From a Certain Point of View

Then the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has blasphemed! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. What do you think?” They answered, “He deserves death.”

Matthew 26:63b-66 (NRSVUE)

In Return of the Jedi, Luke goes back to Dagobah to finish his training with Yoda. He confronts Yoda with the horrifying truth he learned from Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, and Yoda confirms his worst fears – Vader is his father.

After Yoda gets tired of talking about it, he turns over and dies, leaving Luke to face this harsh reality on his own. At least, until Ghost Obi Wan shows up, and Luke is all like, “Why did you lie to me? You told me Vader murdered my father.” And Ghost Obi is all, “That’s what he told me at the end of our fight. You should really watch the Disney+ series to get it straight from him.”

Oh, wait… no, that’s not it. He says, “What I told you was true, from a certain point of view.”

How we look at things really matters. How we frame situations makes a difference in how we approach them.

This morning, I spent some time in Matthew 26. Jesus has been arrested, and is on trial in the middle of the night before the high priest, and whoever else showed up to this kangaroo court proceeding.

In the end, Jesus is charged with a crime that is punishable by death, but what is the crime? It’s blasphemy. However, is what Jesus said blasphemous? I guess that depends on your point of view.

As far as the high priest is concerned, it absolutely was. The disciples and other followers of Jesus would disagree – not publicly, though, they’re too afraid at this point.

Jesus truly is the Messiah, the Son of God. It’s blasphemous to the high priest because he doesn’t believe it. Is that really the bar that we should be setting? Should the quality of other people’s beliefs be based on what we believe to be true. If that’s the case, then we are the arbiters of truth. Honestly, I don’t know if I want that responsibility.

Later on, in the Book of Acts, some of the disciples are now in front of the Sanhedrin. It’s not in the middle of the night, so there’s probably more level-headed, less biased representation there. This time, the conclusion is basically, “Let God sort it out. We don’t want to get into trouble for standing in God’s way.”

One of the surest signs of spiritual growth and maturity in our own faith is when we are able to tolerate other points of view without a violent prejudice against it. I’m not saying that there aren’t people who are wrong in their beliefs. And, certainly, we want to be firm in our own convictions. But we have to realize that there’s always a possibility we could be wrong, and perhaps the better route is humility when it comes to our beliefs.