Unjustified Reaction

The beautiful thing about the Bible is that it tells the story meant to be told whether it's good or bad, courageous or cowardly, charming or repulsive, gentle or violent.

Two brothers fight and one is murdered; a man rapes a sister and the brothers devise a scheme to kill all the men in the town; a King looks at a women and decides an indiscretion is better then self discipline; a whole army is destroyed in a sea, Samson is a womanizer, bears come out of the woods and tear apart naughty kids.  It is the same in the New Testament, Herod bloodies some babies of Nazareth. A couple steals from the church and they are carried out dead.  I would be remise if I left out the Apostle Peter and how he cut off Malchus’s ear. It was one of the most magnificent miracles of Jesus before His death. It was the last divine surgery performed by Jesus. The event concerning Malchus was the climax of a long series of beautiful and gracious healing miracles; but still it is a very troublesome text.  An example of an unjustified reaction.

When Jesus did his first miracle at Cana, it was in the most joyous surroundings of a wedding but here in the garden of Gethsemane, this last miracle was done in the shadow of Calvary. It was a time and a place of sorrow, travail and anxiety of the soul.

Just like the comment made with his first miracle of turning the water into wine,(“every man at the beginning sets forth good wine, then that which is worse: but you have kept the good wine until now”, the same can be said about the miracles of Jesus.  He kept the best miracle, until the last.

There are four(4) very nice lessons concerning this particular miracle I want you to consider. 

First, when Peter drew his sword it was a violent response to a difficult situation.  It was the wrong thing to do.  Jesus never preached power through a sword!

Second, Peter made a huge mistake with that sword and Jesus had to repair the damage for that wrong. Jesus has been repairing the wrongs done by us, the church, ever since.  We goof up and still today He is making reparations to manage the damage.

Thirdly, it was an example of Christian forgiveness. Now at the end of His ministry, Jesus gave a perfect example of how men ought to love their enemies. The heaviest burden you will ever carry is the burden of an unforgiving heart. When you have an unforgiving heart it is a burden to which you cannot ask God to help you with because it is so contrary to the Spirit of the Lord.

Fourth, in the book of John, Jesus tells his disciples that he was to drink of, 'the cup of His Father'.  In other words, Jesus would do only what His Father's will was. If He would have picked up that sword it would have been His own will and not the heart of God.

So we see that Jesus had a choice to make didn't he?  What did He do? Jesus healed the soldier's ear and continued on in the permissive will of His Father to the cross. 

Which do you choose to use in response to things that happen in your life? A sword or a cup?