Can’t see; pretty sure they can.

Matthew 15.12-14, Luke 6.39-40, John 9.39-41.

Jesus’s saying about “the blind leading the blind” is pretty famous. So much so, people don’t remember who originally said it. I once had someone tell me it comes from the Upanishads. And it is actually in there; Yama the death god compares the foolish to the blind leading the blind. Katha Upanishad 2.6 But ancient, medieval, and modern westerners didn’t read the Upanishads! They read the gospels. They got it from Jesus.

Jesus actually doesn’t use the idea only once, in only one context. We see it thrice in the gospels. It appears in Matthew after Jesus critiqued Pharisees for their loopholes; it appears in Luke as part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain; and in John it appropriately comes after the story where Jesus cures a blind man.

So let’s deal with the context of each instance. Matthew first.

Matthew 15.12-14 KWL

12 Coming to Jesus, his students then told him, “You know the Pharisees who heard the word are outraged?”

13 In reply Jesus said, “Every plant will be uprooted which my heavenly Father didn’t plant.

14 Forgive them; they’re blind guides.

When blind people guide the blind, the both fall into a hole.”

Not every Jew in Jesus’s day was religious. Of the few who were, one sect was the Pharisees—and Jesus taught in their schools, or synagogues. Problem is, Pharisee teachers had created customs which permitted them to bend God’s commands, or even break them outright. And after one Pharisee objected when Jesus and his students skipped their handwashing custom. first Jesus brought up how their customs were frequently hypocrisy… then he went outside and told everyone that being ritually clean or unclean comes from within, not without.

You think this behavior might offend Pharisees? You’d be correct. That’s what Jesus’s kids came to tell him about. In response he called ’em blind guides. Well they were.

Multiple levels of truth.

Matthew 5.33-37, 23.16-22.

Thus far the Sermon on the Mount stuff has had parallels in the other gospels. This teaching doesn’t. It’s only found in Matthew.

Matthew 5.33-37 KWL

33 “Again, you heard this said to the ancients: You will not perjure. Lv 19.12

You’ll make restitution to the Lord for your oaths. Dt 23.23

34 And I tell you: Don’t swear at all.

Not ‘By heaven!’—it’s God’s throne. Ps 11.4

Not ‘By the land!’—it’s the footstool of his feet. Is 66.1

Not ‘By Jerusalem!’—it’s the city of the great King. Ps 48.2

36 Nor should you swear by your head; you aren’t able to make one hair white or black.

37 Make your word, ‘Yes yes; no no.’ Going beyond this is from evil motive.”

True, Jesus used to punctuate certain sayings with “Amen amen,” Jn 1.51, 3.3, 5.19, 6.26, 8.34, etc. (KJV “Verily verily”) and the LORD used to punctuate certain commands with, “I’m the LORD.” Ex 6.2, Lv 18.5, 19.3, 21.12, 22.2, etc. Arguably these too are oaths; stuff our Lord said in order to make it crystal clear he’s not kidding.

But there’s a huge difference between the Lord’s motives for swearing an oath, and ours. His is to underline. Ours is to say, “Okay, you know the rest of the time I’m a horrible liar. But now I mean it. Now I’m telling the truth. The rest of the time… well, I’m generally truthful. But now you can trust me. ’Cause I swore to God.” Or swore upon of the other things people swore by in Jesus’s day, like swearing by the land of Israel, swearing by Jerusalem, swearing by one’s head. Nowadays it’s swearing on your mother’s grave, swearing on the lives of your kids, swearing on a stack of bibles, swearing “by all that’s holy.” Whatever you consider holy.

But you see the inherent problem with this, which is what Jesus wanted to highlight: The fact we have to swear to tell the truth, or swear to do what we say we will, implies we’re unreliable liars the rest of the time. Which is not who he wants his people to be.

“Christ-followers”: Rebranding for the wrong reasons.

CHRIST-FOLLOWER 'kraɪst fɑ.loʊ.ər noun. Adherent or devotee of Christ Jesus.

2. One who believes themself a real devotee of Christ, as opposed to other Christians.

To be fair, a lot of Christians aren’t doing the title “Christian” any favors.

