Luke 19:47-48 (NIV) Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.
Jesus’ life was in imminent danger. The powers that be had it in for Him, and were waiting for a single slip, a single word from His lips that could be turned against Him and used to build a case against Him in court, preferably charges that could be used as a basis for a death sentence.
But Jesus showed not the least concern. He knew that his time was up, and that before the end of the week, God would move His defenses aside and open the way for Him to be arrested, tried, and even executed.
But He would not hurry the process. He would not intentionally set Himself up for the fall that He knew was coming. He was in no way suicidal, and would not fall on His own sword. He would simply continue His kingdom work until the very moment that the trap of His enemies was laid and sprung.
On the other side, the Jewish leaders were in a high state of turmoil. Their hatred of Jesus had become all-consuming. But they found themselves completely impotent, unable to move on their hatred. If they confronted Jesus, He calmly cut them to pieces with the words of His well-reasoned and entirely biblical theology. If they laid out the cleverest traps they could devise, He deftly sidestepped them, often turning their own logic against them, sending them away with their tails between their legs.
They knew that their only other option, simply marching in and arresting Jesus while He taught in the temple, would be useless at best. The crowds that constantly surrounded Jesus were so caught up by His teachings that it was most likely that they would turn on them and cause a riot. They had no idea where Jesus was staying at night, although they knew that it was not in the city where He could be taken out under cover of darkness. Unless they caught a break somehow, He was going to escape their clutches again!
Father, I can see two things very clearly here. One is that You were working in this situation the whole time, so that even when Jesus’ enemies succeeded in arresting and executing Him, they had to wait for You to enable it, and then it would happen exactly as You had planned and foretold it. The second is that Jesus had absolute peace, even in the midst of His enemies, because He knew that He was 100% within Your will, and that they couldn’t lay a finger on Him until You orchestrated it. And, even then, He would still remain 100% within Your will. Help me to live every moment of my life that same way, and with that same level of trust and peace. Amen.