The Pain and Evil of Jesus' Rejection (John 1:10-11)

"He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him" - John 1:10-11

Our ability to remember events in our lives and to recognize people is foundational to forming and maintaining relationships. Under some situations, though, our brains can lose their ability to make connections between the things we once knew and the things we now see and experience. There is something deeply painful and exceptionally difficult about not being able to remember events or suddenly losing the ability to recognize people that are the closest and dearest to us and with whom we have the deepest of intimate relationships. I have only heard stories about the devastation that dementia or brain damage can cause to families, but there is something very painful and disturbing in the stories of people waking up in the hospital after an accident having no recollection of who their spouses or children are. None of these stories, however, is as painful to hear and read as the story of the Jews, who did not recognize their own Messiah when he finally came for them.

The Father, who had a perfect relationship with the Son, also had a deep and unique relationship with His people, the Jews. Jesus himself created this people, Jesus himself formed them in their mother's wombs and provided for them the breath to sustain their delicate lives. For centuries, Jesus himself had specifically guided, protected, and saved the Jewish people from the enemies who sought to wipe them out. Jesus had been quiet for 400 years, and now, the unimaginable was going to happen. Jesus, the creator of the earth and the people of the earth (John 1:3) was coming to the earth as a man, to walk with his people, and eat with his people - to save his people. Yet John tells us that his own people did not receive him, in fact, they outright rejected him.

John summarizes the encounter between Jesus and the Jewish people who had been waiting for his arrival for centuries in these few verses, and he says that although Jesus had now entered the world he had created, the world did not know who he was. More than that, John says that "his own people" did not receive him and goes on to say later that they rejected him and condemned him to death. The reality of Jesus' rejection had been predicted in the Old Testament (Ps 118:22-23), but it did not diminish the very real pain, sorrow, and loneliness experienced by the man Jesus Christ. Jesus was rejected, mocked, stricken, and betrayed by his friends, his family (including his half-brother James), and many of the priests and scribes. All these people had read the prophecies, they knew what to expect, they knew the signs, but when the light finally came into the world (John 1:9), they turned away. From the moment of his birth in a manger, to his last breath on a cross, Jesus lived his life being despised and rejected, alone and unrecognized (Isa 53:3).

The Jewish people did not suffer any brain damage that prevented them from recognizing the Messiah as described in the Scriptures when they finally met him face to face. Their problem was not in their brain, but in their heart. The sin in their hearts was a worse disease than Alzheimer's, with far more devastating consequences. Their evil hearts made it impossible for them to "make straight the way of the Lord" as was cried out by John the Baptist (John 1:23). The people were expecting a political king, but instead were given a homeless teacher. They were expecting a ruthless conqueror, but instead were given a merciful saviour. They were expecting to be honoured and exalted, but instead were rebuked and humbled. The light had come, and it had come into the darkeness, but the darkness could not remain dark in the light and so the darkness rejected the light (John 3:19). In the same way, the Jews rejected Jesus because turning to Jesus would mean turning away from darkness, from who they were. Turning away from our own sin is the single greatest obstacle for every human being, and it involves receiving the true light that is so contrary to all we know ourselves to be.

John the Witness (John 1:6-7)

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” – John 1:6-7

Courtney and I watched “The Life of Pi” (spoiler alert) a few days ago. I really enjoyed the movie-partly because I am fascinated with animals and partly because it was simply an intriguing story. The movie consists of a man (Pi) who tells the story of how he survived a shipwreck as a boy and remained alive at sea for 277 days. The story includes a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, a strange island with a colony of unusual meerkats, and most importantly, Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger. Once Pi is finally rescued, he is asked by two investigators to share his testimony of what happened to him, the ship, and all of its passengers. The testmony Pi tells the investigators describes the unusual circumstances that allowed him to survive with only a raft and its contents for the nearly a year in the Pacific Ocean. His audience, though, is not satisfied with his witness acount and they press him to tell them the "real" story, namely, one that is easy to believe. Grudgingly, Pi tells the investigators a different story, which includes no wild animals or strange islands. Neither story gives an explanation of why the ship sank, but both of them explained how he survived. Pi, the only witness to the tragedy, has told two stories and it is up to the investigators to decide which one they prefer.

John the Baptist found himself in a very similar predicament to Pi. His testimony did not have to do with a disastrous shipwreck or survival at sea, but it had to do with the tragedy of human sin, and the only way to life. God had been silent for over 400 years and the people of Judea were losing hope, wondering if the promised Messiah would ever come to deliver them. John the Baptist's testimony was that the King was indeed coming, and he urged the people to prepare themselves for his arrival. John proclaimed the arrival of Jesus, God in the flesh (John 1:14), the Lord (John 1:23) who would be the Saviour of the world (Luke 3:3). Much like Pi's interrogators, however, the Jews had a hard time with the story and the explanation of this witness. If the Jews were going to believe John, it would require them to recognize their own darkness and their need to be rescued by the light. It would require them to realize that their biggest problem was not the Roman occupation over the Jewish people, but it was their own sin. In other words, they would need to understand that Jesus was not going to deliver them from a Gentile ruler, but from an inherited predisposition-their own sinfulness.

Pi changed his original testimony after seeing the investigators' dissatisfaction with his account. John the Baptist held firm to his testimony and did not offer an alternative version of reality despite the frustration and eventual anger of the people around him. He was not interested in changing his account because he knew that the eternal life of his hearers depended on whether or not they believed his testimony about who Jesus was.

An important difference between Pi and John as witnesses is that Pi was the only reliable witness that could explain the tragedy in the Pacific. John, on the other hand, was only one of hundreds of first-account, reliable, coherent witnesses of the man Jesus Christ. While the investigators in the movie had one and only one strange testimony go on, the Jews in John's day and all of us today have hundreds of first-person, reliable, and coherent accounts to help us understand and believe in the Son of God, the Saviour of the world.