Broken Babies ...

It is easy to see our dogs as the perpetual babies of our families.  Why?  Because just like babies, they love, all the time, and know love more than those of us who are jaded by age and “responsibilities”.  After a hard day, it is the dog who comes to lick you better.  They are not certain if dog kisses will really change your day or your future, but you seem to need one, so let the shower of dog kisses commence.  And if you ever show even the slightest hint at wanting to play; well you have an ever-willing and excited partner in the dog.  Pick up a ball.  We dogs will chase it.  Pick up a tug of war rope.  We dogs will grab the other end of it.  And if you lay down on the floor near us; we dogs will jump all over you continuing that shower of dog kisses you interrupted the last time you moved away to “clean up”.  The love of dogs is constant, even forgiving, and often more healing than we humans might first learn to appreciate.

I know dogs are not humans.  I know humans are more important in the circle of life.  But I also have witnessed many an adult making silly coo-ing noises when they kiss a baby’s face, just the same as they make high-pitched loving speech when they pet the dog and show affection.  Offering love to anything that is bound to return that love is a lure most of us are suckers for.  And frankly, we need that kind of unconditional love in our lives.  Babies become precious to us for this reason just like dogs do; that we are able to establish a bond of love that seems impervious from the world.  And so we look to protect them.  Take care of them.  Meet whatever needs we believe they have even if that means trying to guess what they are (babies and dogs have a hard time getting their speeches understood).  The greatest horror of our lives then is when we encounter a “broken” baby, no matter what the species.  Fixing what is broken then occupies our mind like nothing else.  And when we find we are actually powerless to fix what is broken, we have then only one hope.  A hope in Jesus.

Again I know the feelings for a human baby will always far outweigh those for a dog.  That is as it should be.  But love need not be a competition.  And loss, or potential loss, is crippling no matter what kind of love you risk losing.  There may be degrees of loss.  But no one looks to experience it.  And everyone wants to make the suffering get better, no matter who or what is suffering.  That too, is as it should be.  If you are able to look upon suffering and remain unmoved, it is possible you have never felt the love you should have in your own life.  Something Jesus would love to change.  And something His followers should be aiding Him in doing.  When hope dwindles, there is only prayer.  For some of us, prayer is a constant.  For others, we turn to prayer when there is nowhere else to turn.  But that does not change where God is throughout the process.

We think sometimes that our grief, and our worry, and our suffering is “only” ours.  We presume in our pain, that our God does not share any of it with us.  That kind of image of God would have Him far away and unmoved and uncaring about the pain that exists in our very up-close personal world.  But that could not be farther from the truth.  Before for the first glimmer of sadness hits your heart, it was first in our God’s.  He aches first, and much deeper.  He is forced to watch us make choices to pollute our world, ourselves, and each other.  He is unable to “make” us choose to love, without first making us nothing but robots.  Robots is not what He created.  Babies are.  We are the babies of our God.  The creatures that populate our world were supposed to be the babies we were to take care of and love.  But sin broke all that.  And further sin makes it even worse.  Leaving us where we are.  Leaving God forced to watch it all unfold, until at last it must be forced to an ending.  Prior to that day however, there remains grief.  Grief in the heart of God, as there is grief in our own hearts.  Some grief God is able to undo in the course of His will and our requests.  Some grief He is forced to endure on a scale of broken heartedness we will only ever share a glimpse of.

And imagine the scale of it.  Imagine the grief of your own life, now magnified across 7 billion others, across more than 6000 years of our history.  God has endured the grief of Adam, to the grief of you.  And His pain is infinitely deeper than our own, as His love is infinitely deeper than our own.  So when we come to Him to ask for deliverance; we do not come to a cold unfeeling God unwilling to get involved.  Instead we come to a God already in way deeper pain than we feel.  A God who longs to grant our requests to “fix” the broken babies of His life.  He is not unmoved; He is very moved.  And where the greater will of our God to save us all can accommodate it; He is quick and happy to move to our deliverance.  That is who we serve.  That is who we have always served.  A God who invented love, who is comprised of Love, always wishes to treat His “babies” so much better even, than we would treat our own.

Take a case in point in the gospel of Luke chapter five of the letter to his friend.  Picking up in verse 12 it says … “And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.”  Here is one of God’s babies finding Him, and begging for deliverance from a disease there was no medical cure from in his day.  Why this man?  I cannot answer that.  Why not every leper in Israel?  Not having lived at that time, I cannot say for certain if that is eventually what occurred.  But I can trust in the love of our God.  Then and now.  The question we all then ask, is why not me?  To that I can only say, our lives are mortal because of the entrance of sin in our world.  Whether sooner, or later, an ending faces us all.  But only a temporary ending, for in the world to come, no sin will ever rise again.  No evil with it.  And perfect peace and happiness because of the absence of disobedience, and the effects it brings upon us all.  But to the question of this leper there was an immediate answer.

Luke continues in verse 13 saying … “And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. [verse 14]  And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.”  Jesus does not question this man about his faith.  Nor does He ask the man to recite the ten commandments, or recite the prophecies, or to bow down and worship Him as the Messiah.  This is not about the man’s heritage, or his doctrine, or his faith.  It is about instead the love of our God, who LONGS to do this restoration to all of us.  He does not withhold blessing based on some pre-cursor the man must offer.  It is given quickly and without reservation.  The first thing Jesus does is to reach out and touch the man (the way this disease spreads from person to person).  Jesus has no fear of contracting what this man has, but instead MUST show him physically that he is loved.  Then instead of demanding worship to Himself, He asks the man to keep quiet.  Jesus asks the man to go and fulfill the process the priests have had all along to heal this disease through the power of God.  Something the priests have long since abandoned losing faith it works, or that our God cares.  So many lepers exist in Israel where none should.  This is what happens when we lose faith in our God’s keen desire to do what is impossible for us.  When we lose sight of ourselves as the “broken” babies of God, we lose faith in His desire to do anything about it.

