{"id":275,"date":"2014-04-03T11:19:45","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T11:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.org\/blog\/?p=275"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:44:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:44:38","slug":"an-inconvenient-faith-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/an-inconvenient-faith-26\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inconvenient Faith (26)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating Him.\u00a0 They blindfolded Him and demanded, ‘Prophesy!\u00a0 Who hit you?’\u00a0 And they said many other insulting things to Him.”<\/em> (Luke 22:63-65)<\/p>\n

It is said that a terrorist blindfolds their victims for two reasons.\u00a0 We usually think of the first, which is to disorient the prisoner by keeping things hidden from them (The identities of their captors, their location…etc).\u00a0 The other reason is that it is easier to be cruel to someone that is anonymous.\u00a0 Psychologists say that it is hard to look into someones eyes and torture them.\u00a0 Being face to face with a person invites relationship.\u00a0 To be able to kill we must make it impersonal.<\/p>\n

Caiaphas had heard enough.\u00a0 He tore his robe and accused Jesus of blasphemy.\u00a0 The silent gentleness of the Lamb of God angered the religious leader.\u00a0 This would be easier if Jesus would fight back.\u00a0 I would imagine that Caiaphas had a hard time looking Jesus in the eyes during his jealous rant.\u00a0 Can you imagine looking into the eyes of Jesus and knowing that He could see right through you and into your soul.\u00a0 The Scripture tells us that God gives us the “knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ”<\/em> (2 Corinthians 4:6).\u00a0 Maybe Caiaphas ordered the guards to cover His face as they began the physical abuse that would continue through the night.\u00a0 So\u00a0 they blindfolded Jesus and started to beat Him.\u00a0 The other gospel accounts say the soldiers spit on Him and punched Him with their fists.\u00a0 “Who hit you?, they asked.\u00a0 Was Jesus tempted to say the name of each man that hit Him?\u00a0 He could have said their name and the names of their wives and children and described to them their deepest fears…He knew them…but they did not want to be known so they covered His face.<\/p>\n

Can you blindfold the God of the Universe?\u00a0 Before this night would end the eyes of the Savior would be swollen shut from the beatings but He could still see every face that night.\u00a0 Jesus walked to the cross with His divine eyes wide open.\u00a0 He knew every person in the crowd and He knew their sin.<\/p>\n

Are you ever tempted to try and cover the face of God?\u00a0 Do we attempt to cover God’s eyes and hope that He doesn’t know what we are doing?\u00a0 Or do we cover His His face so that we don’t have to look into the eyes of the God who made us and knows us better than we know ourselves?\u00a0 Psalm 139 tells us that we cannot hide from God.\u00a0 He saw you in your mother’s womb and has watched you since.\u00a0 The Apostle John says that one of the greatest blessings we will receive when we get to heaven is that we will “see His face” (Revelation 22:4).<\/p>\n

Today, let us look into the eyes of Jesus and invite Him to look into ours.\u00a0 Don’t be afraid.\u00a0 In them you will find comfort, healing and encouragement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating Him.\u00a0 They blindfolded Him and demanded, ‘Prophesy!\u00a0 Who hit you?’\u00a0 And they said many other insulting things to Him.” (Luke 22:63-65) It is said that a terrorist blindfolds their victims … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-inconvenient-faith-2014-lenten-blog","category-all_posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}