The Rabbi

From the early days of his short public life, his days were numbered. Death stared him in the face at every turn. He said things and did things that upset the traditions and thinking of the ruling religious establishment. In their eyes, this was heresy. And for this he should die.

He performed miracles of major magnitude and so attracted a vast following of the population of the land. To say he was the peoples’ choice would be an understatement; a position viewed with jealousy and envy by those at the top.

He conducted free health clinics, even over the weekends. He improved the condition and well being of the people. Now surely this would be in the interest of any ruling party that wanted a peaceful nation to oversee. To see its people, living a life free of sickness and pain, should be welcomed by any ruling authority. In our modern society, the Minister of Health would have a field day. Absenteeism at the workplace would be reduced and the cost of providing health care facilities with hospitals, clinics and staff would be well under budget.

Under different circumstances, this free health service would have been accepted. Unfortunately some of the healings were carried out on Saturdays and this irked the local ‘men of the cloth.’ This was the seventh day of the week. The Sabbath. They said there were six days in which these healings and miracles should take place. (Sundays included of course). “Not so,” he replied, “there are seven days”, as he stood his ground. Now this, surely, should be no big deal. But it was.

He was a popular figure, this healer of the people, who were looking for a Messiah to lead them out of the bondage of Roman rulership. This popularity irked the religious leaders who were hanging on to their own positions of power, for dear life.

He did other things too. Like going into their head office and upsetting the retail and banking institutions of the day. This time he got physical; destroying the teller’s booths, throwing their daily takings on the floor and releasing all the livestock from their Temple farmyard. He said this was really his Father’s business and those in control of proceedings were no more than illegal crooks and that he was here to set things right. Now that’s not the sort of thing you do in order to win friends and influence people.

He also expressed his feelings and thoughts of them with a public tongue-lashing, labeling them vipers and hypocrites. The people loved him. The leaders didn’t.

Just who was this man, who dared to eyeball the authorities with such audacity and disdain? Well, he was known by many different names; some good, some not so good. A friendly member of the ruling cabinet called him Rabbi, and because of his lifestyle and movements around the country, this was the name by which most of the population came to know him.

He was so different that there were some who thought he was an incarnation of Elijah or Jeremiah who were prophets of days gone by, and so referred to him as Prophet. Others knew him as Teacher or Master. He even asked his own management team who they thought he was and was surprised to hear one of them refer to him as the Messiah, the Son of Yahweh God.. His mother and family called him Yeshua and he is commonly known today as Jesus of Nazareth. He was known to many different people by many different names, so in the following chapters we might refer to him by any one of them..

Now, there were other rabbis who traversed the countryside of Canaan with their own personal band of followers, but this man was different.

He was The Rabbi.