But silence was not what occurred despite the asking.  Luke continues in verse 15 saying “ But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. [verse 16]  And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. [verse 17]  And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. [verse 18]  And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. [verse 19]  And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.”  The fame of Jesus as a healer spread throughout Israel like wildfire.  The salient question; why has that wildfire gone out in our church, and in our hearts?  Why do we let an image of a remote God become the norms of our thinking instead of the aberration of Satan’s design that it should be.  Jesus has not changed.  Why have we?

Luke wants to show his friend who will read this gospel letter that the impossible to us, is NOT impossible to God.  First he recounts the story of the leper who was healed merely by asking.  Now he recounts the story of a paralytic who will be more than healed.  Luke continues the story picking up in verse 20 saying … “ And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. [verse 21]  And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? [verse 22]  But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts? [verse 23]  Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk? [verse 24]  But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. [verse 25]  And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. [verse 26]  And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to day.”

Many things to unpack here.  First, our Jewish forefathers had one thing absolutely right.  ONLY God can forgive sins.  For anyone else to claim it, it is indeed blasphemy.  When any of our brothers or sisters come to us with sin-laden hearts seeking forgiveness, we must be careful in our language to insure we point them only to Jesus to forgive sins, and assure them if they ask Jesus, they will be forgiven.  We, and no other man, has anything to do with that process other than to point them where they can find forgiveness for themselves from the same source we must use ourselves.  Second, since only God can forgive sins, notice what God did – He forgave sins!!  All of that man’s burdens, weighed down by his sins, were washed away in a moment.  Perhaps we who grieve should take note.  The healing of our souls is perhaps more important than the healing of our bodies.  When we babies break, it is not inconceivable to note our sins do more harm to us, than the damage we incur from disease and tragedy.  To be healed of our sins, is perhaps then even more important than to be restored in our physical frames.

And finally, it was not just the man’s sins that were forgiven, it was his body as well.  Luke reminds us all that Jesus heals us completely both body and soul.  Jesus did not come just to make us better.  He came to restore us to what He intended us to be.  To the image of God He originally intended us to be.  The world, that is the universe He will call us home to, will be one where love itself is the center premise for everything.  Love in our God.  Love in us.  And yes, love in the dogs we so love in our world today.  To have a broken baby is to find our God’s heart aches in alignment with our own.  So to ask His healing, even over something so simple as a pet we cherish; is to unlock His heart on our behalf.  I know that should my dog be healed it can ONLY be the power of prayer that healed her.  And should Jesus elect not to heal my dog in this world, He will restore her to me in the next one.  Something that loves so unconditionally can only be an ambassador of the love the next kingdom will be based upon.  That is a love I have faith in.  And I hope it is a love I will do better at sharing here and now.

 

Origin Stories ...

How do you make a superhero?  I am certain D.C. and Marvel have formulas in this regard.  But then how do you make a Biblical superhero?  And is there any such thing?  The term superhero brings with it several connotations, some of which don’t seem in line with Biblical ideology.  The basic difference between fictional superheroes and a possible Biblical superhero is that the fictional ones seem to contain all that power within themselves.  Something happens “to” them that creates, or they are born with, some “ability” that from that moment on lives inside of them and can be used or controlled and directed however they like.  The focus on the average superhero then is inward for his/her power.  If we were to examine possible Biblical superhero what we quickly learn is that their power never originated in them, it was “given” to them, and it could be taken away should they misuse it, or defy the Giver.  Marvel and D.C. would have us look inward for power; the Bible would have us look upward for it.  It is a key difference.

Then consider for a moment where true power always has and always will reside.  It is not in you.  It is not in your intentions, or will, or good ideas.  Power is not yours because people give it to you.  No matter what you oversee, those “positions” of power come and go.  You may hold one now, but in time others will hold it, and in times past others held it still.  In this case again the power does not originate to you, it tags along with a given position where much is overseen.  But that is not real power.  Real power, like what God has, originates within Him.  His imagination becomes universal reality.  His ideas become the rules of physics, science, and the multiverse (should one exist).  He has no weakness.  Perhaps with the exception of His love for us.  We have made God willing to die, to take our place, our punishment, in order that we might be redeemed unto Him again.  His love for us motivated Him to this for us.  In our reality God holds all the power, we hold none.  And what “abilities” we find ourselves with, are then gifts from a loving God; not the random product of DNA propensity, environmental support systems, or even dogged determination in practice-practice-practice.

We watch the superman movies because the child in us dreams of being superman.  But given our propensities, should any one of us ever be given the superman abilities, the chances we would misuse them are nearly absolute.  The temptation to hold power over others presents a temptation no human walks away from consistently.  Imagine for a moment the things you encounter during the day that aggravate you.  Right now, not much you could do about them.  But if you were superman/woman you could do whatever you want about them, and no one would have the power to do anything about it.  That kind of power is intoxicating, and the reason our God knows better than to make us invincible supermen or women.  We are instead vulnerable by design.  This state of vulnerability was meant for a singular purpose, to keep our focus on the true source of power in our God, instead of trying to look for that power inside ourselves.

So back to our question – how do you make a Biblical superhero.  Step one, recognize any power (or gifts) you will be given come from God, they do not start or end in you.  Step two, be willing to be one.  And here is where most of us simply respond “no thanks” and walk away.  Not many of us want the responsibility of carrying great spiritual gifts within us.  I am more comfortable with my life how it is.  I am not looking to be called to the mission fields, inspired to share the Word with the Power that can only come from the Holy Spirit portion of the Godhead.  That gift could even prove dangerous to me personally.  And what if healing was your new thing?  Are you ready to give up your life from the constant and incessant demands of those in need to be healed of what makes them sick.  The sick far outnumber you.  And they are relentless, that is, their need is relentless.  Are you ready to up-end your life in order to serve in a mission that God would empower in you.  Just to “be there” for people who need you now can be taxing enough.  Having that number of people who need you multiply by thousands or tens of thousands could mean constant text messages, voice mails, emails, and letters by the bag full.  Are you ready to truly serve the world if that is what you were gifted to do?  Oh yeah?  Then try it.  You may not be able to heal, or preach, but you can love.  And there is a ton of need out there for that.  A few days of it and you will be exhausted, but then that is where the “gift” part is needed in the first place.