There are irreligious Christians, who figure all they need do is believe, and figure obedience is for suckers people who don’t believe. There are fruitless Christians, whose character is no different than pagans, but who point to their beliefs or works and think that should count for something. There are Christianists, who don’t know there’s any difference between their culture or their politics, and what Jesus teaches—but they clearly aren’t doing as Jesus teaches.

And there are Christians who aren’t as bad as all that. They’re working on it. Some harder than others. But let’s give ’em some grace, shall we?

But other Christians have decided there are so many substandard Christians, the title “Christian” has simply been ruined. Same as the titles “Evangelical,” or “Fundamentalist,” or “born again,” or “disciple,” “apostle,” “believer,” “Christ-bearer,” or what have you. The usual titles have been so befouled by posers, they’re gonna rebrand.

So they call themselves Christ-followers. As in,

SHE. “Are you Christian?”

HE. [correcting her] “A Christ-follower.”

Not in the sense that “Christian” and “Christ-follower” are synonyms. To these people they’re not synonyms: A “Christian” is someone who claims allegiance to Jesus but doesn’t really follow him. Doesn’t really take him seriously. Not like they do.

Yep, that’s the underlying message they’re trying to give everybody: They follow Jesus, and the rest of us [sneer] “Christians,” not so much. They… well, lemme have our Lord Jesus more accurately express the way they feel.

Luke 18.11-12 KWL

11 “Standing by himself, the [Christ-follower] prayed this: ‘God, thank you that I’m not like the other people!

Those greedy, unrighteous cheaters—or even like this taxman.

13 I fast twice a week. I tithe everything I get.’ ”

Yeah, this bit comes from Jesus’s Pharisee and Taxman Story. Lk 18.9-14 You may recall Jesus didn’t care for this particular prayer. It wasn’t that of a humble follower, but a pretentious ass. Those who exalt themselves, Jesus concluded, get humbled. Those who think they’re better than other people have another think coming.

“Dead to the world” includes being dead to Christianism.

Colossians 3.1-4 KWL

1 So if you’re raised up with Christ, seek higher things—where Christ is, sitting at the Father’s right.

2 Think about higher things, not things on the earth:

3 You died. Your life is cloaked with Christ, in God.

4 When Christ—our life—appears, then you’ll appear with him in glory.

Christians, like Paul and Timothy said in Colossians, are meant to identify with Christ. We’re not to let other people lead us astray through useless philosophies, traditions, and tricks; we’re to let Christ Jesus lead us, and him alone. Cl 2.8

The apostles’ argument was that we’re to identify with Christ Jesus so closely, we effectively died to sin through his death. We were raised to new life with his new life. So as far as this world and age are concerned, we’re dead.

No, they weren’t trying to teach Christians that it’s perfectly okay for us to violate the laws of the land, because we’re supposedly dead to our governments as well. Plenty of Christians have tried that interpretation, and used it as a license to be jerks towards pagans, or to justify our libertarian or anarchic politics (and our conspiracy-theory fears of how they might crack down on us for being contrary). Or to simply sin ourselves raw and call it “freedom in Christ”—but really we’re taking God’s grace for granted. Christians can be just as wicked as anyone, and Christianists are notorious for using the trappings of Christianity to get away with all sorts of evil.

Nope; once you read the context of Colossians you’ll realize the apostles were writing about the legalistic expectations of religious people. Certain ancient Christians, same as today, had a very narrow view of how “good Christians” were meant to live, or which of the Pharisee traditions oughta be carried forward into Christianity. And they were penalizing their fellow Christians for not being “Christian” enough for them—as they defined Christianity, not as Jesus, the apostles, and their bible define it.

So when the apostles wrote about being dead to the world, yeah they were writing about being dead to the secular world… but they were just as much writing about being dead to the religious world. To the “good Christians” who were trying to add commands and rules to Jesus’s teachings. Who were trying to enforce their interpretations instead of leaving conviction to the Holy Spirit, to whom it properly belongs.

You’re not gonna find a lot of preachers who point out that fact. Sometimes because they don’t realize it applies to them too… and sometimes because they don’t want it to apply to them too. They want us to “follow me as I follow Christ,” 1Co 11.1 MEV and sometimes really do have the best of intentions.

