Passion Week: Jesus Questioned by Religious Leaders

Related Passion Week Devotionals:

• Cleansing of the Temple
• Jesus Questioned by Religious Leaders
• The Sanhedrin and Judas’ Betrayal
• The Last Supper
• Good Friday
• Silent Saturday
• The Resurrection

Every year, we pull out a wonderful object lesson tool called ‘Resurrection Eggs’ to teach our children in a palpable way the Easter story. It’s an opportunity to teach them about the events of the week leading up to the resurrection of Jesus in a way that truthfully displays the hardest things that Jesus had to go through for us, while providing it in a engaging and meaningful way.

Why we mention this? Because one part specifically stands out when we talk about how Jesus was questioned by authorities. The commentary reads ‘there were people who were angry and scared by the mission of Jesus Christ and the following He was gaining’. In its simplest nature, I have come to believe that these religious leaders were very scared. Scared to loose their power over the people, scared to loose everything they knew about their religion, scared to loose their traditions and essentially culture, as Jesus came and radically brought a different message and perspective on the interpretation of scripture. He was the Word, and we know so many religious leaders felt very threatened by the idea of someone proclaiming to be the Son of God, performing miracles, and changing lives. The religious leaders were not ready for such changes, nor were they open to receiving changed hearts and minds.

Jesus knew the hearts of these religious leaders. What is crazy is that Jesus wasn’t yet being questioned by Roman authorities, but rather His own people. In a conversation with these leaders found in Matthew 21:23-32, we see the hearts of these religious leaders exposed, and the consequences of their hardened hearts. Though there was no doubt to believe that Jesus was the Son of God come to fulfill the purpose that He was sent, they answered with ‘we don’t know [what to believe]’ but in fact they did. Jesus follows with a parable that gravely says that these religious leaders chose not to believe, even when they were given the opportunities to do so, and because of that even the lowliest would enter the kingdom of heaven before they [ultimately wouldn’t].

They clung to their religion with white knuckles rather than clinging to being transformed and changed by an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Our question today: Do you place your religion or your traditions of man above intimacy with Jesus? Do you fulfill all the “steps” of religion but fail to please your Father in heaven in living a sacrificial, life laid down, transformed life? Does it look really good on paper, but in reality you’re dead inside? Lastly, these religious authorities were met with several opportunities to convert, but they chose not to. It is important to understand this, that whether you are a Christian or not, if you miss the opportunity to truly change from the inside out, if you miss the mission of Jesus, if you proclaim with your mouths, but dishonor with how you live, let this be your moment to change and fall freely into the loving arms of a Savior who sacrificed everything for you.