Ask Peter and Andrew.  They were not born disciples of Jesus.  They became that.  By luck?  By happenstance?  Right place, right time.  Or because they were looking for Him, when He sought them out.  Think about that for a moment.  How their origin story works is a little unclear, even with all of scripture.  But here are the basics.  John the Baptist was making the way clear for the Messiah in his mission.  He had disciples who were eager to help out.  When Jesus appeared John sent two of them (John and Andrew) to become disciples of Jesus.  Both men were looking.  Here was Jesus.  Both men believed and immediately ran to their respective brothers to add them to the ranks.  The other two seemed less eager at least to follow the words of their fishermen brothers.  But then Jesus came to them as well.  Luke tells the story in his version in chapter five picking up in verse one saying … “And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, [verse 2] And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.”  Luke is writing a flashback.  We know this because just earlier Jesus was going to Peter’s house, and healing his mother-in-law.  Jesus and Peter were already hanging out together in earlier verses from Luke, so this snippet is a flashback/flash sideways.

John and Andrew were fishermen too.  And as Luke sets the scene, they were their too, they were helping out washing the nets, from an unproductive night of fishing.  The two boats are empty on Lake Gennesaret in Galilee.  The crowds are pressing in on Jesus, so He steps into one of the empty boats and pushes just a little distance offshore in order to preach to the multitude and be heard.  Luke continues in verse 3 saying … “  And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.”  I imagine this was an awesome sermon.  How could it not be?  And while the crowd was listening to the Truth, so were all four of the first disciples while they tended to cleaning their nets.  By the end of this sermon, Peter knew this Rabbi was not like any other.  He understood why his brother was so convinced this was the Messiah.  But while Peter wanted the Messiah to come, he was not sure he was worthy to have anything to do with Him.  Jesus was going to fix that.

Luke continues in verse 4 saying … “Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. [verse 5] And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.”  Keep in mind, this is an origin story, for a superhero of the faith, one who would one day request to die crucified upside down because he did not feel honored enough to die like his Lord did.  That takes extreme faith, to hold it unto death.  And to hold it through the torture he would endure while dying.  But this was way back at the beginning of that journey of faith.  At this point, Peter figures a lesson in practicality is what the young Rabbi needs to receive.  Never tell a fishermen how to fish.  Peter figures once this idea fails, Jesus will move on and leave him alone.  So easy enough to humor this would-be Messiah.  He pushes out offshore and lets down the net in the deep as instructed.  Cant wait to see the look on this Rabbi’s face when we come in dry as a bone and not a single fish.  Already fished these same waters last night and nada, so now should be a quick rerun of that.  Faith at an origin, is hardly the same as faith at the ending.

Luke continues in verse 6 saying … “And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. [verse 7] And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.”  Oops.  The Rabbi knows His fish.  Not only does Peter hit the motherlode, he needs a second boat to help take in the haul.  And they fill that boat and his so high, the boats are just short of sinking entirely from the weight of the fish they took in.  Ironically, this load could have fed the 5000 that would one day later require dinner before heading from a sermon of Jesus.  But alas memory is short.  Now this miracle, and it is nothing short of one, cannot be denied and is being witnessed by more than just Peter.  All four of the first disciples are there taking it in.  But Peter in his origin story, knows himself better than any of us would like to admit.

Luke continues in verse 8 saying … “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. [verse 9] For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: [verse 10] And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon …”  Depart from me, because I am a sinful man.  Have you ever been there?  Ever looked at yourself in the mirror, and known just how evil you really are, how many people you have hurt, some of them on purpose?  When we see our evil as it really is, it does not inspire us to get close to Jesus for the fear of who we are.  But Jesus is not afraid of who we are.  He does not run from us and our sin stains that will one day be covered by His very blood.  He runs towards us.  His miracles are for our benefit.  He did not come here to leave us as we are, but to start our origin story, and move us forward on a journey of faith that ends very differently than it looks today.  It is the love for us that may be the only weakness our God has.  For His love will motive Him to do anything to save us.  And He risks our rejection, but He does not live in fear of it, He tries to conquer it for us.

Luke continues picking back up in verse 10 saying … “And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. [verse 11] And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.”  I am certain Peter did not fully understand what Jesus even meant by that invitation, only that it was a continued invitation in the face of his revelation of self-evil.  Jesus wanted Peter, even if Peter felt unworthy.  Jesus loved Peter right from the get-go.  Peter could sense it.  He could hear it.  He just knew it, without another word of it to be spoken.  That kind of love needs a response.  So Peter and the others determined right then to leave their entire lives behind.  The boat, the enormous catch of fish that might have made them all rich for a season, even their families.  They forsook it all and followed Jesus.  They would care for their families from the road.  But not even family could lure these men away from that pure source of love.

These men became Biblical superheroes of the faith.  And this was an origin story point for each of them.  It was not the whole origin.  But it was a point within it.  What was common among them was they were looking for the Messiah.  They recognized Jesus when He came to them.  And they left their entire lives behind them.  They literally up-ended their lives no matter what the cost, and followed Jesus, not having a clue where they were going or what it meant to follow this Jesus of Nazareth.  They would soon find out that this new Rabbi was not well liked by all the other Rabbi’s.  This one spoke differently.  This one loved differently.  And the whole world was to be changed by that love.  Each of them starting a journey of faith they would all be given.  You can begin again too.  You can look upward even for the gift of faith.  You can realize you don’t need a power in you, you only need to connect to His power, and no other need will ever cross your plate again.  God manages your needs for you.  What you want, that you don’t have, will likely turn out to be something that He knew you did not really need anyway.  In fact, it might have been that very thing, that would harm you more than help you.  I wonder, what will your origin story look like? …

 

Busting a Secret Identity ...

