At some point in life we’ve all had to live through a rude guest. Once inside the house, the ungracious lout puts feet up on the furniture, paws through cupboards, scavenges in the refrigerator, snoops in closets, and generally acts like your home is really theirs. It is hard not to lose one’s temper and toss the trespasser out. No wonder there is the old saying that the three most beautiful lights in the world are sunlight, moonlight, and tail lights.

When Jesus finally arrived in Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religious life and the seat of power and prestige for the temple priests and Sanhedrin leaders, those religious authorities experienced Jesus like that sort of rude, overbearing houseguest. This itinerant preacher, a nobody from a nowhere place called Nazareth, first makes an entr…