{"id":280,"date":"2014-04-04T11:40:52","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T11:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.org\/blog\/?p=280"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:44:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:44:38","slug":"an-inconvenient-faith-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/an-inconvenient-faith-27\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inconvenient Faith (27)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanliness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, ‘What charges are you bringing against this man?’ ‘If He were not a criminal,’ they replied, ‘we would not have handed Him over to you.'”<\/em> (John 18:28-30)<\/p>\n

“For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.\u00a0 Therefore let us keep the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.”<\/em> (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)<\/p>\n

Jesus was taken from the courtyard of Caiaphas to the governor’s palace where Pilate resided.\u00a0 The high priest had done all that he was legally able to do.\u00a0 Now, the Jewish leaders needed the Romans to finish the job by having Jesus executed.\u00a0 Only Rome had the authority to implement a death sentence.\u00a0 The odd part of this is that the Jews hated the Romans and, especially the Roman officials.\u00a0 Their presence in the holy city was detested by the Sanhedrin led by the high priest.\u00a0 But corruption and envy can bring about strange alliances.\u00a0 So, as the sun was rising, Jesus was taken to Pilate and mortal enemies (Israel and Rome) became friends for a moment.<\/p>\n

Another unbelievable irony in this particular scene is that the religious leaders are so concerned about the religious regulations that they refuse to enter Pilates court because it would make them unclean for the Passover celebration.\u00a0 There is no concern for the fact that they are unjustly condemning an innocent man but they are still concerned about their religious purity.\u00a0 The Passover was the feast that foreshadowed the coming of the Messiah!\u00a0 According to the Scripture above, the actual Passover Lamb was in their presence but they missed it.\u00a0 While being concerned about the restrictions for the observance they became a part of the fulfillment.<\/p>\n

This happens in many areas of our lives when we get distracted by the small details and miss the true purpose or meaning.\u00a0 Maybe we have more in common with these religious leaders than we would like to admit.\u00a0 It is like someone attending church and missing a personal encounter with the God who loves them because they are worrying about doing the right thing at the right time.\u00a0 It is a common temptation in the lenten season as well, to allow the sacrifice that you have made become the focus rather than His sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Today, as you practice your lenten discipline, allow it to take your thoughts to Jesus who was the Passover Lamb, sacrificed for us.\u00a0 Let God know that you don’t want to miss it today no matter how inconvenient it might be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanliness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the … 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-280","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\/280","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=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}