Pretend for a moment that you are a spy.  To be successful the most important thing you need to maintain is the secrecy of who you really are.  When you go undercover, especially in a hostile environment of any kind, you need to blend in and not stick out for being who you really are.  Tread into a hostile environment and have your true identity blown, and you risk violent death, from a very angry crowd of folks, none too happy you were ever allowed in their midst.  Now am I describing some new movie coming soon – that’s possible so many are about spies these days.  But no, not trying to promote a new movie or TV show.  Instead in a relatively large twist of fate, I am describing Jesus Christ.  Now right off the bat, you are all going to tell me that Jesus was no spy, that He did not come here for that.  But think about it for a moment, our God is Love.  Jesus is Love made flesh to dwell among us.  We are nothing short of a very hostile environment.  We tend to reflect hate and understand violence more than we love.  2 shootings in one weekend should prove that.  And no, not everyone is as cuckoo-lulu as those 2 extremists.  But entire crowds of people find it easy to subscribe to the hate they personified.  Racism, whether white, black, Latino, Asian, pick your grievance of one group against another cannot long survive without a good current of hate to keep it going.

Our world then, constitutes nothing short of a very hostile environment, against a pure Love that does not ever wish the knowledge of violence existed.  When confronted with this kind of powerful love, those who would submit to it, were washed over, inside and out, by it.  But those who rejected it, did not stay neutral or apathetic to it, they got angry.  And the anger and jealousy grew, until they plotted to kill it.  And this violence was directed against a man.  The under-cover identity of our Lord.  To His enemies Jesus was nothing more than man.  Even the suggestion that Jesus was something more, made His enemies even more furious.  To push the idea that Jesus was God into the face of hostile agents, was the straw that would decidedly break the camel’s back.  So the mission of Love was to spread itself and preach that love doctrine to as wide an audience as was possible.  To do this, the secret of who Jesus really was, needed to be kept a secret.  Jesus had to remain undercover as long as possible.  Remaining a spy of love was the best way to see that love could be spoken as long as possible.  The benefits of this was for us.  Jesus was destined to die for us, He would die, no matter what.  But “we” needed the time with Jesus to learn what love really looks like for as long as we could.  So keeping the press off the God part of who Jesus was would be job one.

Seems really weird to think about Jesus Christ as a spy for heaven’s love for us.  But when you think about how hostile we truly are, it makes a lot more sense than you think.  And prolonging that secret identity for as long as possible was top of mind.  Luke tells us just how hard it really was.  Because Satan figured all of this out well ahead of time.  Satan is the enemy of Love.  Satan is the proponent of hate.  If those racist thoughts enter your mind, and cause you to feel less about others, you walk the same path as the father of all hate.  To trace racism back to Satan does not give us a comfort factor, but it is true.  The folks who took that racism far enough to pull triggers are as close to Satan as you can get.  They create hostile environments where none should be.  To send Jesus into that, into our world, into an age where Roman violence hardly took second place to what we choose to do today, was to create the need for Him to keep His secret as long as He could.  So once Satan knew this, he determined to reveal that secret to everyone, to bust that secret identity as loud and as often as he could.

Luke begins revealing the impacts of enemy in the fourth chapter of his gospel letter to his Greek friend.  Picking up in verse 31 he says … “And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days. [verse 32] And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.”  Jesus had just left Nazareth where He was in the synagogues teaching and preaching on Sabbath days as well.  This was His custom.  He invented Sabbath, so it is interesting to see how He chooses to spend His time on it.  But this was not just a custom for home, but a custom wherever He happened to be.  And people were astonished at His doctrine.  Does that sound like He towed the company line of His day?  Not to me.  Sounds more like when Love teaches the Word, the Word is taught very differently than when we mangle it.  Looking through the eyes of Love, the Bible becomes a Love letter.  It was always supposed to be more Love letter, than instruction manual.  If you get the Love, you will understand the instructions.  But if you miss the Love, there is not enough instructions in the world to cover that loss.  This was the mistake of our Pharisee forefathers, and the continued mistake we make from the pulpits of today as well as in our hearts.

The Word can be taught with power, when the power that teaches it is steeped in Love.  But Satan was not happy at all this success, and he formed a plan to ruin it quickly.  Luke continues in verse 33 saying … “And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, [verse 34] Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.”  These texts should scare the living poopoo out of you.  Think about it.  This man was able to gain access to the synagogue on a Sabbath day.  To do that, he could not have been frothing at the mouth, or carrying around busted chains like some of the other demoniacs.  He had to look normal.  He had to behave normal.  He had to look just like one of our neighbors, calling no special attention to himself.  But despite all appearances of normality, this guy carried a full-blown demon inside of him.  What should terrify you and I, is the nagging question, do you think he knew it was there?  Or was he surprised at this unfortunate unveiling right in the middle of church?  Was this the first time, he lost control of himself, and found himself silent while a demon spoke through him?  If this was a surprise to him, how do you know, you are not carrying around one of your own?

Then examine what the demon says – “Let us alone”.  “Us” is a equally terrifying choice of word there.  Just how many were in there?  And from the demon’s point of view, they are not bothering Jesus so why should Jesus bother them.  Then the question we understand so little.  “Art thou come to destroy us?”  Now this is going to sound counterintuitive for a moment but stick with me.  The disease of hate ends in only one way – in death.  The longer you are consumed by hate, the more death starts to look like the only reasonable way of escape from it.  Ask yourself why so many shooters choose to die in the mayhem they create.  It is because they have discovered the truth of death being the only way to end their pain.  So they do not fear it.  They long for it.  Demons are supernatural.  They existed before us, and have been consumed by hate for longer than us.  And they too look for the relief of death to end the pain of hate.  So in a sense acknowledging that Jesus will one day end their pain, by destroying them, is a final act of mercy on God’s part, and a welcome relief to those beings consumed by hate who refuse to give hate up.

Lastly, the demon out’s the Spy.  “I know who thou art; the Holy one of God.”  Knowing Jesus exists is not the same as embracing Jesus as your savior.  This passage proves that.  Keep in mind they were just asking about being destroyed early.  Knowledge is not submission.  Knowledge is not salvation.  It is only knowledge.  And Jesus is more than Love as we know it.  He is the Holy One of God.  This was proclaimed in the middle of church on a bright Sabbath morning.  An entire audience of believers gripped by the fear of having let in a demoniac undercover, are now hearing the demon identify Jesus as the Holy One of God.  Luke continues in verse 35 saying .. “And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.”  Jesus in a word commands the demon to keep silent and he is powerless to refuse.  It is what happens when Creator commands His creation.  We may not like that idea, but it is true.  In addition, the demon is able to do this poor host no more harm, merely to case him down in the center of the place and depart.

