I don’t know how long it takes gossip to travel in Palestine
in the first century, but I doubt it travels slowly. News of Jesus’ success must have made the
rounds as people travel up and down the dusty roads of Israel. But it is the gossip that leaves the good
news in the dust. It is not a matter of
finding bad things to say about Jesus, it is a matter of how they choose to
spin the news. Gossip has an awful way
with words.
The Pharisees, who are considered the protectors of Jewish
orthodoxy, could not find bad things to say about Jesus. There is nothing there—sort of like the story
of the prophet Daniel being thrown into the lion’s den as a result of a good
deed twisted to become a violation of the law of Persia. In this case the religious leaders are
threatened by both the desert prophet of repentance and the new rabbi who
preaches a message of forgiveness and new birth. They begin to spread dissent among the
disciples of John, as we see in the previous chapter. They begin to insinuate Jesus is trying to
move in and displace John from his prophetic pedestal. The good he is doing is in fact bad for
business if you are a “disciple of John.”
I have little use for gossip. I detest it because it comes garbed in
hypocrisy, a close kissing cousin. It
comes disguised in best intentions, but desires nothing less than the worst for
the victim of its venom. People who
traffic in gossip are not interested in bettering others, rather in diminishing
others and their success to better their position in life. I have learned that what goes around comes
around, so avoid gossip like the plague that it is. Once you become a carrier, you seal your fate
even as you destroy the fate of others.
Such is the web being spun by the Palestinian Pharisaic paparazzi intent
in bringing down the two preachers on the banks of the Jordan.
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