Reflecting on Him
In this story about the disciples eating grain on the Sabbath without washing their hands, the Pharisees confront Jesus, not the disciples about it.
There is an unspoken assumption, one that Jesus doesn’t seek to refute, in what the Pharisees did. The assumption is that whatever the disciple does is a reflection on their leader. In this case, when Peter, James, and John ate grain on the Sabbath with unwashed hands, Jesus was assumed to be responsible for their actions.
First, let me note a couple of interesting elements to this in the story and then give us a brief exhortation.
One thing that stands out to me is that Jesus doesn’t try to deflect or deny his connection to his men and what they were doing. He doesn’t say, “Well, that’s not my fault. Go talk to them about it. They are still learning and haven’t figured out that isn’t a good idea. You have to remember they are just a bunch of ignorant fishermen.”
Jesus doesn’t do any of that. He defends them. He stands as their advocate. While Jesus isn’t going to excuse our sins, we can also be sure he won’t ever walk away from us, leaving us to twist in the wind by ourselves. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He certainly isn’t going to abandon us to our enemies.
The second closely related point is that Jesus isn’t embarrassed to be associated with his disciples. He didn’t distance himself from them. Jesus is not ashamed for you to be called his brethren (or sistren if that is a word). That’s exactly what Hebrews 2:11 says:
For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren…
One final point of exhortation: Since the world does often look at us and our actions and assume that what we do or say is a reflection on Jesus, shouldn’t we be careful about what we do or say? Shouldn’t we assume that the world is judging Jesus by what they see in us?
