingdom of love and grace.

Pragmatic Approach

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." (John 3:1-2)

This is a story that I have been seeking to unpack and understand much more thoroughly for a number of years now. When I first started to conduct my personal time with God along the lines and principles of inductive Bible study, the very first place I began was at the beginning of the book of John. The reason I did this was because I wanted to unfreeze this passage about Nicodemus containing the most famous text in the Bible. And the reason that it was so frozen in my heart was for a number of reasons. John 3:16 has been quoted so many times by people who both appreciate it deeply and those who are completely clueless as to any significance contained in it that my own heart was calloused to being able to absorb it myself at all. The only way I could relate to it was on an intellectual level and I was certain that this was not enough to get me into a right relationship with God.

Because my heart really did yearn to come into a real appreciation of this important text and its surrounding messages about God, I decided to use this new, exciting tool of inductive Bible study to see how it might melt away the prejudices, the preconceptions and the hardness of heart that I had experienced for most of my life and bring to life this verse for me personally. Unfortunately I have lost all of the journals in which I recorded those first encounters with God through this passage. And even though I still continue to search through all my belongings years later in hopes of discovering those early writings, I have come back again to cover the same ground using the same digging tools to find even more than last time as well as to refresh what has slipped from my mind since that first massive dig.

Since this blog is simply a recording of my own personal journey with encountering God through His Word and not a teaching tool to indoctrinate others, I feel more free to simply report whatever is coming to me in the present without forcing it to flow as smoothly as a teaching experience might require. But the reason that I post it on the web is so that God may use it to guide someone else He is working with to discover what I have been sharing and may be able to use something He has blessed me with to add to someone else's experience in a positive way. And even though I almost never hear about those events I still feel privileged to be able to make my encounters with God available for others to peruse and for Him to use more openly.

As I ponder and meditate on this again this morning I try to get a sense of what was really going on in the head and heart of Nicodemus, why he decided to come to Jesus at night and what some of his plans were before Jesus so abruptly changed the intended direction of the conversation. I am sure Nicodemus had mixed motives as we all do and I don't think it is wrong to speculate as to what they might have been since these stories are given for us to relate to at a heart level in our own lives. While we don't have to insist that our ideas are right and other's are wrong, we can allow the Spirit to prompt us as to the bigger picture that was going on through clues that we can see in the passage and the context. This is how I have encountered some of the most compelling insights for me personally and the Spirit has frequently used them to apply in convicting my own heart about things and attitudes that I need to adjust to come more into alignment with God's ways of thinking, feeling and perceiving.

What I see in this context that clearly flows seamlessly well back into chapter two is quite a number of things. I see clear reference to Nicodemus as “a man” in the context of the last verse of chapter two where it says that Jesus knew what was in “man”.

I see the reference to Nicodemus as “a ruler” as a strong clue that Nicodemus probably had some typical thinking that all insiders in power structures tend to develop. People in any organization that come into positions of power and control over others tend to develop an “us verses them” mentality that excludes any newcomers until they have been checked out and invited to join “the club” so to speak. As this is often the case in many situations I can see the strong possibility that Nicodemus was checking out Jesus more closely with a potential offer in his back pocket to take a closer step to becoming one of the insiders eventually. He was exploring ways of coordinating with Jesus and His obvious power and influence with people and how to bring about some conciliatory moves to meld Him into the current group of the elite where He might have more public input.

Nicodemus was taking the first small step to see how Jesus could become more recognized as a legitimate authority among the Jews. As a representative of the insider's club of the elite and powerful, Nicodemus was likely feeling that he was being very generous and gracious in his compliments when approaching Jesus in this conversation. He viewed himself as the one coming from a position of greater authority and had the desired advantages that he assumed Jesus would appreciate and desire Himself. Since every up and coming Rabbi would be hopeful to be accepted into the upper echelon of society so that their teachings could be more publicly recognized and appreciated, Nicodemus assumed that he was doing Jesus a great favor by cracking the door open a bit to the highly exclusive insider's club of the rulers, thinkers and shakers in Jewish society.

Look at the initial things that Nicodemus said to Jesus from this perspective. The very first thing out of his mouth is to address Jesus as a Rabbi. Remember that this was not after Jesus had spent years teaching the people but was right at the very beginning of His public exposure. So He was not yet widely viewed with credibility as a real teacher. He was in many minds seen more along the lines of a wanna-be teacher who was just trying out his wings. For a long-respected and older insider to approach such a newcomer was in itself a very high compliment. And Nicodemus felt that he was being very generous in showering Jesus with compliments and recognition for His promising attempts to establish Himself as a publicly recognized authority of the law.

The next thing he talked about was a compliment that Nicodemus believed Jesus was very possibly legitimate as far as religion was concerned. Nicodemus was not completely lost in hypocrisy as many of his associates proved to be later on. Nicodemus had a heart that was longing for something deeper than the crusty religion that was promoted by the leaders of the day. But he had learned to get along to stay along and was doing the best he knew how to give Jesus an opportunity to come into a position on the inside of the elite to help Nicodemus make a real difference. He sensed something genuine and real about the way Jesus talked about and represented God that was missing in all the other Rabbi's and leaders so he wanted to be the first to join forces with Jesus in some way to assist His rise to a position of influence and begin to make a difference in the sad state that religion had come to be in their society.

Nicodemus acknowledged that Jesus had something going for Him with the signs that He was producing. This is interesting in the light of the demands of the Jews back a few verses in 2:18. It is not clear to me at all from this passage just what is directly referred to when it keeps talking about signs that Jesus was doing. What is clear is that John intends his readers to focus in on this issue of signs all throughout this book and this is one of the things I want to understand much better. In 2:23 just a few verses before this it says that many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But it is not clear at all as to what these signs actually were. Very possibly they were miracles of healing that He had started performing. But that doesn't seem to be clear yet in my examination of this book.

