Insanity

I'm reading in Acts chapter 4 today about the Jewish rulers examining Peter and John regarding their healing the lame man in the temple.  Peter nails them between the eyes with his pointed remarks:

"...let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone."

So what's their response?  They discuss the matter and decide that even though Peter and John have performed a tremendous miracle in the name of Jesus, they still need to suppress talk of Him being the Messiah or any silly thing like that.  Like the miracle in no way validates Peter and John's testimony.  Or even has anything to do with the matter.  Right.

Q:  How could they possibly be so blind and unthinking?  How could they possibly NOT be filled with fear and awe at the possibility that they just killed the long-awaited Messiah?  How could they not have been stopped in their tracks by the stupendous implications of this?   I'm reading this, amazed at the depravity of human nature, and at the same time, convinced at the accuracy of the account by the sheer perversity of this bunch.  In what work of fiction would you find such a reaction to an utterly convincing event?  Only in real life would such a thing happen.  It's stuff like this that convinces me even further that the Bible is a true account of history and of the reality of evil.

This reminds me of the reaction of the religious leaders to the story of the guards they placed at Jesus' tomb to keep the body from being stolen.  The guards witnessed a supernatural being rolling away the stone from the door of the tomb:

^"And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men."

These rough, tough men were utterly terrified.  There were four of them (at least), and they could have overpowered just about any natural being who tried such a thing.  Their testimony to the Jewish leaders had to be shocking.  So what was the Jewish leaders' reaction?  

...they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”

This is insanity.  The testimony of these guards (four of them!) HAD to be amazing.  Shocking.  Ominous.  TERRIFYING, to those responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.  I mean, what were they thinking?  You'd think that at least some of them would immediately fall on their faces and ask God for forgiveness.  But there's no record of that.  Instead, they bribed the guards to spread what they knew was a lie, and promised to bribe the governor also to keep him from executing the guards (death was the penalty for falling asleep on a watch).

But this is so true-to-life.  People hardened to the truth seldom are convinced by any evidence.  And they will go on telling lies that they know to be lies if the alternative is acknowledgement, repentance, humble acceptance, and a change of direction.

May God deliver us from ourselves.