When it Comes Down to It ...

What will you choose?  Who will you serve?  When it comes down to it, when all you have left are precious fleeting moments fast fading from view, what will you choose when time is no longer a commodity?  Most of us just don’t think this way, and the evidence of our lives would show, we certainly do not live this way.  The healthy believe health will just continue for the length of our lives.  The accident free, find the idea of falling victim to an accident, an entirely foreign idea.  Those who have never lived under threat simply cannot imagine any other way of life.  But when you struggle to breath, finding yourself in a make-shift ICU ward, never having gotten around to getting vaccinated – you begin to realize that each breath is getting harder and harder to take.  The tubes put down your throat to ease your breathing prevent you from communicating just how desperate your situation is getting.  Fear begins to grow in your heart and mind.  You could die.  You may be actually dying right now.  There is no family nearby to see and sense your need.  They are not allowed in here.  You are alone.  And breathing just keeps getting harder and harder to do.  Your time is nearly up, and there is nothing you, or medical science can do about that anymore.  This is not the plight of some random patient in some forgotten hospital you never heard of.  This is the plight of so many, the Advent Health main campus in Orlando is fighting with, that the entire campus has gone code-black.

So when it comes down to it, when you don’t just see your life flashing in front of your eyes, you are struggling to take every breath slowly and painfully over what may be the last hours of your life – what will the choices of your life add up to?  Will you have the brain capacity left, enough oxygen left in your brain, to even make a choice you may never have made in your life up to now?  Welcome to the crucifixion, more pointedly, your own.  Jesus lived His life knowing this day would come, knowing these moments of struggle would come.  For Him it was not some far off fate, most of us dream will only happen in our nineties when we are ready, tired, and well prepared for it.  Nope, this fate of Jesus would be thrust on Him in His early thirties.  And as for Jesus, He would have to endure all of it, at our hands, without using any of the limitless power He had to avoid a single moment of it.  When it comes down to it, Jesus would have to go through all of it, even the loss of His own life, in order to save us.  For Jesus there would be one other wrinkle; all of Jesus’ life He could always sense the Father God with Him every moment.  But here at the end that would not be true.  Jesus must die alone, without the Father.  For the Father must turn His eyes away while His Son carries the immense weight of our sins to the ultimate punishment of our sins, in order to save us.

Jesus had never known that solitude.  He could not have imagined dying alone like He was.  When it comes down to it, would Jesus go through with it?  Luke records the saddest events of our salvation in his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why picking up in the 23^rd chapter in verse 26 saying … “And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.”  Simon being forced to carry the cross of Christ, was because Pilate had already beaten Jesus with 39 lashes of a whip with broken glass in the tips.  This beating ripped the flesh off of the back of Jesus so badly he nearly died from blood loss.  The pain was so excruciating He could not carry the cross for it was too much for Him.  His humanity just could not bear up under it.  So after collapsing, the Romans realized they needed a different victim to carry this cross or it would never move again.  They conscripted Simon the Cyrenian to do it for them.

None of us still drawing breath in the comfort of our living rooms, and homes, truly know what the pain level is like for someone who is headed for death in a random ICU ward, of a local hospital.  We just assume they are drugged up enough not to truly feel much of anything.  But when you are fighting to take the next breath, you need a certain amount of awareness to make that struggle.  If you are out of it entirely you may lose that fight quickly.  None of us know, what pain can be like, how extreme, or not, when set upon by accidents in a car, or stones in a kidney, or slipped discs in a spine, until or unless you have experienced one of these things.  We never plan for that.  We never anticipate it coming, knowing we must face it.  It just happens to us, all at once, out of the blue, then begins our cursing and crying it has happened at all.  Pain will sober that up quickly.  But if we were ever in that kind of extreme pain, and had the power to fix ourselves, we would not waste a second enacting that fix.  Jesus didn’t.  He could have fixed any portion of it for Himself.  He didn’t.  He endured it.  For you.  For me.

Luke continues in verse 27 saying … “And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. [verse 28] But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. [verse 29] For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. [verse 30] Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. [verse 31] For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”  It was tradition to mourn the dead (or the dying).  Often it was spectacle, without real feeling, just to make a show for those who might actually care.  But Jesus even in His depleted state, sees what is coming upon Jerusalem in the very near future.  Jesus sees its siege and ultimate destruction.  He sees mothers eating their own children to survive.  He sees the trauma of all of this, the guilt that will never go away.  He sees the victims begging for death and the peace of sleep in the grave, for life in the barren land without Jesus there anymore in person, offers just no comfort to face all this horror.  Horror that will come from the decisions these residents will make despite the warnings.

The cries for the mountains to fall on us, is often attributed to the last days of mankind, but here Jesus attributes it to the coming days of the destruction of Jerusalem.  There were warnings sent to Jerusalem before the Romans attacked it.  Warnings that begin in a message “not to rebel” against the Roman empire in the first place.  Leave politics and who runs the world up to God, stop trying to interfere with it.  Instead focus the energy of your life on loving others and that love will begin to change the world.  But as the time for Jerusalem to be destroyed got close, signs in the clouds and the sky, alerted the Christian community that the time had come.  They fled.  They left not only the city but the region, taking with them the gospel into all the world in every direction.  But not a single Christian died in the destruction of Jerusalem.  Because they heard the warnings, and took action, immediately.  Yet here we sit today, with the biggest hospital I have ever seen, on a code-black lockdown, because despite every warning, so many people refuse the vaccination that might have kept them out of the ICU, away from the ventilators, away from the pain of struggling to make that next breath, with the horrible fear it may truly be their last breath. 

These conditions in our day do not persist for lack of warning, or for lack of a way out.  They persist for the decisions people make in their health, that they foolishly believe will last them forever.  All the while venturing into public spaces, encountering so many others, risking exposure to a pandemic they refuse to acknowledge.  They care little for their own lives, and even less for the lives of others.  And for what?  When it comes down to it, do you really think lives will change, people will live differently, begin to value the lives of others even more than their own?  Why, because the fear of losing it all has finally become a reality.  No, fear is terrifying, but wears off quickly.  Transformation is what has been needed.  But no one is seeking that.  They look to be “saved” just as they are, every sin still preserved in tact, sent to heaven this way with nothing about them changed except their bodies and health.  They would prefer to be Lucifer sent back into His Kingdom unchanged by his experiences.  When it comes down to it, your time may already be past.  The residents of Jerusalem suffered, experienced the horror of a siege, and many died in the battle that destroyed the city.  If you were “lucky” enough to have survived you lived out the rest of your life as a slave taken across the world to be sold, abused, and finally killed from the hardships you would have endured.

