The celebration of Jael as the skillful wielder of tent pegs
is the center of this account. The king
asked only for water and she went the extra mile and gave him milk instead and
then we get the gory details. She took
the tent peg in her hand and the workman's mallet in her right hand and drove
it through his temple and there he fell at her feet, dead. The king's mother is pictured and concerned
about her son's failure to return, anxiously looking out the window as she
waits for him to come riding home in his chariot from yet another victory while
we know that his pathetic dead body lies in the tent of some Israelite
couple. At the end of the song the wish
is that all enemies of the Lord and His people would likewise perish while
those who bless would be blessed, in keeping with the original promise to
Abraham in Genesis 12. Then, the land had
rest for forty years.
So the guards at the tomb go to town to tell the leaders of
the Jews what they had seen. Surely the
story was greeted with more than a bit of skepticism but in the end they took a
"sufficient sum of money" to tell an alternate story, that some of
the disciples came and got Jesus' body.
That only makes sense if the disciples were more well armed and able
than the guards doesn't it? It also only
makes sense if there is some prosecution of them for stealing a body, the price
for which, under Jewish law, would be great and such prosecution could
certainly be expected after the successful prosecution of Jesus. That they continued to proclaim Jesus in
Jerusalem, and in particular in the temple courts, tells you that this lie was
nothing more. All you needed was more
than one witness whose testimonies agreed.
Finally, Jesus gives the Great Commission to go and make disciples.
Could Peter have realistically preached this sermon on
Pentecost if the disciples had stolen Jesus' body? Could he declare the resurrection from the
dead without being arrested and tried? The
Holy Spirit authenticated the message. Something
happened that drew the crowd, everyone knew it and heard it then they heard
what it meant. They heard the Gospel for
the first time. Peter makes a simple
declarative sentence concerning the matter, "This Jesus God raised up, and
of that we all are witnesses." We don't
know who "we all" refers to but it is at least the disciples and
likely included more than that number. In
the end, the Gospel is that the one they crucified was made Lord and Christ by
God. What a horrible thing to hear if
you were part of the crowd who had shouted "Crucify Him!" or who had
mocked Him that day, much less if you had taken part in the conspiracy to have
Him crucified. There would certainly
seem to be no hope if this were true. The
celebration ended here if there is no forgiveness of sin. This guilt was greater than any imaginable.
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