My journal tells of this little incident at the local pharmacy.
Saturday night, stuck in the checkout line at the local Rite-Aid, I became involved in a little incident.
The checker was ringing up the purchases of a man about 40 years old who had a small child with him. On the other side of the checker, near the front door, stood an older man, perhaps 75 or 80, who was trying to get her attention. “Ma’am,” he kept saying, “Is it all right if I take this out to the car to show my wife?” He was holding up some item from the store. The checker was giving her attention to the man and child in front of her.
Finally, the customer at the checkout snapped at the older gentleman, “No! It is not all right to take that outside!” The old man was flustered and said, “She’s in the car. I just want to see if this is what she wants. I’ll be right back.”
“No, sir!” said the younger man. “You’re not allowed to take things outside you haven’t paid for!”
The older gentleman said, “Well, what if I leave my umbrella? I’ll be right back.”
“No!” the young man said. “Leave your drivers license.”
Meanwhile, those of us in the checkout line were silently watching this scenario and fascinated at the way the customer was bullying the man at the door.
Finally, the older man said to the customer, “Are you a manager of this store or something?”
The younger fellow said, “No, I’m not. But I know how these things are done!”
I’d taken about all of this I could. From the back of the checkout line, I called out to the old man, “Sir! You may ignore the customer. Do what you have to do!”
The younger man turned and stared at me contemptuously, took his child by the hand, and stalked out.
As he exited the door, the manager arrived and took care of the older gentleman. The woman in front of me turned and said, “Who in blue blazes did that fellow think he was, talking to that old man that way?” I laughed and agreed that he was definitely a buttinsky.
When I got home and told me wife this little tale, she–filling the role of a wife so neatly–said, “And who did you think you were, rebuking him like that?”
My Scripture reading that very morning from the first chapters of Mark’s Gospel had been on this same subject: authority. That little word deals with who we think we are, who we really are, and what gives us the right to do what we do.
Consider these instances from the first days of Jesus’ ministry….
–Mark 1:22 “He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (We’re told the scribes drew their authority from the expert sources they cited. Jesus, on the other hand, would say, “You have heard it said…but I say unto you.”)
–Mark 1:27 “They debated among themselves, saying, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey Him!’”
–Mark 2:5 (Jesus is in the crowded house, four men have lowered their paralyzed friend through the roof into the room.) “And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”
The scribes sitting there had a big problem with that. They thought to themselves, “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
It was all about Jesus’ authority. My notes from a year or more in the margin of this passage read like this: “He has authority…to forgive sins (vs. 10)…to command disease (vs. 11)…to call disciples (vs. 14).”
In all four gospels, after Jesus cleansed the Temple, the religious authorities were incensed at what they saw as sheer presumption. Who did He think He was? In each gospel, a discussion about Jesus’ authority follows. They asked it plainly in Mark 11:28, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do these things?”
The answer to that question is found in what Jesus said each time He cleansed the temple. He said, “My house shall be a house of prayer….”
What is Jesus’ authority? Well, mostly it’s because it’s His house.
That’s pretty good authority, wouldn’t you think?
Bible students can think of a hundred Scriptural connections to this subject, everything from the Old Testament reference to Shiloh in Genesis 49:10 (“Shiloh” meaning “he whose right it is”) to the centurion who said to Jesus, “I too am a man under authority” (Matthew 8:9), to the promise that some day every eye shall behold Jesus on His throne at which time every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (Romans 14:11 and other places).
Jesus is Lord.
That’s why He commands and it’s why we obey. He is not usurping the place of another, not butting into another’s business. He forgives sin because he is the Lord.
Settle the issue of the Lordship of Jesus or nothing else will make sense to you about the Scriptures or the Christian life.