Ignoring the signs, the warnings, and the cure – are ALWAYS done at the cost of your life, one way, or the other.  Misery loving company as much as it does, there would company at the horror of the crucifixion of Jesus.  Luke continues in verse 32 saying … “And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. [verse 33] And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.”  Jesus would die between two criminals who had no choice about where they were, or how they would die.  They had been caught at their crimes, tried, and convicted.  They were going to die, no choice at all.  They would struggle for their last breaths as well.  They had lived badly.  They were sinners caught in their sins.  And now death was to be thrust upon them.  When it comes down to it, how would they die?  Suffering was certain, death was certain, but salvation was right there in between them.  They had only to reach out before it was too late.

Luke continues in verse 34 saying … “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. [verse 35] And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. [verse 36] And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, [verse 37] And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. [verse 38] And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”  Notice the contrast of Jesus, who even while struggling for His own final breaths thinks of us, thinks of His own persecutors asking forgiveness for those who clearly want no such thing.  Instead those He just asked forgiveness for, strip Him naked, start making fun of Him, cast lots for his clothing.  Soldier mock Him as well.  Everyone telling Him if He really is the Son of God, just prove it, come down off the cross and everyone there will believe.  That was a lie.  Everyone there already knew who He was, but could not imagine the Son of God willingly allowing Himself to be put thru torture and death.  As Jesus struggles to breathe, hate is hurled at Him.  But Pilate will have the last word in all of this, He will place a sign above Jesus to list Him as the King of the Jews whether the Sanhedrin likes it or not.  They won’t.

Luke continues in verse 39 saying … “And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. [verse 40] But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? [verse 41] And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.”  One of the criminals joins in the verbal abuse of Jesus, demanding a different outcome rather than death.  But death was to be certain.  The other criminal realizes they are not going to get away, nor perhaps, should they get away.  But the second criminal realizes he is guilty, Jesus is not.  The love and forgiveness of Jesus even in this state so near to death, has reached in to this condemned man’s heart, and found him for to save him.  When it comes down to it, what will you choose?  The outcome was not to change.  The decisions these men made in how they lived before they were criminals, had gone badly.  Not because they were caught, but because they did not live rightly.  There was not much left to them.  But salvation was still there.

But rather than waiting till it comes down to it, rather than waiting till your brain may not even be strong enough to make a different choice, why not look to Jesus for salvation right now.  There is time right now, if you are able to read this, to find the transformation your life and mine so desperately need.  We can still live like Jesus would enable us to live.  We can still see the signs in the sky, read the warnings, get the help, show the love.  There is no reason for us to be caught up in the code-black make-shift versions of an ICU.  Getting the shots, wearing the masks, being mindful of the lives of others, is a far better outcome than grasping for every last breath, like these men would do in the crucifixion they faced.  But it is not death we are trying to avoid, it is life we are trying to embrace.  Living for others, for the time has come when it comes down to it.  Will you find yourself calling for mountains to end the pain of your struggle, or find yourself reaching out the salvation of Jesus who was right there in between you all the while.  If you can read this, or hear this, it is not too late.  What will you do?  Who will you serve?

 

Power Unchecked ...

Perhaps the most self-destructive gift the devil will ever offer humanity is unchecked power.  Even our imaginations of what having great power over others would be like, are usually far from ideal.  We dream of vengeance (that of course we call justice), we dream of getting even, of showing those who have it coming, just what they have earned.  Since the times of kings has past, and most of us will never have real power over anything, we often look to religion to do for us, what we are unable to do.  For those who have wronged us, we throw “the judgement” at them.  For we reason, no man will ever escape the judgement of God.  And obviously behind the judgement comes the fires of hell for the punishment our wrongdoers have so richly earned.  You hurt me, you will get yours, in the judgment of God, and ultimately in the fires of hell.  And in this kind of “revenge religion” thinking, we alienate those who might otherwise be open to the ideas of a loving God, who could forgive them their mistakes, and transform them into a person He intended them to be.  But that is not the God we present.  We seem to want a wrathful, angry God, ready to punish those who hurt us – even if “we” only want the forgiving side of God for ourselves.

But what happens to a person, when they are given unchecked power?  They tend to use it, badly.  Those guards at Nazi prison camps were just normal guys before the war.  No different than you or me, but sell them a lie, give them power, and all of the sudden a normal guy becomes a monster.  And it was not just during WW2 that Japanese, or German, or even Allied guards might have become monsters obsessed with vengeance or “justice”.  It happens even now.  When power goes unchecked, normal people start doing things normal people should not do.  And I imagine it happens slowly, not all at once.  I don’t imagine you jump from nothing to full-blown torture, but the journey there seems inevitable.  It happens across cultures, ideologies, and governments.  But the end results are usually the same, when no one supervises the power or keeps it in check, our violent tendencies seem to creep out.  But of course most of us would never see ourselves in this light, and by the same token most of us have never been in any position like this.  And perhaps it is another gift of God, to keep that kind of unchecked power away from us, so we never experience anything like that.

Take as a case in point, the job of Temple guard, back in old Jerusalem.  It was your job to keep order in the holiest place in the nation.  The literal or actual mercy seat atop the Ark of the Covenant lived in the place where you work.  This means the literal presence of God could be felt near you.  This was no ordinary prison guard gig, this was nothing like that.  Your job was to preserve order in the Temple, keep out the drunkards, make sure no fights found there way in here, secure the top brass of the Sanhedrin or Temple priests to keep them safe.  And when directed by the High Priest, you might be sent on various missions across the region to preserve the favor of God.  But to do this job, you very likely believed in the God who was supposed to be at the top of the command food chain you were subscribed to.  With God so close, and so baked in to your reason for being, you would think, the average Temple guard would have been upright, just, and a good mix of justice and gentleness.  They might strike us as sort of a religious policemen who was there to insure your safety at any given religious function or gathering.  And being largely of Jewish decent in the guards, you might have even thought the Temple guards were a light defense against Rome itself.

You would hope that these Temple guards were different, surely they were supposed to be, based on working so near God, and ideally for God.  But what happens when good men like this wind up working for power obsessed priests who use religion to control the people instead of uplift them?  What happens when the ministry is corrupted into a financial enterprise where profit is the ultimate goal?  Missions are less about order and more about control or worse enforcement or collections.  And over time the God who is so nearby is forgotten for the sake of the corrupt bosses who run the day-to-day.  And now tonight you will be part of the crew assigned to pick up some renegade Rabbi known as Jesus of Nazareth.  Your bosses think Him a total heretic.  He is a troublemaker with a large following and a reputation for miracles too tough to fake.  Your bosses want this Jesus contained; you know at least that much.  So how might you treat this assignment?  Most of us (with the benefit of hindsight) would probably quit before we took that job on for ourselves.  Better to be unemployed than to be caught up in this tragedy.

