“Stuck in the Middle”

Sunday, September 15, 2024

But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

(Acts 9.22-26)

When the Apostle Paul became a Christian, it required him to leave the comforts he had previously enjoyed. He had felt at home in the company of zealous colleagues who applauded his ruthless misapplication of the Law of Moses in dealing with the growing number of Christians. From a fleshly point of view, life was good, and the future was bright. Yet, after Paul was confronted by Jesus and surrendered his life to serve the Lord, his old friends turned against him and began to plot his murder, as they had plotted Jesus’ before. Yet, while Paul was ready to show love for his fellow Christians, most of them refused, at first, to accept him as a brother. There he stood, stuck in the middle.

When the gospel spread to gentiles, Jewish Christians struggled to accept that the church was no longer entirely Jewish. Hardliners insisted, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses” (Ac 15.5)—that one must be a Jew, to be a Christian. Meanwhile, the new converts’ gentile friends were no longer friendly. The “unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers” (14.2), until they were ready “to mistreat them and to stone” the messengers (v5). Jews and gentiles agreed on very little. The main reason recorded in extra-biblical sources for gentile persecution of Christians is that they were—as their former friends saw it—acting Jewish. Meanwhile, Jews despised gentiles, and resented those who—as they saw it—twisted the Scriptures to make Jesus into a false Messiah. New gentile converts were in a maddening position! Jews, Jewish Christians, and pagan gentiles could only agree on one thing, and that was malice toward gentile Christians. And there they stood, stuck in the middle.

Of course, Jesus had been through all of this, before. He blazed the trail! For example, after Judas betrayed him to the authorities, the priests, Pharisees, Roman governor Pilate, and king Herod played hot potato with Jesus through a long and miserable night. The only thing they could agree on was that Jesus would be killed, but no one wanted to take sole responsibility for it. In one instance that encapsulates the whole, Pilate tried to dump the problem of Jesus in Herod’s lap.

And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other.

(Luke 23.11-12)

These individuals and groups usually spent their time wrestling with the others for power, often openly hostile toward each other. There Jesus stood, stuck in the middle.

This should not surprise us. In Luke’s Beatitudes, Jesus taught about this, saying,

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

(Luke 6.22-23)

Then, in the Woes that follow, he said,

Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

(Luke 6.26)

It’s not that being universally hated is evidence of your righteousness; you could  more easily secure such hatred by doing evil to everyone, and Jesus gives us the opposite instruction! But he says it’s a blessing when you are hated “on account of the Son of Man!” In that case, they only hate you, because they hate Jesus. It’s also not as if you should be suspicious of anyone, purely on the grounds that too many people have good things to say about them. Consider Dorcas, who won glowing testimony from everyone present (Ac 9.29-40). This was not evidence of something insidious in her. But at the same time, you can be sure that someone not present on that occasion had bad things to say about Dorcas, because “everyone who does wicked things hates the light” (Jn 3.20).

If you follow Christ, you should expect to occasionally find yourself stuck in the middle, badly treated both by enemies and by those who should be friends. Don’t be surprised at this. Christians should not feel completely at home in this world, because “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Php 3.20). Jesus provides for us the paramount image of one stuck in the middle. He had said, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (Jn 3.14). This referred to his crucifixion. He was made an emblem of shame and misery—but also a spectacle to be sought in faith, leading to healing. He was suspended between the earth and heaven, not fully at home in either place. At the same time, while evil men thrust him upward in a gesture of defiance to God, Jesus found himself, symbolically, between his heavenly Father and the creatures who deserved his wrath. He was in the most uncomfortable position possible, and yet it was exactly where he needed to be—stuck in the middle. Follow him, even there.

Jeremy Nettles

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