But in the context it is clear that everything seems to revolve around this issue of signs. The immediately previous story was about Jesus cleansing the temple and the leaders then demanding that He produce a sign to justify His authority to upset their long-established traditions and practices revolving around the proper use of the house of God. It reminds me of what can very easily happen today if someone were to come into a church and suddenly start to disrupt the order of service or challenge the way worship is conducted. Immediately the ones in authority would demand to know how this new upstart thinks they have authority to challenge the long-established traditions of the church. There is a great deal of resentment stirred up in many minds and resistance against change explodes from every direction.

This encounter with Nicodemus takes on much more significance when viewed in the light of the very recent confrontational encounter Jesus had with the authorities of the established church. Jesus had certainly not endeared Himself to the insider's club by coming into the temple and physically throwing out everything they had spent years putting into place. He not only had thrown them out of their own base of operations but even worse had exposed them openly before the people to be the frauds that they really were but had been able to carefully excuse and conceal for quite some time. It was the public humiliation before the people that rankled them the most and they immediately became very defensive and aggressive in their own challenges as to why Jesus thought He could get away with such behavior in the church.

Jesus' response to their challenges about His authority was so cryptic to them that it did little to satisfy their demands for justification on His part. In fact, it only served to inflame their anger and resentment towards Him. He refused to perform some miracle on demand to satisfy their formula for justifying the existence of His asserted authority above their style of authority. He simply referred to some mystical reference to raising up a temple in three days after it was destroyed which made no sense to them. However, it did touch on one of the most sensitive nerves in their religion. They put so much value and reverence on the temple building itself that it had come to eclipse nearly all reverence and affection for God that had come to be missing in their religion. So for Jesus to challenge and expose that misplaced reverence in front of all the people undermined their credibility and threatened the power structure that was carefully balanced in the Jewish church.

Most likely, this confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish elite in authority was a huge topic of hot debate everywhere in the country. The leaders began to feel very threatened and insecure and were beginning to view Jesus as a threat to be dealt with while the common people were seeing an emerging hero that held potential to come and champion their oppressed condition under the harsh demands and control of legalism imposed on them by these religious ruling elite. Very clearly Jesus was challenging the whole system of assumptions in place in Jewish society and was forcing everyone to view reality through a different lens. It was not clear yet where He was headed with His plans, but it was very clear that He had an agenda very different than anything along the lines of the status quo.

So in this highly charged emotional upheaval so recently ignited, the very idea of Nicodemus coming to Jesus at all was an offer of an olive leaf so to speak. Nicodemus may have been a pragmatist trying to calm the waters a bit and see if he could somehow bring about some reconciliation and try to achieve a compromise so that Jesus could become more acceptable and palatable in His rise to influence. He may have felt that Jesus had just miscalculated a bit in His bold move in the temple and needed the influence and guidance of a more mature mind that could help Him not be so rash in His attempts to become established as a recognized leader among the Jews.

Nicodemus admired the zeal that he observed in the heart of Jesus for the reputation of God and he may have longed to make a difference himself in addressing the problems that traditional religion was causing in society. He likely did not share all the popular dark views of God to the extent that most of the leadership did and he wanted to see how he and Jesus could work together in more effective ways and to explore ideas of how they could compliment each others goals. After all, a young, daring and aspiring leader needs the council and friendship of more experienced and mature elders to help balance and stabilize them in their growth into maturity and their rise into positions of power. This is a well know fact of life and it was not necessarily wrong for Nicodemus to want to help Jesus in this way.

These are some of the things that I see as I contemplate what I perceive in these verses. Obviously things took a dramatic turn in a totally different direction as soon as Jesus responded to Nicodemus. But I think it is very helpful to spend some time unpacking the context before jumping into the words of Jesus in this passage so that we can see more clearly the emotional dynamics and social background in which these words were spoken.

Father, I am beginning to see more clearly things that relate very strongly to what I am experiencing right now. But I struggle to have the balance that I see in the life of Jesus while here on earth. Jesus was full of zeal for your reputation and confronted the false ideas about you deeply entrenched right in your house on earth. I see the very same problems today in the houses of worship supposedly dedicated to worshiping you. More often than not our services revolve around a worship of our own routines and forms of religion more than being opportunities to encounter your real presence.

This has disturbed me deeply and now I realize that it is not a bad disturbance. But I also know how vulnerable I am to being out of balance in my zeal. I have been trying to make a difference in your house and help people to see past the man-made religious exercises to see that worship is supposed to be all about you. Is that what Nicodemus was feeling? But you know how much resentment and opposition it is stirring up even right now. They are trying to make me afraid, trying to counteract and eliminate my influence, trying to stop anything I have offered to make a difference in people's focus.

As I ponder what happened in your life in this circumstance I am both baffled and a bit intimidated. I just can't see myself acting like you did in cleansing the temple, though if you wanted me to, that could possibly happen. But I sense that my fears of what people think about me would cause me to misrepresent you because my spirit and motives might not be always in harmony with the spirit you had during that event. But at the same time I do not want my fear of what people think to rob me of experiencing the zeal for your reputation that you have been cultivating in my heart for some time now.

Father, I make this your problem. You started this work in me and you have to finish it. Please bring me into perfect alignment with your passion for souls. Fill my heart and mind with the true view of reality that compelled Jesus to stand up for you against all common sense from human perspective. Teach me your ways, fill me with your passion, your graciousness, your kindness and compassion and cleanse me of all fear except for my fear of spoiling your reputation. Demonstrate your true character in my life to attract others to want to know you more intimately for themselves. Because this is all about your reputation, not mine. Thank-you God for hearing and responding to this prayer and for being faithful.