But that is not what happened that night, there were more than enough guards to get the job done.  They caught Him.  Jesus was now in custody.  The priests were setting up His trial, so the prisoner was left in the custody of Temple guards.  We know how the Romans would ultimately treat Jesus, keep in mind they had zero reverence for the Jewish religions, rules, or God.  But how would the Temple guards treat Jesus, guards who did believe in God the Father, the Messiah, and all the rules of mercy our God’s law of love demands of us?  Luke gives us a chilling account in the 22^nd chapter of his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  He picks up at the end of this chapter in verse 63 saying … “And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him.”  The torture begins.  This was a prisoner in your charge and what do you do?  You smack Him around.  Why?  Is it because Jesus is resisting arrest or confinement?  Does Jesus swear at you using fowl language insulting your mother and belittling your manhood?  No Jesus is not a problem prisoner.  He is meek.  Gentle as a lamb.  Jesus does nothing to make your job harder, He is instead the model prisoner every guard should hope for.  Jesus is not a hardened criminal, in fact He knows nothing of being a criminal.  And how do you respond to the Lamb of God who takes no revenge, and makes no resistance, you smack the crap out of him, right in His face.  Why?  Because you can.  Because it’s fun.

And this is what unchecked power has done to your heart.  It has made you into a monster who derives pleasure from smacking the crap out of a restrained Rabbi because His eyes keep showing you mercy and love.  You hate that.  You want it to stop.  Jesus is supposed to be a radical Rabbi troublemaker, not a meek and mild Lamb.  Perhaps if you smack Him, He will get mad and show He is human, perhaps Jesus will show His true colors if you hit him enough, if you make Him bleed.  Once Jesus sees His own blood He will finally get mad and lash out (but no worries He is restrained, so none of this should be dangerous to you).  So you take it up a notch.  Luke continues in verse 64 saying … “And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? [verse 65] And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.”  So we move up from torture to blasphemy against God.  They challenge His abilities as a prophet.  They ridicule Him as thinking He might be the Messiah, let alone the Son of Man, or Son of God.  Are we any different?

Oh sure none of us could imagine ourselves being in any Temple guard shoes.  But then we turn around and sin against God in our day to day lives pretending as if God does not see us, or does not know it was me who did it.  Then we blaspheme, asking questions and making statements like … well, God made me this way.  He could have stopped me if He wanted to.  So since He did not stop me, whatever I did was His fault.  His fault for making this way.  His fault for not stopping me.  If you think about it, its God fault this whole world of sin exists anyway.  He allowed the tree of good and evil in Garden, and He did not do enough to restrict it from us.  Should have stopped snakes from talking, or Eve from eating, or Eve from leaving the side of Adam in the first place.  So we lay the fault of sin at the feet of God and blaspheme against God in the process.  And it is a modern Temple guard we have become.

And if you think things have changed today, how well do we treat prisoners today?  Do you think prisons are comfortable places?  Do you think medical care there is what it should be?  Sure, people who have committed crimes may have forfeited creature comforts as part of the punishment of their crimes while in prison.  But do we ever offer them a chance at redemption even after they are out of prison.  The words “convicted felon” hang around a person’s neck as a permanent branded wound from which they will never fully recover.  Forget voting so representation is mostly out.  Forget working anywhere decent for no “decent” place wants a convicted felon working there or living nearby.  We still treat those who have made mistakes, those we have power over, not very well.  And we reason, we are not treating Jesus this way, we are treating a criminal this way.  But Jesus says, as you did it unto the least of these, you did it unto me, and who might be more the least of these, the least deserving than a prisoner, current or former.

I submit it is a mercy of God that humanity is not meant for wielding power.  Only God is qualified to do that, as the life of Jesus testifies power was only ever meant for the benefit of others, not for the punishment of them, even when they deserved it.  Jesus did not come to this earth looking for justice, He came here looking to show us what mercy looks like.  Perhaps yet another reason to follow God, is to let go any ideas of power, or the need for power, or the desire for it.  Perhaps in following God, and leaving the power with God, we are free not to have to be worried by it, or burdened by it, or with the guilt of having used power badly.  To be free, truly free, we can just follow Jesus and leave all the leading up to Him.  I pray for all the correctional officers in our world, that they fall not into temptation, and can instead reflect the love of Jesus even to the hardest criminal.  And I pray for me and my family, that we fall not into temptation, and can also reflect the love of Jesus to those we come in contact with, from the greatest, but especially to the least of any.  For in faces like that, I begin to see the face of Jesus Christ.

 

Riddles We Don't Understand ...

How do we process feelings we do not understand?  Or worse feelings we do not enjoy?  Sometimes the greatest riddle we face is not what intellectually stumps us, but what emotionally does.  For example, let’s say your son or daughter steals a sandwich you prepared for lunch one day without asking.  They have wronged you.  But they are family.  The wrong hardly registers for you, and the love you hold for them quickly drowns out, the minor crime of stealing a day’s lunch you probably could care less about.  So forgiveness is instant.  The incident forgotten.  Probably laughed about in a funny story in years to come if it is even remembered at all.  Our kids do plenty of things we are not too crazy about, and there are far more important things than a missing lunch to occupy the worry part of our brains.  But an incident like that one will hardly register.  So it is hard for you to feel too bad, or conflicted about it.  In a case like that a simple quick apology removes any possible worry and life goes on.  I would call that getting over it.  I would call that an example of true forgiveness.

But now alter the situation just a little bit.  Replace your son or daughter with a co-worker at your place of employment.  And instead of this being a one time near accidental event, make it one that happens without any acknowledgement and from time to time.  In effect, there is an office thief.  Not someone who would have the courage to ask you for food or for help, but someone who instead takes whatever they want, no matter how clearly it is labeled, and makes no apology seeking first above all to never be caught.  Now instead of family, you face someone who is nowhere near as close to you.  Now instead of one lunch you may have been victim to losing several.  Now instead of someone who has accidentally wronged you, you have someone who knows they did, and has not cared, that is, until they are caught doing it.  Is your forgiveness still as instant?  Is it still as complete?  Is this still a funny story you tell in the future to come, or has it lost all ability to be humorous as the one who hurts you cares very little that they did hurt you and likely only wants to avoid any painful consequences.  As Christians we are bound to still offer forgiveness.  But as humans how we feel about this slightly altered scenario might be quite a bit different.  At the end of the day we may still get over it, get past it.  But there is a certain part of us that would not mind seeing a little “justice” doled out with the forgiveness we offer.  A little just retribution, not severe mind you, as this was not a severe crime, but at least some form of cosmic karma, to the perpetrator who seems to care less about what they did.