The audience is overwhelmed.  Luke continues in verse 36 saying … “And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. [verse 37] And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.”  The word of this event travels far and wide.  His enemies shrug it off.  But His followers recognize a power in Him that cannot be denied.  With this church is over.  Luke continues in verse 38 saying … “And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. [verse 39] And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.”  Jesus loved Peter’s mother-in-law.  He heals her not for her service (which she gladly volunteers), but because He loves her.  None of us were “meant” to suffer.  It is our suffering He has come to relieve.  Luke drives that point home in the closing texts of this snippet picking up in verse 40 saying … “Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. [verse 41] And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.”

Notice that all the healing described so far was taking place on Sabbath.  Jesus did not restrict His love to us on His holy day.  His love was amplified on that day, not stuck in some self-proscribed isolation.  As the sun begins to set the entire region with sick loved ones begins to show up at Peters house.  And every single one of them is healed by Jesus, every single one.  Why do we pray with such doubt and such trepidation for the healing of our loved ones today.  Jesus is the same God of love now.  And He longs to heal us now.  Why do we ask so little, and believe even less?  His mission was not to be restricted to the areas that already knew and loved Him.  It was to reach the world.  Luke continues in verse 42 saying … “And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. [verse 43] And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. [verse 44] And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.”  He did not stay home.  He ventured out.  He worked for us, even when Satan had busted His identity on multiple occasions.  Nothing would stop His love.  Not then, but also not now.

Which Jesus do you serve?  Do you find yourself His hostile environment, or are you ready to let that Love wash over you, inside and out?  It is time …

 

Hard Truth ...

I can’t figure out if the fault is in our educational systems, or perhaps stems from our media.  Maybe it comes from our horrific parenting skills that attempt to treat 2-year-olds as if they were somehow our mental equivalents.  I have just been unable to put my finger on it.  But somehow, some way, our culture has become one of affixing blame for anything and everything that happens – on someone else.  Self-reflection and self-awareness are as rare as the dodo bird.  And nobody wants to hear it.  Even less are willing to accept it.  It is as if Satan has convinced us all that “if” we should be going to hell, well then, that is God’s fault.  “We” are not responsible for a single thing that happens to us, even though 90% of it stems from simple cause and effect that “we” initiate.  Look around, you will find this everywhere.  I get in a car accident, and guess where the “fault” will be assigned if I have anything to do with it.  Two dogs fight in a street (mostly because owners overreact in fear and stupidity) and blame is the first item on the agenda.  Something goes wrong at work, and everyone begins looking for a fall guy.  That guy could be anyone, except me.  For I am a precious snowflake that nothing should be able to touch – just ask my mom, she can verify it. 😊 Some might argue, she created it.

You would think that inside the church this could not be true.  But it is.  The kind of people we are outside of the church building, is the kind of people we bring to it each week, and the kind we find there sitting next to us.  So to combat this, I hear a good many pastors lamenting over the “soft truth” sermons spoken from the pulpit today.  Sermons designed to offend no one, and accomplish little.  I hear a lament to return to the good old days of “hellfire and brimstone” sermons designed to scare the be-geezes out of parishioners and get them to straighten up and fly right.  But those good old days did nothing to prevent the backlash in our culture that today chooses to blame first, and think later, if ever.  People just don’t forsake sin from fear, at least not for long.  But there is a hard truth that might be worth telling, even if it does not come on the topic we traditionally think of.  The emphasis of this hard truth is not on sin at all.  That might make it more popular.  It is actually focused squarely on me (the larger me in this context, that includes you, etc.).  That might make it wildly popular in our age, particularly if you plan to tell me how great I am (you know, just like mom does).

But then telling me how great I am, does not sound like a hard truth at all, it sounds more like a fantastic truth.  So what is the hard part, if it is about me, and not about my sin?  Perhaps the hardest truth I may ever hear.  And it does not come from me, that is today’s me, it comes from a sermon Jesus preached a long time ago.  Stick with me, this sermon is decidedly not what you would expect.  Luke records it in his gospel letter to his friend in the 4^th chapter picking up in verse 16 saying … “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.”  Now for some context.  Jesus has already picked up disciples and begun his ministry.  He has already performed miracles throughout the countryside and healed and preached to a great many.  He is now famous.  People are talking about Him everywhere, and nearly all the time.  But Luke is not focused on that here, he is focused on the simple fact that on Sabbath – Jesus goes to church.  It was His custom.  It was Jesus who made the 7^th day holy, and it was His choice to spend at least some of it in the synagogue (or local church) wherever He happened to be.

Another bit of subtle context, not everyone who went to church back then, was “able” to read.  It was usually only the scribes or Pharisees or Sadducees or elite educated who had ever picked up the skill.  The poor who went to church were dependent on others to read to them.  It is how they learned.  On this occasion it was to be Jesus who would read in His home church in the city of Nazareth where He was from, but had not spent any time as yet in His ministry.  Kind of like having a guest pastor at the church, one who is very famous and well known at the time.  Luke continues in verse 17 saying … “And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, [verse 18] The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, [verse 19] To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. [verse 20] And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.”

First, re-read the text from the book of Isaiah Jesus read to the crowd.  Does any of that sound like a “Debbie-downer” sermon to you?  Kind of just the opposite right?  It is about uplifting mankind.  It is about ministering to mankind.  Healing, reaching out to the poor, preaching deliverance to those who are captives (read slaves, or prisoners, or those of us made slaves to our own sins).  This may be some of the happiest scriptures Isaiah ever penned, and here is Jesus simply reading them to His homies.  And every eye in the joint is fixated on Jesus to see what He will say next.  Everyone wants Him to preach here.  You will notice they already had a local minister (it is the guy Jesus returned the book to when He went back and sat down in the chamber).  But the people wanted more.  They wanted to hear more from Jesus.