But we’re to follow Christ. Not them. Not fellow Christians. We’re all fallible; we’re all wrong. Jesus is not. Follow Jesus with us—but don’t follow us. Follow him.

The mourning of Jerusalem’s daughters.

Luke 23.26-31.

Only Luke tells this part of the story.

Luke 23.26-31 KWL

26 As the Romans led Jesus away, they grabbed Simon, a certain Cyrenian coming from the fields,

and they put the crossbeam on him to carry behind Jesus.

27 Many crowds of people followed Jesus.

The mourning women among them were also lamenting him.

28 Turning to the women, Jesus said, “Jerusalem’s daughters, don’t weep for me.

But weep for your own. For your children. 29 Look, the time’s coming when they’ll say,

‘The sterile, wombs which never begat children, breasts which never fed, are awesome!’

30 Then they’ll start ‘to tell the mountains, “Fall on us!” and the hills, “Bury us!” ’ Ho 18.1

31 For if they do this when the wood is moist, what’ll happen when it’s dry?”

Some teachers never can stop teaching. Even when they’re being dragged off to be crucified.

Various Christians don’t know what to make of this passage, so they skip it. Which is easy to do when there are so many other horrors to focus on when it comes to Jesus’s death. Skip the message to Jerusalem’s daughters and focus on Simon having to carry Jesus’s crossbeam, or Jesus getting nailed up between two insurgents. Lessons can easily get lost in the shuffle.

But St. John Paul made this lesson its own station of the cross, probably ’cause he figured it was worth zooming in on this particular event. Meditating on what the women were feeling. Meditating on how Jesus felt about that. Meditating on what he told them, and why he said it.

So let’s get into why he said it.

Great tribulation in less than 40 years.

Jesus was crucified in the year 33 of our era. In the year 66, the Romans finally had enough of Judean insurrection and sent in the army to put a stop to it, once and for all.

The cause of the insurrection? Judeans who wouldn’t recognize Jesus is their Messiah and join the Christians. Instead they kept waiting for some other king to save them from the Romans and lead their people to greatness. Someone violent and wrathful—kinda like they were!—and eager to call down legions of angels to smite the Romans in precisely the way Jesus wouldn’t. Mt 26.53 They kept embracing fake Messiahs, kept irritating the Romans, and kept presuming God was gonna send him some other savior… ’cause they didn’t really care for the Nazarene. Too much grace. Not enough rage.

So what d’you think would happen? Right: First the Jerusalem prefect started arresting senior Judean leaders. This turned into full-on revolt. The legate of Syria sent in his army; the Judeans defeated ’em. Emperor Nero sent in his top general, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and over the course of four years, Vespasianus (later known as Emperor Vespasian) and his son (later Emperor Titus) defeated the rebels, laid siege to Jerusalem, and destroyed the temple. Judea was flattened, Jerusalem laid waste, hundreds of thousands crucified, the Sadducees dead, and the Jews scattered round the world yet again.

Jesus not only knew this was coming, Mk 13.1-2 but warned his followers to watch out, then run for the hills. Mk 10.14-20 And not to confuse it with his second coming, Mk 10.21-23 for that comes later. Mk 10.24-27 Not that plenty of Christians don’t still confuse this period of great tribulation with his second coming, or imagine Jesus’s prophecy hasn’t happened yet, but has yet to happen in our own future. But that’s only because they’re following certain self-proclaimed “prophecy scholars” instead of Jesus. He did warn us about false teachers, y’know.

So that’s what this was. Jesus was prophesying, yet again, that terrible stuff was ahead. Jerusalem’s daughters shouldn’t be weeping for him, but weeping for the future that their leaders were dragging them into. It was gonna be awful.

Mark 13.17-20 KWL

17 “How sad for pregnant women and nursing mothers, in those days!

18 Pray it doesn’t happen during winter.

19 Those days will be tribulation like it’s never been.

From the first thing God created, to now, it’s never been this bad.

20 If the Lord didn’t cut off the days, no flesh would survive.

But he chose to cut off the days because of his chosen people.”

