How Not To Be Cornered

One of the remarkable stories about Jesus is how during His earthly ministry He was able to evade capture by those who hated Him. At various times, we read that the Pharisees and others had planned ways not only to discredit Jesus, but also to have Him put to death.

But at each time, forces that Jesus' enemies could not control brought their plans to naught, whether due to a risk of alienating the masses, or simply an inability to isolate Jesus into a locale where they could apprehend Him. Until Jesus considered it time to lay down His life, His enemies had no viable opportunity to carry out their vicious schemes.

Even in hindsight, we could exhaust all our analytical resources and still fall short of any rational explanation for how someone with as public a ministry as Jesus - thrusting Himself into the midst of the masses - might be so difficult to rein in. Even an otherworldly assertion that Jesus was too powerful and too transcendent to be caught might still be inadequate in revealing why Jesus’ enemies were unable to lay hold of Him.

In our everyday society, we see a steady stream of newsworthy people – both noble and shameless – being brought down to size, often at a dizzying speed. Usually, an unexpected chink in the armor causes someone who has been exalted to be abased. With public scrutiny’s intense light often comes a different view of that person that reveals a means to control and neutralize them.

But intense scrutiny of Jesus reveals instead that the public’s light is missing. Jesus’ life left His critics with no credible means either to impugn His character or to construct any corner, ideological or otherwise, into which they could back Him.

This should be no surprise, because Satan also was unable to find a corner to back Jesus into when Jesus was in the wilderness to be tempted. By deferring entirely to the Father, Jesus left no fleshly ego, pride or lust from which Satan could corner Jesus. Likewise, by subordinating His ministry to His Father’s will, Jesus left no useful means for His other enemies to scandalize or capture Him.

Clearly, had Jesus ever surrendered to fleshly purposes, His earthly ministry could be placed on a level with every other religious mystic who develops a following, but later succumbs to natural limitations. What makes Jesus elusive is that He is too righteous to be seized in public, or traceable in private.

Jesus offers that same righteousness to each of us, whether we are newsworthy or obscure. He wants us to have His righteousness in order to transform our lives for Kingdom purposes, unrestricted by this world’s limiting corners.

Through Jesus' faithfulness, we can overcome our own fleshly vulnerabilities, and proceed past our adversaries to fulfill His purposes. We just need to trust Him.