11-06-10 (Friday) "Pleading Not Guilty"

You know that feeling when someone accuses you of something you didn't do and you just HAD to shout it out that you didn't do it?

Like the time your brother/sister lied to mom/dad that it was you who started the fight
Like the time when someone puts someone else's eraser in your bag and told the teacher it was you who stole it
Like the time when you did your own homework but the teacher found two similar answers in the homework and your good ol' pal insists s/he asked you to do your own work but decided to just let you copy HIS answer instead?

Its only right that we speak up for our innocence, don't you think so? How can we let that other person get away with this bad thing s/he did? If we let him go, he might just go on doing MORE bad stuff until it becomes part of his character so we better stop it earlier on by pleading for justice on our behalf, right? I would think that's only the RIGHT thing to do.

But here comes a whole different story told 2,000 years ago when a Man free from any blame decided to take all the rubbish and fallacy thrown His way and yet not speak a single word of retaliation. Here was Jesus, whose perpetrators "testified falsely against Him, but their statements did not agree." (Mark 14:56) Everyone was throwing unproven claims against Him with no basis on truth at all... "but Jesus gave him no answer."(John 19:9b)

"Jesus answered, 'You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above." (John 19:11a)

It takes quite a lot of humility to silence oneself to accept such insults and yet keep quiet about it, just taking as it is. It takes REAL love to take on another's punishment. And punishment SO severe. The only thing I could think of, putting myself in Jesus' shoes reading this, was "I don't have to take all this crap!" but yet Jesus did! For me. For you. For the love of us. Can you see it yet? Does it remind you of how it was when you first came to Him?

I do not believe in stopping living just because of exams coming around the corner.
The closer exams are, the more I live life. :)