Aren’t Christians supposed to be free from the need to pursue justice when forgiveness is our calling card.  Especially in light of the forgiveness we are shown by God when we sin in much the same manner.  Then let us examine the most severe case of something like this.  What happens when again the perpetrator is not family, but the crime is one that cannot be undone, and robs you of something you can never have again.  Perhaps they have taken the life of someone you love, or the fidelity of someone who vowed never to lose that to another.  Lives lost cannot be replaced.  Vows broken will always be broken.  And how the perpetrator feels about committing these crimes may be as sorry as the child who once stole your sandwich, or as callous as the office thief who tries to do it regularly.  Again as Christians we are bound to offer forgiveness.  But as humans, our pain drives us to want justice all the more.  So we rationalize our forgiveness in a case like this.  We can “forgive” but not “forget”.  We can try to move on, but with a hole in our hearts that can never be undone.  New lives albeit damaged lives.

And comes the riddle of emotional quandaries our hearts are unable to solve.  I have wronged a great many people over the course of my life.  And to an incident, and a person, I regret each one.  I carry a burden inside myself that no one else can see, of a sorrow for causing the pain I know I have caused.  If I could undo any one of these actions, or all of them, I would choose to undo them.  But that repentance comes only from Jesus who teaches me to not only want repentance, but to feel it, to understand that my evil causes pain like ripples in a quiet pond where a large stone is dropped.  At the time I may have chosen to be blind to my crimes, but in retrospect I feel them all keenly.  And there have been a great many people who have wronged me over my life.  But again in retrospect none of what they did to me matters, or is remembered as important, save two.  Two brothers who took from me, and more importantly from ones I deeply love, that which cannot be replaced or undone.  They have always remained incalcitrant.  And despite best efforts, my forgiveness has always been nested in feelings of a desire for retribution, sometimes as bad as an ultimate retribution.  And it would seem my Christianity stumbles in this regard.

I know I am supposed to get past it, like every other wrong or slight I cannot so much as remember or even think about in detail anymore.  But this pain is not isolated to me.  It infects those I love and I am victim of it, but also made to watch the suffering it causes in my closest circle.  Ripples of someone else’s stone thrown carelessly and by intent into the quiet pool of my life.  And so I have vacillated between trying hard to offer a real forgiveness, and trying harder not to take an ill-conceived vengeance of my own.  As if any amends I could force might make any difference at all; short making it all worse.  But God says vengeance belongs to Him.  I am content with that.  But must take my heart to Him, to lose the desire to see Him find vengeance on those who have caused so much pain in my world.  And in all of this I find it is not the intellectual mysteries or riddles of the world that confound me and plague me.  It is and has always been the emotional ones.  Then to see something I do not know how to even describe.

This week I learned that both brothers who I have contended in my heart with for so long have fallen to covid 19.  One is dead, after suffering for a very long time.  The other is in critical condition, also have suffered for a very long time, and his prognosis is the same as his brother.  And what is my first thought?  I should not speak it.  I should not think it.  The one is gone, my next hurtle is to not only forgive, but to learn to become neighbors in the kingdom of heaven no matter our past.  But that he is gone, I find myself not regretting.  And I know it is wrong.  The other is still not lost to the power of prayer.  But do I have the courage to offer a prayer for his recovery?  His crimes against my family are not the kind of crimes that limit themselves to only a singular victim, they tend to spread like cancer in the darkness across a wide number of families like mine.  If we pray him back, do we open pandora’s box of pain on other families for the remainder of his life on this world?  I have spent so long trying to forgive.  But now God offers me the chance to not only forgive, but to put aside my judgment, my fears, and be the Christian I am meant to be.  To trust God with his redemption, even if I am never made privy to it.

A riddle of my heart I cannot solve, or even understand.  But as always, my wife helps me through this quagmire and offers her own example of what to pray; not just for his physical recovery, but for his redemptive one, no matter his incalcitrance to this point in time.  And I find myself following her lead.  And I find myself entrusting my heart and my feelings to Jesus, asking not to solve the riddle of how I think or feel, or should feel.  Only that Jesus might alter my heart into the heart He wishes to make within me.  An altered heart, will find a better way to love, a more Christlike way to forgive, and a supreme interest in the redemption of those who wronged me, not in their torture, or death.  I should long for their company in heaven, not consign them to the fate I deserve in this life or the next.  And only Jesus can solve that riddle of how I feel, or think, or how I should feel.

It is when we think we know it all that God reminds us, we do not.  It is when we think we have perfect control of our feelings, that God reminds us our feelings should never be relied upon for anything.  For our minds are as dirty as our hearts and consequently our souls are.  And there is only One Jesus who offers to clean both mind and heart, and renew the soul within us.  So should I ever come to believe that I know it all, even in the confines of a single doctrine of my faith, I will have fallen into error.  For only Jesus knows it all.  Only Jesus truly understands all Truth.  I catch only mere glimpses of that Truth from time to time when I am not forcing my eyes shut, pretending all riddles are subject to my failing intellect that never knew it all in the first place.  Perhaps there are some riddles I am not meant to understand, because I meant to rely on Jesus and nothing about me to get past them.

Luke records Jesus offering a riddle to the proud members of the Sanhedrin trying to trap Jesus in a trick question.  Jesus simply uses their own traditions and incorrect beliefs to create a riddle none of them would be able to solve.  At least, not without discarding the error of their beliefs, and coming to see Jesus for what He truly is, their Messiah and ours.  Luke picks up this snippet at the end of the 20^th chapter of his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  It begins in verse 41 saying … “And he said unto them, How say they that Christ is David's son? [verse 42] And David himself saith in the book of Psalms, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, [verse 43] Till I make thine enemies thy footstool. [verse 44] David therefore calleth him Lord, how is he then his son?”  It was Jewish tradition that fathers would earn more respectable titles than sons.  And it was well known that the Messiah would be of the bloodline of David.  So the quandary Jesus proposes is that Christ was alive before David, and yet alive in the bloodline of David at the same time.  The Christ then, was the Son of God, not just a mortal Messiah, or mortal prophet as the people liked to see Him.  For He existed both before David and after him.

The leaders had no way to reconcile this without admitting that their understanding was not as complete as they thought.  And by the way, that Jesus may well be both the Messiah and the Son of God.  But it was not just the minds of these leaders that were in error.  Their hearts were as well.  Jesus continues with a warning about where their think had led them.  Luke picks back up in verse 45 saying … “Then in the audience of all the people he said unto his disciples, [verse 46] Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts; [verse 47] Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.”  A pride in thinking they knew everything there was to know about scripture, had not increased their love for others.  It had nearly extinguished it.  Along with the conscience a true believer should have been haunted by if nothing else.  For these leaders had come to devour the homes of widow.  To take these homes, cast the widow out on to the street, and think nothing of her fate, or her condition.  If she died, she died.  That was nothing to them.

