Meditation: Brood of Vipers

I'm on a roll tonight, LORD. Baby needs new shoes.

Jesus called the Pharisees and Sadducees a "brood of vipers." Why?

Because He loves us, and
Because we are.

A healer, to heal, doesn't say: "it's okay, everything will be fine" when you have cancer. No: it's "You have cancer. We need to operate, now, to remove the tumor. Then we have a strict regimen of chemotherapy to ensure the cancer is removed and stays in remission. That's what a healer says to heal. Jesus didn't say "Everything is good; it's okay, keep doing what you are doing, and I'm sure it'll turn out okay in the end." No. He said we will be separated, wheat from chaff, and we will be cast into the fires of Gehenna, the trash pit fire that burns without end, where we will wail and gnash our teeth. He also told us the cure in the Ten Commandments and then the Beatitudes. And we still don't get it. He had to scold His own disciples: 'Unless you become like these [a little child], you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

And we still don't get it.

Jesus loves us, and He wants us to be happy, and we can't be happen when we hurt each other and ourselves.

I had a conversation totday with Mr. Sh. He told me that back in India, a family named their son 'Satan.' He asked me, 'Have you ever seen an exorcism?' I said, 'No.' I asked him if he knew why Satan wasn't present in the world as before with possessions and the like. He said, 'no.' I said that it was because, now, Satan doesn't need to be present in the world anymore. We, by ourselves, in all the evil we do today, are going straight down the path to hell without any prompting from him. And we call evil 'good': 'my preferences,' 'my rights,' 'a woman's choice,' 'me-time,' 'my needs,' 'it doesn't hurt anybody.'

All this.

And Jesus called the Pharisees and Sadducees a "Brood of Vipers" because they were doing what they thought was good and right: leading the Jews through a difficult Roman occupancy.

What would Jesus say to us, today?

Save us, LORD, from the Evil One. Save us, LORD, from ourselves.

I ask this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.