No Good Life Goes Unpunished

No good deed goes unpunished. Neither does any good life, especially a life like Jesus lived to perfection. There were enemies, according to the Gospel account in Luke 22. No, I'm not trying to raise some foolish anti-Semitic thing about the Jews attacking Jesus. Jesus was Jewish too, and the same scenario could have been played out if all of them were Swedes.

They felt threatened by him, by the fact that he was more popular than they were, more in control of his life, more revolutionary about changes that needed to be made in his society. So we read that: " The leading priests and teachers of religious law were actively plotting Jesus' murder. " (Luke 22:2).

There was a traitor too, a Judas (because that was his name, Judas Iscariot). I suspect Judas was angry that Jesus wasn't doing what a Messiah was supposed to do - leading a revolution that would overthrow Israel's Roman oppressors and establish a golden age. None of that was in Jesus' plan. He came in peace, ready to accept the hatred against him.

But not as a martyr. We love martyrs, but ultimately they lose. They may be hailed for the cause for which they died, but in the end the cause often dies with them. But Jesus...his actions on this last week of his earthly life as described in Luke 22 are uncanny.

He knew. He knew what was going to happen to him. So he planned for it and explained its meaning to his followers. Then he refused to resist his attackers. He let himself be taken. Why?

When he had that last supper with his followers, he held up a piece of unleavened bread and said, "This is my body, given for you." (Luke 22:19) Given for them. Given for us too?

How could the sacrifice of Jesus be for us? Maybe an ancient prophecy will help:

"All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the guilt and sins of us all. " (Isaiah 53:6)

If the prophecy is about Jesus, it explains a lot. He wasn't dying for himself but to pay the penalty we deserved for wandering from God like sheep.