And I find my first responses may be no better than they.  I hear of the news of a brother who wronged me dying of covid and my ugly first unfiltered thought was “good”.  In that instant it was me who did not think of the widow he leaves behind, or the children who have just lost a father.  I only think of the threat he once posed to me, the pain he caused that cannot be undone, and that now somehow “justice” has finally been served.  And in that instant I am as wrong as the scribes in the days of Christ.  I repent of my first thought.  And I offer sincere prayers for the family.  I am ashamed of my reaction, and must now add it to the list of burdens I carry.  And while I know Jesus has forgiven me my entire list, I also know the pain I have caused can no more be undone than the pain this poor soul caused me.  This is not the vengeance of God.  Covid is not His instrument of judgment upon the wicked.  It is only a pestilence that both righteous and wicked suffer from alike.  The one difference, those who seek Jesus find Him.  Those who refuse to seek Jesus, do not.

If there is to be a vengeance of God it must come at the end of all things on those who refused to forsake evil for the re-creation Jesus would have made of them.  But while there is life there is hope.  And I must trust my own salvation to Jesus to complete, as the events of this week have taught me, it is not complete as yet.  The leaders of the Sanhedrin could not solve the riddle Jesus posed because they clung to errant thoughts they were unwilling to let go of.  Are we any better?  Do you find yourself stumped by the riddles of scripture, or a set of feeling you know in your heart you should not have?  There is only one solution to either situation.  Seek Jesus, allow Him to change how you think, how you love, perhaps even who you love.  And your mind and heart will become one with His, focused above all else on the redemption of the lost, not the punishing of them.  Think about it.  Even the warning Jesus made above was not offered as a final condemnation, but instead as a warning, of what happens when we refuse to yield and refuse to see.

Some riddles I am content to not know the answers to.  For example, how on earth will Jesus ever save someone in such need as me?  But I am also content to trust that despite my inability to figure out how Jesus will ever save me, Jesus will save me, because He knows how, and I intend to let Him.  Perhaps the riddles of your life are just as easily solved as that.  Give Jesus a try and see.

 

When Truth Confronts Pride ...

Pick any heavyweight boxer you can think of, and for a time at least, they think of themselves as the “greatest” fighter that ever lived.  They talk about this stature in the press nearly as often as they are handed a microphone.  And this boast may even seem true, at least for a while.  But inevitably, time demonstrates that “for a while” is as good as that boast will ever be.  At some point, a challenger comes along that wins the title fight, and notches a loss in that once proud fighter’s column.  Then begins a desperate scramble for a rematch or three, to regain what was lost.  Even if it is regained, time presents as an unstoppable enemy, and with it more challengers that one after another take that title away, and prove the once invulnerable fighter is no longer the greatest.  Mike Tyson might fall into this category.  At his prime he was nearly unstoppable.  He hit so hard, fights rarely made it out of the first round, or first few hits to his opponent.  But over time, came Evander Holyfield, and the realization that he might actually lose that fight.  So Mike resorts to biting an ear and ending the fight through disqualification before he loses it through skill he cannot defeat.  Truth confronts pride, and pride refuses to submit.

But this phenomenon is not just restricted to sports, or boxing.  It infects the church.  It comes in a different package but with all the same fundamentals elements in place.  In the time of Christ, doctrines were determined by Pharisees.  Doctrines were thought to be unalterable, and common truth.  So Jesus should have just accepted them as they were.  If Jesus had done that, He would have tacitly accepted the authority of the Pharisees over His own church, and made them happy, happy enough to leave Jesus alone, perhaps even hail Him as their Messiah as well.  But to challenge those doctrines, would not just challenge the teachings, but challenge the pride behind them.  Now, inside the one true church itself, before the crucifixion, would come the confrontation between the Truth, and what men believed, and the pride they took in those beliefs.  Pride that would refuse to yield.  Pride that would rather kill our God, than yield.  And we look backwards and scold the Pharisees for what they did, but refuse to look in our mirrors to see if that same behavior still exists within us today.

Consider for a moment what happens when the Truth of scripture confronts the reality of where and when and how we live.  Conservative Christians decry the acceptance of homosexuality into the church, while at the same time never figuring out an effective ministry to those who suffer from that particular condition.  There is plenty of rejection in conservative Christian circles based on Biblical teachings that are quite clear.  But there is zero ministry to these people who need our love every bit as much as those who suffer from other variants of sexual expression that are equaling as disturbing to our God.  Adultery is every bit as big a problem as homosexuality will ever be.  And adultery happens quietly, not talked about, not admitted to, and completely infects that same conservative Christian community that is so quick to condemn people whose propensities they do not share.  Easy to condemn the gay person for being gay, when I have no desire to ever be gay.  But hard to condemn my own lusts, that drive me to forever look away from marital bonds I should be bound to.  Men who will not forsake the pursuit of variety.  Women who will not forsake the pursuit of satisfaction or love from a source that is not their own husband, having given up hope they will ever find it there.  And this more quiet problem, is a much more prevalent problem, that it seems nearly none of us are willing to confront, or sadly forsake.

The cure for both of these sins remains Jesus.  And both sins are a disease of the mind and heart.  Both are sins whether we would prefer to hear that designation or not.  The answer is not to “accept” them as part of who we are.  The answer is to submit ourselves fully to Jesus, and let Him do with our sex life whatever and however He sees fit.  And to love each other without condemnation of each other in the meantime while Jesus does the work within us, only Jesus could ever do.  If I arrive at the Pearly gates and my sin was never fully removed from me during my lifetime, it will be removed before I enter those gates, by the grace and love of Jesus Christ.  Many a believer has gone down to the grave, still struggling against some sin they never found the victory against.  Forgiveness was ever their watchword even if reform was the one they always desired, but did not find enough submission to Jesus, to ever experience.  But transformation will happen.  Faith guarantees it.  Whether in this life where relief comes early to the burdened soul, or at the start of the next one, when it comes in the twinkling of an eye – transformation will come.  And Jesus will make us then, what He always desired for us to be.  The truth however, does not change, and confronts our pride in the here and now.  Do we try to accept ourselves giving us license to sin, or ever look to Jesus and have faith He can remove our sins from us, and change who we are, and what we want.

