Why Kill Jesus?

Gospel: Luke 13: 31-35

The Pharisees tell Jesus to flee Galilee, for Herod seeks to kill Jesus.  We might well wonder why - what threat does Jesus pose to Herod or any other person in power as we will later see?  Jesus himself provides a defense here and later before the chief priests that is centered on his good deeds.  He has cast out demons from people and performed healings of the sick throughout the entire region.  How could anyone find such things threatening?

Possession and illness in ancient times were not just physical maladies.  They were also moral categories.  Such people were sinful and unclean - how else to explain such things in a person's life?  When people are deemed sinful and unclean then political and religious leaders have power over them.  When people are healed and delivered from their demons, that power over others no longer exists.  Hence the threat Jesus poses to those in religious and political power.

Jesus did not come to institute a religion that wields power over others.  He came to call people to accept God's mercy in their lives and to bring that mercy to others through healing, liberation, and nourishment.  Jesus did not sell timeshares in a pew each week for an hour or so.  He invited us to follow him, he sent us out to do what he did in performing healing and deliverance for others through lives of simplicity and loving kindness.