The 5th Amendment and Jesus - Luke - pages 47-54

I feel as though my emerging objective in writing these daily reactions to the reading of the New Testament is to share my utter shock at the new things hitting me in new ways.  Originally I thought I would discipline myself to give an account of my thoughts concerning key points Jesus was making (that I already knew about, but wanted to pontificate on).  I have been humbled to realized how many details of the narrative of God's Word I have missed and how many misrepresentations I have made about who Jesus was and what he was like.  He is much more human that I ever imagined and his sinlessness what certainly not to be confused with being "behaved" or "nice".  He is, as I've discovered the last couple weeks, unlike any man that has ever stepped foot on this planet.  I think I've thought of him as a sinless version of Ghandi...this couldn't have been further from the truth.  

A detail that reached out a grabbed me today was the verse that said, "that day Herod and Pilate became friends--before this they had been enemies."  How interesting.  Jesus did bring about reconciliation between people...as they banded together in solidarity against him.  People that were enemies became friends under the banner of their common views of Christ.  The couldn't get along on anything but their opposition to Jesus.  They had no earthly connection beyond their combined efforts to thwart this man and his mission.  

Friends.  They became friends through this conspiracy to kill Christ.

Something about their interaction with Jesus caused them to find friendship where before there was no relationship whatsoever.  I found this intriguing.  I see this in our world.  A conspiracy against Jesus that brings the most unlikely and uncommon people together in communal vitriol.  People of other faiths can do as they please in public places, but any public display of affection for Christ causes shockwaves that measure at a 9.7 on the Richter.  There is such tolerance of all manner of expressiveness regarding 5th amendment freedoms of speech, but when it involves in the slightest the person of Jesus, it evokes such reactions of anger by people claiming to be violated as if they were being mentally molested or spiritually abused.  The tolerance for anything and everything truly vile goes without saying, but the allowance of Christ in conversations or celebrations provokes rabid tirades.  

People come out of the woodwork and rally together even as enemies against Jesus.  Not God, but Jesus.  He is the centerpiece of controversy.  He is the talking point of tabloids.  He is the fulcrum.  The spine.  The center of gravity.  You are more than free to not believe him, but one thing is for sure...you can't ignore him.  You can stand neutral in your opinion of several things, but there is no neutral ground on Jesus...you either love him or hate him.  He allows no borderland.  

How could a man be so influential that even peoples hatred of each other is set aside in order to join forces in friendship against this man?  You can tell what's true by the level of defensiveness people have in opposition toward it.  People rarely get flustered over things that have no credibility, they simply let them neutralize themselves in time.  Only truth induces this kind of enemy alliance.  There is no need to raise up and kill what has no merit in the first place.