Will we be like the Pharisees of old, and cling to our pride, even to the point of denying the Truth, and rather seeking to kill God Himself over it?  Or will be react another way.  Consider what Luke tells us of an incident regarding the confrontation of pride with the Truth in the person of Jesus Christ.  This story begins not long after the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on a colt that was never ridden by any other man.  The anthems of praise echoed through the city and refused to go away, even days after Jesus had entered.  Jesus had cleansed the Temple, and thrown out the cheaters, breaking entirely the worship based economy that emerged within it.  And now, Jesus was teaching in the Temple day after day.  But Jesus did not teach in the manner of previous priests or current Pharisees.  Jesus taught with power and authority.  Jesus did not explain a passage from scripture and talk about what it might have meant, or all the possible meanings it might have contained.  Jesus simple zoned in on the truth of what it said, and what it meant, and what God the Father intended us to learn from every given passage of scripture.  Scriptures were never thrown out by Jesus, but instead explained through the lens of Jesus, and finally rightly interpreted.  This was teaching with authority, authority like none other in history.  It was clear.  It was decisive.  It was direct.  It was Truth as it proceeded from the mouth of the Truth.  … and the Pharisees hated it.

Eventually they reached a breaking point and could keep silent no longer.  Luke picks up with this in the twentieth chapter of his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  In verse 1 it says … “And it came to pass, that on one of those days, as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders, [verse 2] And spake unto him, saying, Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority?”  The Pharisees demanded to know, who gave Jesus the authority to teach what and how He did.  They knew it was not the Sanhedrin.  They were the Sanhedrin.  They knew Rome would never insert itself into these kinds of inherently Jewish teachings.  So that left only one choice.  Jesus must declare the His Father God granted Him this authority.  Or better yet for the Pharisees, Jesus might even declare that He gave Himself this authority, for that would be an admission that He thought of Himself as God.  Either declaration of God granting Jesus this authority, might be enough to convince the people that Jesus was a blasphemer.  Saying you are God when you are not is indeed blasphemy.  But the Pharisees knew Jesus was in fact God.  So if Jesus had declared Himself as such, it would have been true.  The Pharisees must then convince the people that truth spoken by Jesus was a lie, and they should stone Jesus for having the nerve to speak it.

This was no simple question of curiosity launched by the Pharisees.  It was a calculated attack designed to trap Jesus into giving them an excuse to discredit Him with the people, and an occasion to stone Him for so doing.  Think of the depth of hatred pride had inspired in these men, to pervert truth in order to commit murder, of God Himself and they knew it.  Notice too, they did not attack the Truth of the messages Jesus had been teaching.  They engaged in no debate with Him about what He had been saying.  For there was no debate.  What Jesus said was pure truth, and they recognized it, and had no debate they could launch.  So instead of debating scripture with Jesus, which they knew they would lose, they challenged His authority to be able to teach at all.  This was after all, “their” Temple.  From their point of view, Jesus did not own this place, it belonged to the people was managed by them, not Jesus.  So Jesus should not have been teaching at all without their blessing.  A blessing they would never give.  So here was a trap disguised as a question to challenge His authority.

Jesus however, saw right through the subterfuge into the hearts of each of them present offering this challenge.  Jesus knew immediately what they were doing, and why.  He saw the hate barely able to contain itself.  He saw the thirst for blood, that pride confronted by truth, was ready to shed.  And are we any different than those Pharisees?  When scripture tells us clearly not to cheat, not to betray, and we do it anyway – don’t we tend to just ignore scripture entirely?  We kind of have to, in order to keep doing what we are doing.  We get mad at anyone who would dare confront us with what scripture might say to us.  We attack them, attack their character, point out their sins, and less than perfect lives.  Who are they to tell us anything?  But the truth in scripture does not change because its messenger is less than perfect.  Yet we war against truth, in order for us to remain in sin, and refuse to call sin by its right name.  For if it is not sin, then we do not need forgiveness, and do not need to change.  Our pride can remain in tact if we do not need to be saved from ourselves.  But that is not the truth of it.  We do need to be saved.  Saved from who we are in the core of us.

Jesus responds in verse 3 saying … “And he answered and said unto them, I will also ask you one thing; and answer me: [verse 4] The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?”  How would you answer?  I put this same challenge to your pride to you in a different way.  The Bible; is it of God or of men?  If you answer it is of God, then why do you not believe it, or do what it says.  If you answer it is of men, then what hope is left to you at all?  This was the same dilemma the Pharisees faced.  But they, like you, already knew the truth of the answer to this question.  John’s baptism, and the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, is of God, or of heaven.  We were created, we did not evolve.  Jesus is revealed in prophecy of things yet to be.  We can learn from those revelations or choose to ignore them at our peril.  John’s baptism was as relevant then as it is now.  We need a baptism of repentance.  Notice we do not need a baptism to profess our faith in Jesus, we need a baptism of repentance of who we are, of what we have made of ourselves by our own choices to embrace sin.  We need to be washed clean by ceremonial waters, with our eyes fixed on Jesus who washes us clean before the Father.  This we need.  But so few churches offer it this way.  Instead baptism is made a ceremonial right of joining a particular denomination of Jesus, and done only once.  I dare say our need for repentance exceeds a one-time event.  I imagine even in the days of John, the same believer might have showed up at the river Jordan more than once.

The Pharisees now began to see their own dilemma.  Luke continues in verse 5 saying … “And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then believed ye him not? [verse 6] But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet.”  Keep in mind, the Pharisees knew the truth, but pride would not allow them to acknowledge it.  For John had called them out on their misdeeds and hypocrisy.  And instead of seeking repentance when those warning were offered, they rebelled further still.  No Pharisee had taken that baptism (at least not in public).  Instead they thought themselves in no need of it.  Are we any different?  Do we cast a purposely blind eye to our own sins, focusing only on the sins of others.  We think ourselves as “good people”, particular good if you compare us to those people, and that guy over there.  So if we are good, we do not really need to repent at all, let alone have a baptism to acknowledge publicly we needed repentance.  Pride would have us refuse any opportunity to be saved, for pride would tell us we do not need saving, especially from who we have become.

Luke continues in verse 7 saying … “And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was. [verse 8] And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.”  Mexican standoff.  The Pharisees will not admit they know the truth, or need repentance, or need to be saved.  And Jesus will not stumble into the trap they have for Him.  But Jesus never strayed from the truth, or changed what He taught, or how, for Jesus is the Truth.  The Pharisees however, allowed pride to keep them from the Truth at all costs.  And determined themselves even more to kill this Truth as soon as they could find a way.  Are we any different?  Are we willing to be broken upon the Rock of Jesus Christ, having our pride shattered completely so that only humility, even public humility, is all that remains?  It is not easy picking up from the aftermath of having embraced sin of any kind.  What you thought was private, turns out to be not so private after all.  You hurt others.  Your betrayal shatters the hearts and minds of others, most chiefly of those you love the most, or say you do.  And even when forgiven you bear the burden of what you have done, for the pain does not quickly go out of their hearts and minds and lives. It will scar you.  Perhaps it should scar you.  But you cannot be rebuilt upon a foundation of lies.  You cannot find your way past the pain while you seek no repentance.  You cannot be forgiven while you do not seek it.

