Afraid of losing.

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

04/12/14

 John 11:45-56

Many of the Jews who had come to Mary
and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees
and told them what Jesus had done.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees
convened the Sanhedrin and said,
“What are we going to do?
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, said to them,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own,
but since he was high priest for that year,
he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to kill him.

So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews,
but he left for the region near the desert,
to a town called Ephraim,
and there he remained with his disciples.

Now the Passover of the Jews was near,
and many went up from the country to Jerusalem
before Passover to purify themselves.
They looked for Jesus and said to one another
as they were in the temple area, “What do you think?
That he will not come to the feast?”

What are we worried about losing? The Sanhedrin seemed to be worried more about what they may lose than what Jesus was trying to teach them. Are we guilty of this as well? What about popularity, or status, or maybe friends? Any of these are potential for us to chose to want to do something similar to the Pharisees. We may seem far removed, but are we really?

So how do we find the virtue of prudence? How do we get our priorities in line to make the tough decisions. We talked about using the litmus test of the simple, “Does this glorify God?” question. And as an example, popularity isn't necessarily not God honoring. It's just what we do with it. Look at what some recent standout celebrities have done with their popularity. Tim Tebow comes immediately to mind. He may have suffered for it, but he makes no bones about who he believes in.

Some may call it a Holy Boldness. I prefer to simply consider it mandatory response to grace. If we believe what we say we believe it will look like something. We will take the unpopular position to support those who are unpopular. We will stand with those who are oppressed and we'll make an impact in our culture that that will prove that what we believe is undeniably true. But it all starts with virtue, and in this case that virtue is prudence.

Good luck and God bless,

Leo Brown