They Were Waiting for Him and They Killed Him

For three weeks I have walked you through unlikely delivery systems. Ravens that fed a prophet. A river that healed a commander. The new tools God may be using in the season we are actually in.

Now I want to show you the most unlikely delivery system in all of human history.

God did not send a prophet this time. He did not send a king on a war horse. He did not split the sky and end the Roman occupation in an afternoon, which is exactly what most of Israel was waiting for.

He sent a baby. Born to a teenage girl. In a feeding trough. In a town nobody respected.

Nazareth. “Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46) That was the reputation. That was the return address on the package.

The most important delivery in the history of the universe, and God wrapped it in the one form an entire religious nation had already decided to reject.

They Were Not Faithless. They Were Waiting.

Here is what makes this the most sobering story in Scripture.

The people who missed Jesus were not pagans. They were not godless. They were the most devout, Bible-literate, Scripture-memorizing, law-keeping people on earth.

They had been waiting for the Messiah for centuries. They prayed for Him. They taught their children about Him. They could quote the prophecies.

And they had built a very clear picture of how He would arrive.

A military deliverer. A political king. A man who would throw off Rome, restore the throne of David, and put Israel back on top. Power. Spectacle. Vindication. That was the delivery system they were expecting, and they were certain about it.

So when God showed up as a carpenter from Nazareth who ate with sinners, touched lepers, washed feet, and talked about a kingdom you could not see, they did not just miss Him.

They were offended by Him.

They Crucified The Answer

This is the part I cannot get past.

They did not reject God. They would have told you they loved God, served God, lived for God. They rejected the package God came in.

The delivery system did not match the expectation, so they concluded it could not be Him.

John 1:11. “He came to that which was his own, and his own did not receive him.”

Read that and let it land. His own. The ones who were waiting. The ones who should have recognized Him first. They looked straight at the fulfillment of everything they had prayed for, and because it did not look the way they had decided it should look, they nailed it to a cross.

The most unlikely delivery system in history was rejected by the most religious people in history, for the most understandable reason in history. He did not match the picture.

This Is The Whole Warning

Do you see why I spent four weeks here?

If the most devout people alive could miss God Himself because of the package He came in, then please hear me. You and I are not above that.

The same instinct that crucified the Messiah is alive in every one of us. It is the instinct that says, I already know what God's answer should look like, so anything that does not match must not be from Him.

That instinct feels like discernment. Sometimes it is the very thing that makes us reject what God is sending.

They wanted a war horse. He came on a donkey.

They wanted a throne. He took a cross.

They wanted Rome destroyed. He forgave the soldiers driving the nails.

Every expectation they had, He overturned. And the kingdom He actually delivered was greater than anything they had imagined. They just could not receive it, because they would not let go of the picture.

So Hold The Picture Loosely

This is where the whole series lands.

God is still sending. Provision through ravens. Healing through rivers. Direction through people you would not have chosen. Opportunity through tools that make you nervous. And the gospel itself, through a Savior the world still finds offensive.

The question is the same one it has always been.

Will you receive what He sends, or will you reject it because of the package it came in?

Hold your expectations loosely. Hold the One sending them tightly. Stay humble enough to bend down for a gift hidden in an offensive wrapper.

The religious crowd could not do it. Be different.

One More Thing

Everything across these four emails lives inside Ravens and Algorithms. The unlikely ways God delivers. The instinct that makes us reject the package. And how to recognize what He is sending in a world that is changing faster than most of us are ready for.

If the series stirred something, the book is where it all comes together.

Click → RAVENS AND ALGORITHMS 

They were waiting for the Messiah.

He came exactly as God promised.

And they missed Him because He did not look like the version they had already built in their heads.

Do not make the same mistake with what God is sending you.

Onward,
Chris Behnke

P.S. — Two men hung next to Jesus that day. Same view. Same Savior. Same unlikely delivery system. One mocked Him for not looking like a king. The other looked past the blood and the shame and said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42) Both saw the exact same thing. Only one recognized it. That is the whole point of this series. Recognize it.