Some of the reason “prophecy scholars” claim Jesus has to be talking about events in our future, is because they can’t imagine the events of the Jewish-Roman War were the worst suffering that’s ever been. But you notice Jesus didn’t say that it’s the worst suffering ever—only the worst it’s been from creation till his day. It’s fair to say humanity’s committed much worse atrocities since, but Jesus wasn’t talking about since.

And Jesus didn’t want this.

Matthew 23.37-38 KWL

37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, slayer of prophets, stoner of those I sent you.

So many times I’ve wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.

You didn’t. 38 Look, your nest is left empty.”

He wanted what he’s always wanted: For them to be his people, and for him to be their God. Ex 6.7, Lv 26.12, Jr 30.22 Well, their king, walking among them in a way they never imagined he would. Still, he wanted a relationship, and they rejected him. So their rejection would bring them destruction. He didn’t have to lift a finger to judge them; disaster would come on its own.

But it wasn’t any of these people—the crowds who grieved for him, the women who lamented for him—who were complicit in his death and Judea’s destruction. They weren’t in leadership. They had no power to change anything. Judea wasn’t a democracy, y’know. Still, when the great tribulation came, if they didn’t flee for the hills along with the Christians, they were doomed along with the rest. So as they lamented for Jesus, he lamented for them.

Like Hosea: History repeating itself.

A number of bibles utterly miss the fact Jesus quoted Hosea in verse 30. They notice people in Revelation likewise call the mountains to foll on them, Rv 6.16 but—largely because people really need to read the Prophets and don’t—they don’t catch that both Jesus and John were referring to a 7-century-old prophecy about the coming destruction of Ephraim, the land of northern Israel, ruled by the king of Samaria.

Hosea 10.1-8 KWL

1 Israel’s a premium vine. Its fruit is just like it—it’s abundant fruit.

It has many good altars in the land. Good watchtowers.

2 Nowadays its minds are full of themselves. They’re guilty.

God breaks their altars’ necks. He lays the watchtowers waste.

3 For now they say, “We’ve no king. We don’t respect the LORD. What would a king do for us?

4 They speak words, swear empty oaths, cut covenants. They sprout judgment like weeds in a field’s furrows.

5 For the cows of Beth Aven, they fear their neighbor Samaria, as they mourn for it and its people,

and its priests rejoice over it, over the glory which was removed from it.

6 As for its people, they’re carried to Assyria as an offering to Assyria’s king.

Ephraim is taken. Israel is ashamed of its counsel. 7 Samaria’s king is ruined like a stick left in the water.

8 Aven’s high worship sites—Israel’s sins—are destroyed. Thorns and thistles grow on their altars.

They say to the mountains, “Hide us,” and to the hills, “Fall on us.”

Like the people of Jesus’s day, the Ephraimites and Samarians presumed they were wealthy and safe, ’cause they followed their gods and had strong fortifications. Didn’t follow the LORD any. Didn’t really follow their king either. Sound familiar?

What happened next? The cycle reached the point where their enemies invaded. Israel’s foes, in this case the Assyrian Empire, got to be successful against ’em: They wouldn’t turn to the LORD when times were good, so he’d sit on the sidelines when times got very, very bad. The Assyrians invaded Ephraim, captured the king, rounded up the inhabitants of the major cities, and scattered ’em all over the empire.

Nowadays we call ’em “the 10 lost tribes,” although the only actual lost Israelis were the deported city dwellers. The survivors either fled to southern Israel, i.e. Judah/Judea; or they intermarried with the people the Assyrians relocated to Israel, and became the Samaritans; or they rejoined their fellow Israelis when the Babylonians conquered and scattered Judah two centuries later.

It’s the survivors of whom Hosea made the comment, “They say to the mountains, ‘Hide us,’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us.’ ” Ho 10.8 They were running for their lives—running for the hills, to hide in them, same as David ben Jesse and various other fugitives had done throughout Israeli history. But they were also in despair. Hence they really wouldn’t mind if the caves they were hiding in, just happened to cave in on ’em.

’Cause tribulation’s gonna get bad. If the Romans were crucifying peaceful Nazarene prophets during the relatively good times, imagine what they’d do during the bad times. Or as Jesus put it, “If they do this when the wood is moist, what’ll happen when it’s dry?” Lk 23.31

It’s not a happy message Jesus had for the women. But be fair; he was having just the worst day.