Tuesday – Luke 20:1-8

When I was a kid, my sister Haley and I were riding in the car with my Aunt Kay. I can’t remember what Kay asked Haley to do, but, whatever it was, Haley did not obey. Instead, Haley muttered words that have been quoted hundreds of times since: “You’re not my boss. Meme is MY boss.” And there you have it. Meme is the boss (and she remains so to this day)! Jesus was teaching in the temple when the religious leaders posed the questions: Who gave you the authority to say these things? Who gives you the right? Why should we listen to you? Jesus turned the questions on them and asked their view on John. What does John have to do with Jesus? Jesus’ authority over the temple was his authority as the Messiah. That authority was confirmed at the time of his Baptism (by John) with the dove and the voice from heaven. If John was a true prophet, then Jesus is indeed the true Messiah. Jesus’ authority and identity had been affirmed by John and the spectacular event at his baptism.

And I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Clive Staples Lewis: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”