So Luke continues in verse 21 saying … “And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. [verse 22] And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?”  Jesus proclaims the good news, nay, the awesome news, that the time of this prophecy has arrived and is happening now in the ears of those who have heard the words read by Jesus Himself in this sanctuary.  These are gracious words.  These are loving words.  There is no condemnation in them.  There is no hell fire and brimstone in them.  There is no talk of sin in them.  There is only freedom in them.  There in only love in them.  There is only hope in them.  And yet, they are the hardest truth these people, and now us, have ever heard.  Why?  Because they and we do not want to hear them.  We doubt the messenger, even when He is Jesus Christ.  So we close off our ears to hear Truth even when it is wonderful Truth.  And in so doing we take awesome news and make it “Meh” news.

Jesus reads the minds of the petitioners here this day and reads the doubt.  Instead of remembering the facts of what is going on around them, they are remembering only that this Man was supposed to be nothing more than a carpenter’s son.  Carpenters are usually not very educated.  Math perhaps.  But reading scripture, not so much.  Carpenters are work men, trades men, NOT preachers of any kind.  And they realize that all the miracles performed in the ministry of Jesus have been somewhere else, not in their hometown.  So maybe it is all exaggeration or just outright lies.  And it is here where the hardest truth to our human ears begins to take shape.  It is our willingness to hear that makes a Truth easy, or makes it hard.  The facts are the same.  Jesus is the same.  But how we respond is a foretelling of whether we walk a hard path or an easy one.

Luke records Jesus as He continues in verse 23 saying … “And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. [verse 24] And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.”  Ouch!  Capernaum is the home of Peter and a neighboring town.  And in it, miracles of untold power and love have been done nearly all the time.  But in Nazareth, nothing.  What is the difference?  They are only similar towns in a similar region under similar circumstances with similar needs.  But in Capernaum, they believe, and are willing to believe.  In Nazareth, they are certain they already know the truth, and are unwilling to believe in the Truth.  Jesus is nothing more than carpenter’s son in Nazareth.  Jesus is hope personified in Capernaum.  And let us not fixate on the past.  Who is Jesus to you?  Are you even willing to believe at all, or has your belief been slain on the altar of self-love?  Have you already decided you know the truth, and have become unwilling to hear the Truth, even when the Truth is telling you awesome news?  You make your life hard.  You make the Truth hard.  When it does not need to be so.  And ONLY you are to blame.  You cannot put this off on mom, or the preacher, for getting it wrong – because the Truth is talking to you in that still small voice you should not ignore, but so many of us do.

Jesus continues in verse 25 saying … “But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; [verse 26] But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.”  Aaarg!  Hard truth spills from the mouth of Jesus to us, hard because we have made it so.  There were many widows in Israel, that is, Israelite widows in the time of Elijah.  The prophet might have been sent to any one of them, to the home of any believer.  But the believers did not want him there.  They were afraid of the wrath of the King and Queen who hunted Elijah.  Elijah was billed as a trouble maker.  Elijah made life hard.  But in truth.  Sin made life hard.  The sin of widows, just like the sin of Kings and Queens.  So to a foreign woman the Prophet is sent.  To a woman of no Israelite blood.  Had the women of Israel been as likeminded as the foreign woman Elijah would have been sent to them, and in fact, the drought would not have been needed in the first place.  But women, even the widow women, had embraced the sin of Kings and Queens, and nothing but hardship would get their attention to bring them back into the fold of redemption.  Hard truths, but needed truths. 

And is it so for us?  It is the difference then between Nazareth and Capernaum.  Nazareth refused to see and was left mired in the same pain Capernaum had been freed from.  Hard truth.  Refusing to see meant embracing the same pain as before.  Jesus continues in verse 27 saying … ” And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.”  Yikes!  This one was even more personal.  You see, there was not supposed to be ANY lepers in Israel.  Because the priests had a cure for it.  Rather God was the cure, the priests simply administered the rights, and the cure was had.  But the priesthood had long ago abandoned belief that cure was possible.  Sound familiar?  How many of us believe cancer is also impossible to cure with prayer – every single time, for every single person?  So Elijah was sent to a foreigner to be cleansed.  A foreigner who would be willing to believe and do what he was told.  And this was a rebuke against Israel for abandoning hope in a cure in the first place.  Remember the words of Jesus when He healed the lepers asking them to go to present themselves to the priests.  This was part of the healing ritual back in the day, and a rebuke against their lost faith in the present.  Hard truth.

And when we hear that we do have a role to play in the acceptance of the Truth in our lives, what will be our response?  When we come to realize there is no-one else to blame for our lives now?  My snowflake melts.  My mom shivers.  And the reality that life does touch me begins to sink in.  Yet nowhere in this sermon was a hard truth about calling sin by its right name.  It was about calling rejection of belief, and rejection of Jesus by its right name.  It is about losing control over salvation, and submitting to the only One who can save you, because He is the only One who ever promised to do just that.  Rejecting Jesus is embracing pain.  And that rejection cannot be blamed on others.  You must own it.  You must own it alone.  This is not about how “spiritual” you are, or how “religious” you are.  Those are nice adjectives that placate people into thinking Jesus is not necessary in the equation for self-improvement.  But it is Jesus alone who is able (and longing) to save you, from you, from who you are today.  The devil would try to distract you from this, but it remains and cannot be undone, by anyone other than you.  You must choose to embrace Jesus, or be stuck embracing the pain you always had.  Redemption is not about focusing on your sins, or trying to scare you out of them.  It is about connecting with Jesus and finally beginning to hear the awesome good news.

