Plots and intrigue seem to be part of life. They seem to start in middle school as preteen girls try to sort out who should be with which boy, and go through the end of our lives, as old men pay huge sums of hush money to hide their misdeeds.
And it’s been going on for a long time: Look at these two bookend excerpts from the first part of Mark 14, verses 14:1-2, and 10-11 :
“Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. ‘But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot. . . .’
“Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.”
The Jewish leaders had a problem: how to be rid of Jesus without causing social unrest. Judas had a problem: Jesus, his intended route to power and wealth, was turning out not to care about either thing. Disgruntled ministry member sells out to schemers for more cash.
I wish something like this didn’t seem so normal to me, but this is how power works in our world. The powerful begin to think the rules don’t apply to them anymore; they get this attitude that they are doing so much good that they should be permitted to do anything they want, or have anything they want. So David takes Bathsheba, city managers embezzle funds, candidates spread rumors through proxies, televangelists get involved in sordid affairs, and political operatives publish enough actual fake news that we start believing its all fake.
It makes me think power is one of the most dangerous things for a person to want, or have. Very few of us have enough judgment to be trusted with power.
Besides, political power or physical power or financial power are nothing compared to the power I already have in Jesus. That power can free me from my own sin, bring me true joy, change the hearts of the bitter and angry, strengthen me to have the kind of relationships that don’t involve scheming. The true power gives every man and woman who believes everything that the world’s schemers want: joy, happiness, love and significance.
Instead of chasing power, how much better to walk in the way of the one who has all power?
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