The Story – Chapter 23 – John 1-2

Blind Refs

　Have you ever gone to a sporting event and booed or yelled at the referee? I know I have. For that matter I don’t even have to go to the game. I can just be watching it on TV and I know better than the ref what the correct call should be, which incidentally always favors the team I’m rooting for.

What is it about authority that we don’t like? What is it that makes us chafe under it? Maybe it’s pride or rebellion or control or all of the above. Whatever the case may be, it has been a problem since Adam and Eve told God, "You can’t tell me what fruit not to eat".

There seems to be some of that going around in John 1 and 2. The Jews of Jerusalem, which is to say the big whigs, sent the priests and Levites out to ask John just who he was anyhow. They are questioning his authority to do what he’s doing – baptizing.

Later Jesus is questioned about his authority to clear the Temple of the money-changers and retail vendors. Jesus always seems to have just the right words to put the Pharisees in their place. They ask for a sign and he tells them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days". Of course, they don’t get what he’s talking about.

There are many times in the Gospels when it says that Jesus spoke with authority, unlike the religious leaders. Jesus spoke with authority; he performed miracles with authority; and lived his life with authority.

So how do we normally respond to authority? Do we yell at the blind refs? How do we respond to our boss? Even more importantly, how do we respond to God when He prompts us to action?

I can hear my own voice, "Who do you think you are?" Don’t we say that to Jesus many times a day by our actions? When we choose to go our own way instead of His, aren’t we asking the same question as the Pharisees?

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." He came to dwell among us but also within us. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed his name, he gave the right to become children of God." Let us surrender to His authority that we might become His children.

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