Who tries Who

My kids introduced me into watching this glamor series about hot-shot lawyers called "The Good Wife". For awhile I was 'hooked'; partly because the actors were handsome and the actresses pretty (ok, so they always are!) and partly because of my own legal background. After awhile I got bored of keeping up with the "who is sleeping with who and who's murdering who " plots. Besides the court dramatization was just that - drama. Watching the series however did trigger off memories of my days in legal practice. Not that I had much "air time" in court then. I never did any criminal cases, though I have tagged along senior counsel who did them during my chambering days. I was into civil litigation, but apart from 1 and only 1 case (which I am ashamed to say I lost as a novice lawyer who didn't know her stuff on civil procedure) , I never went 'all the way' into a full trial throughout my 6 odd years of practice. Nothing exciting ever happened when I was appearing before judges in court. And more often than not, I would be drinking coffee with my "worthy opponent" counsel after a court session, since we were all mostly interested in settling rather than fighting cases. I don't know if maybe American court-rooms are really so full of drama as portrayed on screen, but there is one trial which happened 2013 years ago that never fails to capture my imagination to this day.

It was by all accounts a rather strange trial. The defendant was accused of just 1 "crime" - blaspheming God by claiming to be God Himself. The prosecution was the public, represented by religious experts of the day. The judge - a Roman governor who feared man more than God who was more interested in (literally) washing his hands off the problematic defendant than facing the Truth. There was no defense counsel; all His disciples had deserted Him. The sentence was crucifixion on a cross. All the ingredients of high drama were there; undoubtedly it would have qualified as THE TRIAL of the century. No one could present any evidence to prove the 'charge'. In fact the judge had ruled "I find no basis for a charge against him."(John 19:4) but He was crucified anyway. Surely this was a travesty of justice. Moral and legal conscience says no innocent man should be condemned. Yet Jesus was condemned by man. How can man condemn God? How can the earthly judge the divine? It is more than a travesty of justice, it's totally...upside down. I know of no other word. If Jesus was the Almighty God, why would He allow Himself to be judged by His creation? Isn't it meant to be the other way round?

Every Easter the old story of Jesus being crucified is replayed through drama/sermons in every church. And every time the image of the cross pierces my heart, as I recognize it should be me, the sinner on that cross, not Jesus who had no sin. My pastor pointed out in his Good Friday message that it wasn't people who 'decided' the case against Jesus Christ - legally and morally speaking, there was absolutely no case against Him at all. It was Jesus Himself who decided to go to the cross - "No one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again." (John 10:18) What's this - masochistic lunacy or suicidal tendency? Hardly, Jesus certainly didn't 'fancy' the suffering of the cross; He prayed 3x  in Gethsemane that 'this cup' could be taken from Him. And it wasn't suicide; very human humans tortured and ultimately hung Him to the cross.

Lots of people wait for God to 'prove' Himself, without realizing or accepting that He already did. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King ..! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God." (Matt 27:42-43). That was the demand of people those days, the same demand is being made these days - Let "God" show Himself to me, then I will believe. But Jesus Christ never did come down from the cross. His 'proof' was the cross on Friday and an empty tomb on Sunday. A very dead man, risen gloriously alive, 3 days later a living God - He proved His case - there is God, and He loves us. It's only a matter of whether we want to accept and receive that as the truth, and nothing but THE truth. Like the Bible puts it, "they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead" (Luke 16:31). When Paul presented the resurrection of the dead to the top philosophers of his day in Athens,  some mocked, while others said, "We will hear you again on this matter." (Acts 17:32). Like them, today, we can make all sorts of justification, argue about proof and interpretations about God, delay or postpone making a decision . But end of the day, if we don't wanna believe, we won't believe, no matter what 'proof' there is. And that's the saddest thing, becoz in 'sitting on the fence' waiting for God to do something we want Him to do our way, we miss out on the greatest life  that we can have right now, here and in the hereafter,  if we would only accept what He has already done His way.
 
End of the day it's not God who's on trial today (His 'trial' was over 2013 years ago) - it's us. The question isn't about God, it's about what will you do with Jesus Christ.

"I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him--the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day" - John 12:46-48 
"Whoever believes....has eternal life, but whoever rejects... will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them"  - John 3:36