A Kingdom of Force

So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone. Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, and after getting into a boat, they started to cross the sea to Capernaum. It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea began to be stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. (John 6:15-18)

I am starting to see more clearly in this passage how God sometimes uses the elements of nature around us to create circumstances to illustrate to us what is going on internally and spiritually. It seems to always be easier for us to relate to the physical world and to get our attention more readily by having an external crisis than it is to get our attention spiritually without a crisis. So in this story God allowed nature to provide a demonstration of what was going on in the hearts of those who wanted to force their own plans on Jesus by letting them see outwardly what was happening in their minds and hearts.

The crowd along with at least some of the disciples became so caught up in the national fervor and desire for supremacy over their enemies that they had decided to override the apparent reluctance of Jesus and move ahead to implement the popular hopes that had formed over years of patriotic frustration. Everyone thought they knew what needed to happen. Their nation had been subjected to the ravages of violence, they had been humiliated and abused by a godless, foreign power that had little respect for their culture, and God had seemed to have abandoned them in all of this.

The Jews had long placed their hopes in the coming promised Messiah whom they were increasingly certain was the answer to all of their problems. And of course in their minds, their problems were primarily political and social in nature, not spiritual. It was obvious that their national pride had been humiliated by outside forces and what they needed was superior force to overcome their enemies to establish the kingdom of God on earth as promised by the prophets of old. Some who had read the Scriptures were getting excited that the time was very close for the Messiah to appear and everyone was waiting with eager anticipation looking around to see how He would come.

There were many people during that time who had exploited this national anticipation for a Messiah who would deliver them from their enemies and exalt them to a superior place of authority and power on earth. These men often had taken things into their own hands and had started up various revolts against the Romans with usually disastrous results. Others believed that the problem was more spiritual in nature and that God was waiting for Jews to be holy enough before the promised Deliverer could show up. So they had started up various forms of communes in an attempt to condense holiness in a group of people to high enough concentration to trigger the appearance of the Messiah in their midst.

But all of these various approaches shared the same common belief – that the Messiah was all about delivering the Jewish nation from the oppression of the Romans. They longed to enjoy the prestige and power and recognition that the nation had enjoyed under the rule of king Solomon when riches and glory had filled the streets of Jerusalem. (see 1 Kings 10:21-27) In those days a large part of the world had paid tribute and taxes to the Jews and they had enjoyed being the temporal leader of their time. How the Jews longed to reinstate the power they had enjoyed in the 'good old days' under Solomon's reign.

But they had conveniently forgotten how abuse and suppression had proliferated as a result of that kind of earthly power and glory. The class system and the heavy taxes had become so galling that by the time Solomon had finished his reign the people of his kingdom could not stand another ruler of his kind and the nation had become divided into two countries after a violent rebellion against the heavy abuse of Solomon. That is always the nature of earthly power and authority; it is always accompanied by the suppression of some for the benefit of others. Living by force to achieve glory on earth has a very high price attached to it. But the outward allurements of that kind of glory are very overwhelming and humanity seldom resists its attraction.

Jesus came to this earth with a totally different mission in mind. He did not come to institute yet another dynasty to exalt a chosen people to dominate and rule over all others as men desire to do. Jesus came to reveal the real truth about a God of love, of compassion, who created all men equal and has no interest is setting up some in dominance over others. God's kingdom is not of this world because God's principles of government are totally out of harmony with the principles that permeate the thinking and desires of fallen sinful nature. God never employs force or coercion to get His way. He never builds upon fear and intimidation as a foundation for control over the hearts of His people. His government is totally based on love and mutual respect.

God's kingdom is not actually a kingdom at all based on the assumptions most people have about kingdoms. But God uses that term because we are often only willing to relate to Him using our terminology. But in reality, God's form of government is a family model and as such is radically different than the hierarchical power models of this world.

But the Jews of Jesus' day, just as nearly every religion is in our day, had very little interest in seeing that type of kingdom set up on earth. They felt, as most people today feel, that a kingdom based on heart attractions and loyalty without outside systems of control rooted in force and fear, was totally impractical. That is why Jesus did not have much appeal to many who observed the signs He performed. But when they did finally began to pay attention to the miracles He performed many mistook them and misinterpreted them by placing them into the context of their own distorted views of what they thought the Messiah was supposed to do.

