When Jesus lived he consistently created controversy, not because he intended to, but because what he said challenged the mainstream beliefs of the day. He was the Jewish Messiah, whom Christians call Christ, but he didn’t fit the Messiah theology of that day. While he did the works of God, like in John 9 when he opened the eyes of a man born blind, his words and claims offended his listeners. In fact, Jesus accomplished something 2000 years ago that even today modern medicine cannot duplicate. Today many call Jesus’ miracles myths, because they cannot understand how he could do what he did. Jesus’ contemporaries couldn’t do that because the man born blind was standing in front of them. In this case, Jesus healing the man did not offend them so much as what Jesus said about himself. He claimed to be one with God. In John 10 they picked up stones to kill him; so Jesus asked them for what good work were they trying to kill him. Their response is illustrative. They said not for his works, but because he was a man and claimed to be God. At this point their theology of God brought them to a place of missing who Jesus was; they believed that God could not become a man. Rather than considering the fact that they may have an incomplete or inadequate view of who God was and what God could do, they rejected Jesus because he didn’t fit their theological paradigm. Their conclusion about Jesus is instructive to us. Our devotion to theology and doctrine can blind us from what God is doing today. Jesus revealed something new that God was doing, but his contemporaries missed it. God can always do something new and unexpected, we need to make sure that our theology doesn’t prevent us from accepting what God is currently doing because it doesn’t fit with our theology.
David Freitag 