But delight is not the response of those who have finally heard “they” are not the precious snowflakes they once had envisioned.  Instead they got mad.  Luke continues in verse 28 saying … “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, [verse 29] And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. [verse 30] But he passing through the midst of them went his way,”  They were ready to kill Jesus.  They were going to run Him off a cliff and kill Him for certain.  They took Him all the way there.  And only then does the Holy Spirit come to essentially turn Him invisible, or untouchable, and He passes right through the angry mob unnoticed and walks away.  In a twist of Irony returning from Nazareth to Capernaum.  Now consider the reaction of those called out with hard truth.  They wanted and were trying to kill Jesus over it.  Not because Jesus pronounced some curse on them, or talked about what great sinners they were.  Jesus had read a beautiful set of scriptures, with awesome good news.  Jesus said it is here for you.

They were ready to kill Jesus, because He showed them what unbelief looks like.  They were ready to kill Jesus, because they “knew” Jesus was nothing more than a carpenter’s son, instead of the Messiah.  And now to you and me, the precious snowflakes of our age.  What is to be our response?  The news is awesome and good.  The text is hope.  The promise of Jesus hope made flesh and made real.  But if we “know” how we will be saved and refuse to let Jesus do it, if we focus on the sin and not the cure, or if we refuse to believe or even be willing to believe – what hope have we but the life we have already come to know?  The Truth is not hard.  It is easy.  The news is not depressing.  It is wonderful.  Why make something hard that does not need to be hard?  Why not simply embrace what is easy, and see what a difference it can make in your life right now, today, and for each day you live from this day forward.  If you ask me, it is rejection of Jesus that is hard.  Acceptance of Jesus is a cakewalk by comparison.  I wonder how this Truth will ring in your ears?

 

Glad I am not "That Guy" ...

Sometimes it feels like our problems are overwhelming.  We see ourselves in a state of pain and feel the weight of the world is crushing down on us.  Yet, when we look around (assuming we are able to break the gaze currently locked in the mirror), we find people worse off than us.  Does not matter how bad you think you have it, there is ALWAYS someone else who has it worse.  If there is any comfort in not being as bad off as your neighbor, then there you are.  But once this recognition is made, your problems, remain your problems.  If there is anything to be learned it might be that your problems are not as bad as they could be.  The pessimist would say “just wait” and leer at you with a look of foreboding doom.  The optimist would say “just wait” and look at you with a sympathetic gaze offering only the slightest glimmer of hope.  The Christian?  Well maybe you are the Christian in this story.  And your problems?  Well maybe your problems are not all made in sin, but sin can sure make them worse.  Disease, financial insolvency, hunger; all of these can come upon you through no fault or control of your own making – but layer the base sin of selfishness on top of them, and they all get exponentially worse, extraordinarily quickly.

So the simple question is “what is the cure?”, and we’ll get back to that.  But if the key ingredient in making any hard situation worse is sin, then the first step in making anything better would be to avoid making it worse.  Herein lies the first test.  Can we look away from self long enough to avoid stumbling into the sins self would have us commit?  Of our own strength, I would submit it is a losing battle.  But when we turn to the power of the Holy Spirit, we begin to see that glimmer of hope.  And if you think your temptations are formidable, there was One who had it worse.  Yup an order of magnitude worse.  So bad, His story would leave you scratching your head saying to yourself, at least I am not “that Guy”.  Who springs to mind for you?  Is it Abraham who nearly lost the love of his life to the Pharaoh from lying to him that his wife was his sister?  Or perhaps David, who literally killed his neighbor to take his wife from him, well after being caught pregnant from the adultery that preceded this worse crime?  Those guys had it rough from sins that made selfishness a hard road to travel.  But no, I am not talking about them.  I am talking about Jesus.  Yup, in this case, Jesus was “that Guy”.

Now I know and you know, that Jesus had not committed any sins at all.  And Jesus was the Son of God, that is, God was His literally daddy.  So how bad could He have had it anyway.  As tests go, wouldn’t He have just passed any of them with flying colors?  Luke relates His story picking up in his gospel in the beginning of the fourth chapter in verse 1 saying … “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,”  We don’t know too many stories of the life of Jesus between his time in the temple as a 12 year old man teaching the doctors of the scripture what real Truth was, and the time Jesus asks to be baptized by John in the river Jordan.  We could assume it was a life of ease.  But then, it was a time of Roman oppression.  It is likely during this time that His earthly caretaking father Joseph died.  Jesus would have been the eldest son.  It would have been His responsibility to help His mother Mary raise the brothers and sisters that would have come along during the years of Joseph and Mary being a normal husband and wife.  It would have been Jesus’ responsibility to teach his younger brothers a trade like carpentry that He was taught.  To keep a business going that would feed the entire family and one day allow Him to resume a ministry without sending his mother and siblings into destitution or poverty.  That is a lot of responsibility for an elder Son, and we have no idea when it came upon Him.

But there is another wrinkle in all of this.  Jesus had the power to heal and resurrect.  Yet He never used it upon Himself, that is, to His own selfish benefit.  For others, He poured it out like water.  But for Himself, nothing.  I would imagine that undoing the illness of a sick father, or undoing an untimely death, would have been the greatest temptation our young Lord would ever face.  You see, if Joseph remained in his position as head of the family, Jesus would be free to do as He liked, or as He believed was needed.  He could have started younger, and perhaps ministered longer.  But this may not have been the will of His Father in heaven.  A good idea from a human perspective, but not as good from a heavenly one.  So when Joseph is sick, or dies suddenly, Jesus does nothing to undo it.  He lets it stand.  Though it breaks His heart, and further breaks it again watching the pain it brings to Mary and the others who cannot see past the death of this world.  He lets it stand.  When we ask why God lets our grief stand, perhaps it is because He sees past the death of this world and knows that will only ever be temporary, a sleep, a nap we will surely rise from as He calls us forth in a resurrection yet to come.  But for those who remain it is hard to see that, and so grief remains.  And Jesus would have had an up close personal encounter with grief from those He had come to love most.