From that perspective it can more readily be seen what was going on in this story. Given the strong national patriotism and intense craving for release from the oppression of the Romans, people began to imagine what could be accomplished if Jesus' powers were employed to further their national desires. With such a miracle-worker in their midst they could exploit His abilities to out-maneuver and outlast any enemy forces. The wounded from battles could be immediately healed (of course, only their own wounded mind you), the supply lines could be eliminated because Jesus could miraculously provide food and everything they needed on the spot, and even their dead could be brought back to life.

As their imaginations began to feed on these amazing potential possibilities, their collective fervor began accelerating to fever pitch. The disciples saw themselves already strategically positioned to hold the highest offices in this new world order and everyone began to feel it was time to quickly put all the pieces into place and not wait any longer. And if Jesus seemed reluctant to go along with their plans, they viewed that as simply an issue of shyness or humility which maybe made Him even more qualified to be their leader in some respects.

But earthly assumptions about how to govern are so diametrically opposed to heaven's method of governing that Jesus would not allow this mistaken fervor to suck Him into using Satan's methods. To allow anything of this nature to involve Him would have been to surrender to the ideas of God's arch-enemy and would have caused Jesus to fail in His mission to this world. To exalt one group of people at the expense of others in this world would be to deny the very nature of God Himself that Jesus had come to reveal.

But by this time Jesus' disciples had become so caught up in the popular emotional momentum that it was impossible to deter them or get them to think objectively until their emotions had cooled. Jesus knew that this was no time for trying to teach or reason with people, for their hearts had become too caught up with worldly plans and worldly motivations. The only thing left for Jesus to do in this crisis was to simply withdraw Himself and diffuse the plans of the crowds by taking away the focal point of their mistaken desires. Without a miracle worker readily available to turn into their king they could not accomplish their intense desires to start the ultimate revolution.

But God had more in store to teach His people. Not only did Jesus withdraw His presence from His disciples because of their passion for independence and desire to use force, but in addition God allowed nature to demonstrate what can happen when force is unleashed outside the parameters of total submission to heaven's way of doing things. As darkness began to increase both externally and internally over the disciples, a violent storm began to form which only gave vivid expression to what was already happening in the hearts of everyone involved.

When Jesus withdrew to diffuse the plans of the crowd to make Him king by force, it did not immediately restore everyone to their previous state of mind. Their emotions had already been indulged and the adrenaline had already filled their veins. Now, without Jesus to be found anywhere to impose their plans upon, the people's excitement began to transform into frustration and anger. They had taken a risk by allowing their dreams to surface in this way. The Romans had a long reputation of taking extremely harsh measures against any hint of rebellion, so for people to openly rally around a potential leader was to put their lives on the line. They were counting on Jesus to provide the kind of bold leadership and protection they needed to accomplish this rebellion successfully. But now He had deliberately sabotaged their plans, exposing them to potentially disastrous reprisals from the Roman soldiers if they ever learned what was going on.

Even more humiliating to them, Jesus had in essence betrayed His own country by refusing to be patriotic and to use His abilities to support national security. In essence He had played the traitor and thus planted seeds of doubt about His reliability as a loyal Jew. In their minds He was violating all the sacred duties of a citizen and had thwarted their plans for freedom that would have fulfilled the obvious needs of the country. If Jesus couldn't be counted on to come through for them when far out in the countryside where there were no Romans around to threaten them, how could He be counted on to be patriotic when the real battles began to take place? Their passion for glory was now quickly morphing into bitterness and resentment toward Jesus for pulling the plug on all their national dreams.

The darkness was beginning to thicken very fast both in their hearts and in the skies overhead.

When the disciples got into that boat and began to row across the lake, their own hearts were so full of resentment and frustrated emotion that their love and trust in Jesus had well nigh disappeared. Given this very vulnerable opportunity, evil supernatural forces were allowed to stir up a physical storm designed to destroy these men who were indulging in their desires for independence from the ways of God. The feelings of their hearts had distanced them from trust in God and God was now allowing them to see very forcibly the danger of living out the desires of their hearts when those desires were not subject to the will of God for them.

Jesus had not yet come to them, it says. This was so true both externally and internally. But this is not to say that Jesus had forgotten them for even a moment. He just needed to give them time to grow in faith and learn that God's ways are very different than the plans of men or of nations. Jesus may have appeared in their eyes to be very unpatriotic, but He never wavered in His intense passion to save the lives of all, whether Jew or non-Jew. Since the people had refused to obey His insistence that His kingdom was not of this world, He would let them taste the rule of force in other ways until they were ready to admit that force never accomplishes things the way heaven designs to accomplish things. After they would have their fill of force then Jesus was ready to come and dispel the fear that force always produces.