NO HORSE POWER
2 Chronicles 9:28 And horses were imported for Solomon from Egypt and from all lands.
Mark 15:43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
The gospel of Matthew reveals that Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the Jewish counsel, was himself trained as a disciple by Jesus. This explains why he asked Pilate for permission to bury Jesus. He wanted to give Jesus a proper burial rather than let him be thrown into the Kidron Valley refuse pile.
That is true enough but is there another reason? Might Joseph still have been on the lookout for the kingdom of God even though his teacher was dead> Did her ask himself, okay, ‘now what do I do now? Is there anything more?
For us on this side of the cross, what can we still learn about the kingdom of God? Well, for one thing our Teacher is not dead. He is very much alive through His spirit and lives forever.
I wonder if Joseph was ever able to catch up with Jesus post resurrection? Did they hang out for another forty days? And I’m curious about believers in the spiritual church today, attenders of a local body who like Joseph are looking for the kingdom of God. I meet them all the time.
Rote religion can feel like that, never satisfying the spirit-nature that believers are intended to experience. A spirit-filled baptized believer with the power of a daily Divine-human encounter is like Solomon’s kingdom without the power of horses. Jerusalem was known for olives, not horses or horsepower. Horses had to be imported from other surrounding lands.
Spirituality is similar. You can have the best praise band since Hillsong and an unmatched Billy Graham-sermon, but that’s only olive oil which tastes good on the palate only for a moment. And church services, like olive oil, will never burn out, continuing from week to week, but have no horsepower. Where’s the personal interaction with God, that daily table for two, the Divine-human encounter?
Joseph of Arimathea had both the olive oil and the horsepower. Jesus would have taught him the Twenty Commands and a new Walk; one that would produce Jesus’ very own spirit-fruit.
I like to think that Joseph A. would have had his moment with Jesus after the resurrection, that his search for the kingdom of God culminated into a new understanding. That the kingdom of God was within himself and that he spent the rest of his life producing that kingdom-of-God revealing spirit-fruit.