“If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” – John 11:48
Following Jesus is a threat to our social and political status. Always has been. Always will be until Christ returns. During His earthly ministry, the religious leaders didn’t debate the validity of Christ’s teachings or the significance of His miracles. They simply worried about what would happen to them if many people followed Jesus. Their comfortable system and situation would be completely overturned, both politically and socially. So they rejected and killed the Son of God to preserve the status quot!
We mustn’t be too quick to judge them. Jesus still invites each of us to follow Him. To truly follow Him still threatens everything we know and have become comfortable with in our lives. Many people, including many Christians, refuse to truly follow Jesus because they don’t want to experience the discomfort, loss, and disruption of familiar patterns required. So they either reject Jesus outright or keep Him at arms length while enjoying Sunday worship each week.
Jesus’ invitation to die to ourselves is a hard pill to swallow. This was what the leaders rejected. Because they had no vision for the greater reality offered by Jesus, they violently held onto their present reality. We mustn’t dwell too long on what we might lose for the sake of Jesus, though we should be aware of it. Instead, let us turn our minds to what we’ll gain if we’re willing to give up place and nation for Him: friendship with God, the joy of the Lord, the Fruit of the Spirit, the increasing awareness of God’s constant presence and glory, the joy of walking in God’s will, the satisfaction of living for the purpose for which you were created, and the significance of a life devoted to the Kingdom of God, just to name a few things.
We must let go our fear of following Jesus and truly follow!