Tuesday: By Whose Authority?
RESIST: A HOLY WEEK SERIES
TUESDAY OF HOLY WEEK
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They came at him with a question designed to trap him.
The chief priests, scribes, and elders cornered Jesus in the Temple and demanded to know: By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you permission?
It's a power move dressed as a theology question. They weren't curious. They were trying to force him to either claim an authority they could prosecute or back down and discredit himself. It's the oldest institutional play in the book: make the challenger justify himself on the institution's terms.
Jesus didn't take the bait.
He answered with a question of his own — about John's baptism, about whether it was from heaven or from humans. They huddled. They calculated. They came back with we don't know, because any answer trapped them. And Jesus said: then I'm not answering yours either.
This is not Jesus being evasive. This is Jesus refusing to let the corrupt institution set the terms of the conversation.
That's a form of resistance that doesn't get enough attention. We tend to think of resistance as confrontation — marching, protesting, speaking out. And sometimes it is. But sometimes resistance looks like this: refusing to justify yourself on terms designed to discredit you before you open your mouth. Refusing to play the game the gatekeepers built.
Christian Nationalism works partly this way. It sets up the terms — real Americans, Christian values, taking our country back — and then demands that everyone else argue within that frame. If you accept the frame, you've already lost the argument. The frame itself is the problem.
Jesus modeled something different. He operated from a different source of authority altogether — not the Temple establishment, not Rome, not popular opinion. He answered to a different logic. And he was remarkably clear about when a question wasn't worth answering on the asker's terms.
This is what faithful resistance requires: knowing where your authority actually comes from. Not from institutional approval. Not from cultural acceptance. Not from the permission of the powerful. From something older, deeper, and harder to revoke.
You don't need their permission to tell the truth.
Reflection: Where are you letting someone else's frame define what questions you're allowed to ask?
