Scripture: John 7:40-52 (NIV)

On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”

Others said, “He is the Messiah.”

Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.

“You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”

They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”

There were a lot of Jedi that were believers in the prophecy of the Chosen One. They knew that Qui-Gon Jinn, who was considered one of the experts in the field, had christened Anakin Skywalker with that title before his death. Most Jedi went along with that, which provided Anakin with some advantages and an easier path with most of those who were his elders and superiors.

Then there was Mace Windu.

Windu never seemed to fully buy into the hype. From the very beginning, when he greets Qui-Gon’s pronouncement with “you believe it is this….boy?” throughout the Clone Wars and to the very end, when Windu tells Anakin that if he’s right about the Chancellor being a Sith Lord, “you will have earned my trust”, Windu always kept Skywalker at arm’s length. Occasionally he would lower his guard a bit, especially in tough situations, but for the most part his shields were up and their relationship was frosty at best.

Discussions of Anakin as the Chosen One never went really far with the Jedi Master. When he, Yoda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi were discussing this fact in Revenge of the Sith, Windu only allowed “so the prophecy says”, never committing to whether he believed it or not. For whatever reason, he just couldn’t get on board the Anakin train.

We see some of the same sort of attitudes in today’s Scripture. The religious leaders of the day thought they had it all figured out. They knew all the signs of the Messiah, what he would do and most assuredly where he would come from. So when Jesus started His ministry, speaking with authority and performing miracles, the powers that be just knew He couldn’t be the One.

They had some details right but the big picture completely wrong. They were right that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem but they didn’t realize that it wouldn’t be the town He grew up in. They were so sure on that detail that they didn’t look into things more or start wondering how someone like this could be saying things that reached people in ways that they never could. They were so fixated on what couldn’t be that they didn’t look at what was.

There’s no doubt that dogma is important. We can’t just discard what Jesus said and did, what the apostles taught, because we don’t like what it means. However, we can’t get so attached to the details that we miss what the Spirit is trying to teach us. We may be absolutely certain about things, only to have a new piece of information or a different perspective completely upend our world view. We have to be willing to hear what God has to say, even if it changes everything.

That’s not an easy thing to do and we also have to be sure it truly is God speaking instead of us trying to get along with the world or us trying to justify some particular tenant. We have to continually re-examine our beliefs, continue to read the Bible and study it with different voices. We have to be open to getting on the path God has for us instead of just dismissing it as nonsense!