Sin is devastating.  But to allow pride to tell you, you do not sin, is even worse.  To allow pride to minimize what you do or how or why you do it, is no better.  The pain you cause will be amplified instead of released.  Jesus was and remains the Truth we all need, we all require.  It is Jesus alone who can rebuild our shattered lives.  It is our pride that would lead us to destroy ourselves, and all those we claim to love.  But to be confronted by the Truth of Jesus and seek repentance is the first step in a long journey back to living a whole life Jesus intends for you.  It is only in your humility that you begin to understand just how large forgiveness really is, and how expensive it was to purchase and give to you.  It is when we acknowledge who we are, that we begin to see, why we need to be remade from that old person into the creation Jesus would have us to be.  And while we may ever see the pain of what we have done reflected in the eyes or life of another, we can set our minds and hearts firm, to make amends.  To serve our victims for the rest of our lives, and show them what the love of Jesus can do to heal, and make well again.  Lives need not remain shattered by Truth, but cannot be rebuilt until they are.  Then we begin to move from mere repentance, to real reform, and this is how perfection begins in you.

 

Growing Young Again ...

 

For us, time only moves one direction, forward.  Once the past is past, it cannot be undone or altered.  This is how we know life to be, usually to our great regret.  And as time moves on, we age, always growing only older.  2yr-olds turn into 4yr-olds, 20 becomes 30, 50 becomes 60, and before you know it, you are facing your own mortality up close and personal.  Mind you the distance between 2-years-old and 60 is what we describe as a lifetime.  But in truth, it is not.  All of our years here are but a drop in the bucket, perhaps not even as much as a drop more like a molecule, and perhaps instead of a bucket, an entire ocean.  There comes a life to those who believe that becomes nearly impossible to measure in years, for too many years pass by.  The idea of eternity is hard for the human mind to grasp.  We are too bound in the present, where our life expectancy is set before we are born, where reaching the age of 90 in relatively good health is considered an achievement.  To reach a 100 is so rare it is worthy of press attention, beyond that is hardly something people will even believe.  And in the context of eternity, 100 years old is barely a half a second, or a single blink of an eye.  When time has no end, time becomes less meaningful.  But perhaps the most striking element of eternity for believers is how it begins, not with the dissolution of time itself, but with a change in direction of how we grow.

No, this is not the story of Benjamin Button.  In fact this is not fantasy of any kind.  It is truism.  It is realism.  It descends from the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself.  And as a believer you will come to know the truth of it in your own life.  To actually grow backwards.  Let me give you a small taste.  When you were a toddler, chances are you trusted your parents to completely take care of everything you needed.  As a toddler you had NO idea how they did that.  For that matter, as a toddler you never even gave those thoughts a moment of time in your toddler brain.  They just were.  Or rather, life just was.  It did not need definition.  And your thoughts might then have been pre-occupied only with the basics – am I hungry, or tired, or in need of affection, or play.  And no matter which of these needs or any other your mind might stumble across, your parents were the ones to meet that need.  Sometimes they were good enough to anticipate them.  To feed you before you even knew you were hungry.  To hold you because they needed it, even if you were already comfortable that you were loved.  Parents did for you, because you were loved by them.

Now extend the example to how God interacts with you today.  If you let Him, God will be that parent for you in every single aspect of your life.  When you are hungry, God knows it.  And He promises to meet the needs of today as they arise.  He does not promise to stock your pantry forevermore, but does promise to provide the bread you need as you need it each day.  Sometimes it is hard to wrap your adult brain around even one simple gesture of trust.  But if you can allow it.  You will witness the actions of a loving parent where your life is concerned.  And engaging in this kind of trust–fulfillment–trust cycle only builds trust in you in who God is, and how God is, with you personally.  You begin to see His parental instincts are worlds ahead of your own, or of your own parents.  And the worry of this life abates, and you are made free to think on other things.  The stress of survival begins to recede, and what emerges is the freedom to play more, enjoy more, and spend more time with Dad.  You find Dad was just longing to do that with you all along, and He will make the time, to do it.  In fact, He has already set aside one day in seven, just to mark out some special play time with you.

Having the freedom NOT to worry, is an anti-adult thing.  It is a child-like thing.  And it is only the beginning of your journey.  Luke wrote about it in the 18^th chapter of his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  He picks up with the incident that outlines the roadmap to this in verse 15 saying … “And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.”  This is typical adult behavior.  The Jewish people believed strongly in blessings.  And to be blessed you needed to make physical contact with the person blessing you.  It took the laying on of hands to be precise.  No remote blessings.  No dialing it in.  The person doing the blessing would typically put his hands on your head, and then the prayers and blessings would begin to flow.  Extra special blessings might involve pouring olive oil on your head while the blessing was uttered.  But these parents just wanted a quick blessing from the Rabbi, or rather the Prophet, or rather the possible Messiah, or perhaps the miracle worker they had all witnessed him perform.  It was a good idea.

But the disciples had begun to think of themselves as more serious people, as a quasi-guardian of access to Jesus.  Imagine that, the first most prominent followers of Jesus, soon took their own access to Jesus as a sign they should limit the access of others, instead of trying to bring others to Christ.  Sound familiar?  Does that plague continue to persist today?  Where someone close to Jesus begins to move away from welcoming all to the foot of the cross, to trying to pre-sort the ones that are able to come at all.  And think about it, we adults are serious people.  We already know stuff.  We are capable of hearing, learning, and decided what stuff means.  We have no time for crying babies, or cute toddlers.  They can’t figure all this adult stuff out.  They are incapable.  So why should we waste our time with them.  Only the serious need apply.  Only the capable need even try.  Little ones are neither of those.  Little ones are obsessed with only one thing – they like to play.  There is NO time for playing in church.  There is NO time to try to distract Jesus with cute stuff.  Keep the cute stuff at home, appreciate it there, and don’t bother Jesus in church with any of these antics.  We have no time for that.