Now however, on the great day of starting His ministry, FINALLY after all this time and patience.  The first place He is driven to go under the heavy influence of the Holy Spirit is to the desert, to the wilderness.  Going here will put Jesus in human isolation.  There are not many to encounter in the wilderness, if any.  Man does not ordinarily choose to go to a place where nothing of value is.  If Jesus was like any of us up to this point, He might have been used to at least the minimum creature comforts of home.  To meals prepared by a loving mother and sisters, to a bed he built and his family helped make soft, with blankets knit by hand for Him to sleep under.  We have no reason to assume Jesus had nothing before this point in time.  But His first act is to shed everything.  Comfort will be the first casualty of a ministry He is called into action to begin.  So the wilderness is to be the first place of a ministry where no one else will hear what He has come to say.  And it was not Satan who drove Him here, it was God.  His first test, is to be a test of self-denial, and loneliness.

Already my problems start looking inconsequential and not as severe as perhaps I had imagined.  Luke continues in verse 2 saying … “Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.”  Here Luke corrects a few of our bad assumptions about this time.  Jesus is not left alone for 40 days and “then” tempted of Satan.  No, no, no.  He is tempted for the full forty days.  And during this time of testing.  He is not eating.  He is fasting like no fast any human will ever pass (and live).  He is moving from place to place.  He has no constructed shelter.  He sleeps on the dirt and has only stones for pillows.  And each day He is progressively more hungry than the last.  Each day, he burns calories, and takes none in to replenish them.  He grows skinny.  Then He grows emaciated.  He begins to look so bad He will be hard to recognize by any who knew Him only weeks ago.  Each day, perhaps each hour relentlessly tempted, to use that power to fix His predicament.  But instead He lets His conditions and His hardship, stand.  It is at the conclusion of His decay, Luke uses the gentle words “He hungered”.  That is quite an understatement from the doctor.  Luke might have better said, He was so emaciated He was now on the very verge of death itself from hunger He could no longer physically bear.

My problems look very slight now.  As I stare down at an ample stomach I realize I have missed no meals as yet, in fasting, or for any other purpose.  Luke continues in verse 3 saying … “And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. [verse 4] And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”  Imagine the self-denial it takes to continue to refuse food in this condition.  Jesus is near death and still He obeys.  There could not be a worse test than this for self-preservation vs. obedience that Jesus or anyone could envision.  Jesus passes.  But that does nothing to fill His belly.  He remains as hungry after He says no, then before He rebukes Satan in this regard.  Satan is the one amazed now.  This makes no common sense.  This is like choosing to die rather than choosing to live.  Why would God let Him say no?  It makes no sense.  He has the power to fix his, but He refuses to fix it.  And how do the words of scripture fill that belly so small from the hunger He has endured?  They are words on a page, Satan is talking about taking care of a bodily need, His human half needs to survive.  He is in literal pain.  How do figurative words fix that?  No one understands.  But His refusal to spend power on Himself remains.

Luke continues in verse 5 saying … “And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. [verse 6] And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. [verse 7] If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. [verse 8] And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”  Here is where the rubber meets the road for us.  To save us Jesus must pay our price, He must die in our stead.  We are every one of us guilty.  Therefore each of us have earned death, and to avoid it, Jesus our perfect God, our perfect creator, must take on our punishment and die in our stead.  That is “how” we can be saved.  That is “how” justice from a just God can be satisfied.  Not by denying our death we have earned, but by substituting our death for His.  But here is Satan offering a different plan, a MUCH MUCH easier plan.  Here is Satan saying he will just give us all to Jesus without any death, just with a momentary acknowledgement that Satan has won this round.  Bow to Satan, and Satan will give back dominion of earth to Jesus for free.  No death required.  But therein is the trick, no salvation either.  Our death is still our death.  With no substitution we cannot be saved.  So Jesus passes, for this, and for the primary reason, that only God should ever be worshipped.  There will be no easy way out.  And the hunger remains.  Jesus is inching closer to a natural death by starvation.  It is in this condition He refuses the easy way out.

Luke concludes these enumerated temptations picking up in verse 9 saying … “And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: [verse10] For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: [verse 11] And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. [verse 12] And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. [verse 13] And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.”  Here Satan tempts Jesus with protection God is supposed to guarantee.  Jesus refuses.  Why?  That protection is there, it is guaranteed.  But it was not meant to be used to “prove” Jesus is God, that would do nothing but satisfy a non-existent ego in Jesus.  Jesus would not prove Himself as the Son of God by forcing God to protect Him when it was not needed.  Jesus would allow God to protect Him as God sees fit, according to the will of God, even when protection does not come.

And still Jesus is starving.  His mental capacity must have given its all in these tests.  At this point the flood gates of heaven open, and the angels who long to serve Him burst to earth with food He needs.  Satan is driven away for a season.  And His body is given emergency care by the Holy Spirit to restore Him enough to resume a ministry His starvation nearly robbed Him of.  He was obedient unto death.  It was the will of God for Jesus to die, but not like this.  So Jesus was preserved.  For mankind still needed to know how great the love of Jesus was.  We needed a personal encounter with Him.  And that was not to be denied to us from Him dying alone of starvation in the desert wilderness of the country.  And Jesus was restored.  Luke offers only two texts that summarize a great number of events that occur in the other gospels.  He encapsulates the time between this and His return to Nazareth in only these two verses saying in verse 14 … “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. [verse 15] And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.”

The story ends better here.  But the conditions could not have been worse up until it.  It is hard to imagine that when I look around at the problems of others compared to my own, I find it was Jesus who had it so much worse than me.  Then I remember, He did all this – for me.  Jesus was “that Guy” for me, so that I would never have to experience anything like He did.  My obedience does not require my starvation, because the love of my Jesus chooses to see me eat, meal after meal, for more than 50 years and counting.  That is His kind of love for me, even when I have no memory of if, or now even if my memory fades of it.  His love is still there.  When I ask, what are the cure for my problems, I remember that serving others even while in the worst problems of my life, tends only to make them better, or of no effect.  It may be hard to take the focus off of me, when I believe I am suffering, but that may be just what the doctor ordered – a chance to benefit someone else, and lift my heart in the process.  When you think about it like that, it is not so hard after all.  And when you experience what submission to Jesus can do, how you think, and how you love, are the first things that change and improve, by a landslide.  I did not have to be that Guy, because He was there for me during His worst problems.  He was “that Guy” for me.