But Jesus had other ideas as Luke continues in verse 16 saying … “But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. [verse 17] Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.”  Hold up, wait a minute, Jesus is flipping time and growth on their heads.  Instead of serious, Jesus plans to make time for the little children.  Jesus is going to make time for cute, for play, for love, for affection.  Yes we all know Jesus is busy, there is an entire world to save, there are so many to heal, to feed, to preach to.  But put ALL of that on pause for a moment.  Something more important has come up.  A little child wants access to Jesus.  And Jesus is going to stop it all, make time, and fulfill that need.  Serious is out the window.  Reverent has been tossed out of the play-yard.  Jesus will enter instead.  But Jesus takes it a whole world farther than anyone – parent, or disciple – could have ever anticipated.  Jesus declares that the entire Kingdom of God (not just a part of it, but the whole of it) is made up of little babies and toddlers like these kids.  What does that mean?  Adult minds are scrambling now to figure that out.  Adult minds are racing to figure out a new doctrine that runs counter to every bit of wisdom they have been taught, and still they have no clue what it means.

It gets worse.  Jesus ups the ante.  Jesus further declares that all us adults are never getting in to the Kingdom until we learn to receive that gift and embrace it like one of these non-serious, heavy playing, heavy loving little toddlers does.  Not just bad enough that people in the Kingdom are like these kids, people cannot even get inside until they become like one of these kids.  Adult minds just begin to collapse at that declaration.  And shouldn’t they?  Give this thought a minute to sink in, in your own mind.  Jesus is asking for more than just baby-talk you might do with your spouse behind closed doors, or with your small children on the floor while you are playing with them.  He is not asking you to act young.  He is asking you to be young, to grow backwards, to lose adulthood in favor of the trust and love of a young toddler who never even thinks about “adult” things.  Toddlers have no time for that.  It would seem what there is time for is completely upside down when seen through the eyes of Jesus.

At this point, the self-appointed-guardians of access to Jesus, have backed up and gone nuts.  They have opened the floodgates of little ones jumping right into the welcoming arms of Jesus.  They don’t know why.  They heard Jesus describe the Kingdom as made up of these.  But the idea that they have to become like these to ever get in – is beyond them.  That is impossible.  That defies physics, and history, and everything we know about life.  It is upside down world.  So how could we possibly make that happen?  It would seem we are all doomed.  It would get worse, before it would get better.  To drive home the point about how this could ever happen, the story continues picking back up in verse 18 saying … “And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? [verse 19] And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. [verse 20] Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.”

Now this was someone the disciples could equate to, perhaps to aspire to.  A rich young ruler, an adult, who was obviously blessed by God, as witnessed by his wealth.  He comes to Jesus asking how he might be saved.  This answer should obviously clean up that whole be a kid thing.  First Jesus redirects the false flattery back to God who alone deserves it.  Then the first words of Jesus are not about being a kid, they are about keeping the law of Moses.  Finally!  These are words the entire Jewish nation will understand.  Keeping the law is engrained in the DNA.  You keep it, or you are lost.  Period.  No other requirements.  Being a kid, is for kids, this Law stuff is for serious people, for adults who are able to understand it.  The story continues in verse 21 saying … “And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. [verse 22] Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.”  You see, the serious adult has kept the law from when he was a child up.  Maybe that is what Jesus meant about being a kid, that even non-serious kids better keep the law or else.  But that was not to be.

The answer of Jesus was now even more disturbing and for many reasons.  He tells the rich young ruler, to go and sell everything he owns, for “treasure in heaven”.  Then He follows by inviting him to become the thirteenth male disciple.  Hey wait a minute, I thought only 12 were allowed.  They needed to be paired up for ministry, and 12 was like the number 12 of the tribes of Israel.  Isn’t there some numerical significance to that number, why are we about to open it up to 13 instead?  That makes no sense.  But Jesus is right there about to increase their number, so much for pairing up in evangelism.  Maybe Jesus will invite another one to make it 14.  But putting aside the whole number fiasco.  Jesus asks the rich young ruler to do something ONLY a trusting child could ever do.  To give it all away, and trust, and follow – and not know a single thing more than that.  No road map.  No plan.  No agenda.  Just throw all the cares of money to the wind to care for the poor (and in so doing perhaps help the poor to heaven, thereby increasing the only real treasure in heaven there would ever be), and go and be made free in the doing.

So the whole kid thing has not gone out the window with answer of Jesus.  It is worse.  Jesus is pointing out that keeping the Law given to Moses is only a start.  What is really important is giving your entire trust to Him, losing everything you own, and becoming a toddler disciple with no clue what will happen next.  Your need to know is shot.  You are not going to be told.  When it is time you will know, not before.  And keeping the Law, or having wealth, does not shield you from the need to trust, and to give it all away.  The story picks back up in verse 23 saying … “And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. [verse 24] And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! [verse 25] For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”  Oh no.  Jesus has just doomed all of their aspirations.  In addition, He just made it impossible for an entire class of people to ever see the inside of the Kingdom of God.  Good thing Nicodemus and Joseph were not here to hear this, it might have depressed them to death.  And every other member of the Sanhedrin.  All of them doomed.  If Peter ever became a successful fisherman, he too might be doomed.  Good thing he was only ever so-so at it.

But this response of Jesus to once again defy physics, and reverse everything we know about religion and life was perplexing more than just the disciples this time.  Luke picks back up in verse 26 saying … “And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? [verse 27] And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”  And there it is, the methodology of our salvation spelled out in terms both adult mind and child mind can easily understand.  We don’t do it.  We cannot do it.  We cannot reverse time or physics.  We are not supposed to.  We are supposed to trust that even though we are unable to save ourselves, that Jesus and God are able, and will do that very thing.  What is in fact, impossible for us, is possible for God.  Where our spiritual maturity has thus far been measured in how serious we adult-minds have become – is now to be turned on its head and go backwards – more trust, more play, more love – less stress, less worry, less trying to figure everything out.  We are to lose our need to know, and to just be.  Be free.  Play with Dad.  Enjoy His hugs.  Share His blessings.  Push His love to us outwards, and sideways, to everyone with no limitations – just like a group of toddlers will do. 

We don’t grow backwards into toddlers of His kingdom because we “act” like them, but because we become them.  We cannot act our way into heaven.  We cannot perform the duties required to get into heaven.  We must instead become different people, much younger people, with absolute trust, and a freedom we have yet to experience.  To leave everything up to God, is invigorating, renewing, and freeing beyond all measure.  We stop needing to know “how” God does it, we just need to know He does.  And life and history teach that too.  Our minds then, need not be so serious, but instead be trusting and loving.  Keeping His law then will come not because we will it, or think we do, but because He creates obedience in us, as a natural state of who we become.  And as pointed out here, that is only the beginning.  We will grow into a state of wild abandon with Jesus.  Willing to give up every single thing we own.  Trusting in Dad to meet every need, and watching Dad do exactly that and more.  We can grow backwards, and grow younger, not because it is possible for us, but because it is possible for God, and God does it for us, in us, and through us.  Sit back my toddler friends, time to let Dad take over, and enjoy the ride.