Trapping Jesus ...

If you accept that there is a lesser of two evils; you have already lost the war.  Throughout our lives, we are from time-to-time presented with a choice, where both outcomes are bad.  We are asked to pick the one that is the least bad, and then expected to make that choice.  To refuse to choose is often an outcome by itself that may be worse than actually doing anything.  It is called a no-win situation.  And so often it is presented, with us falling into the trap of trying to decide how to do the least damage with what we pick.  This trap is not new.  But it represents a lie told by Satan whose premise is quite insidious.  He tells us through these situations, that “you” must control your fate by making a choice where all the options are bad.  The reality is, that while every option “we” could pick is bad, “we” still have another choice … take it to God in prayer, sit back, and watch the power of God at work.  For while humans truly are limited in their choices, God is not, and what God can do can truly amaze.

None-the-less the Pharisees had been very angered by the 3 stories Jesus had told regarding the state of church leadership, and how they might still be redeemed.  The Pharisees believed they were already good enough and had no need of redemption, especially by this upstart with no formal acknowledgement by the system of religion they managed.  This message of light from the outside was not welcome in their tightly concocted inner sanctum.  So they responded by creating three traps of their own, one by each of the main groups or sects of their religion.  This would insure fairness among them, as well as diversity of thought, so that even if one line of thinking failed there would still be another to attempt to catch Jesus up in what He said.  But underlying all their attempts would be the common premise of presenting two choices where no matter what He picked, He could be embarrassed in front of the people.  Their problem was they reasoned as men, and forgot, or refused to admit, Jesus reasoned like our God does.

The first trap would come from the Pharisees who considered themselves preeminent among their peers.  These masters of the Tora would seek to catch Jesus up in a popularity dilemma.  The topic was taxes, just bringing up the very word “tax” to an Israelite at that time, was to kindle anger of the deepest variety.  They may have picked this particular topic, because Matthew, the author of this very gospel to his Hebrew contemporaries, was a former agent of Rome collecting taxes from his brethren.  Tax collectors had earned a reputation lower than harlots or sodomites in this day and age.  They were in effect traitors to their people, doing Rome’s work, and then profiting off of it besides.  If Caesar demanded a single penny from a farmer, the tax collector may very well take two, and keep one himself.  This made the process even more onerous, and the tax collector more hated, perhaps rightly so.  So the Pharisees figured there would be no way to discuss taxes with an honest Jesus and not embarrass Him immensely.

Matthew begins in chapter twenty-two picking up in verse 15 saying … “Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. [verse 16] And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. [verse 17] Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?”  Nothing was left to chance in setting this trap.  The Pharisees sent Herodians with their disciples to act as witnesses for the state, in the event that an otherwise honest Jesus decides to get hinky with an unpopular topic like this one.  The Pharisees feared Jesus may just bow to the will of the people on this, so they actually sent government spies to watch in case He did.  They also used a proxy, that is, they sent their disciples to execute the trap so no one could ever directly accuse them of any impropriety in trying to spring a trap like this one.  Perhaps they used disciples Jesus had never met, so He would not see any connection back to themselves.

Then to disguise the trap, the disciples use the highest form of false flattery upon Jesus, first calling Him Master.  Then proceeding to compliment Jesus again on how He ALWAYS teaches the truth.  If they really believed this, they would not be there trying to spring a trap on Him.  They would have joined His ranks and become true disciples of the Most High God.  But they did not believe this, so their words were lies as they crossed the lips of those who did not mean a word of it.  I wonder, do we do the same?  Do we compliment our God in our prayers, bragging about how good He is, and how He is good all the time; yet the minute adversity blows our way, we crumble and blame God for it.  Then our true beliefs emerge as we blame God for every horror that happens on earth, casting Him as an angry God, who is looking to punish us for our deeds, instead of redeem our hearts from them. 

Or worse, we cast Him as a God who just does not care enough to save us from the horror that has come our way.  Never once acknowledging what we do, or sin, or a devil bent on our misfortune as the cause of what we stumble into.  Cancer was not put here by God, it exists because evil exists.  No disease was ever intended to exist.  It is the very presence of evil in our world that permits diseases to become part of our knowledge of good and of evil.  We were intended to be ignorant of them.  But instead we chose to become familiar with them.  This is the knowledge our God thought it best we never understood let alone encountered.  Breaking trust with God resulted in all of this.  But this was not God’s idea, and His number one job is to redeem us from evil, and extinguish the effects of evil on a permanent basis.  Not as a punishment for those who embrace it, but as salvation for those who want no more to ever be a part of it.

Beyond the lies they believe about what Jesus’ preaching includes, the disciples also compliment Jesus on being no respecter of persons – essentially that Jesus would talk to Caesar the same way He talks to a beggar in the street.  This further false flattery is not something they believe, but they are taunting Him into staying true to this course in order for Him to answer the trap badly.  And so after meticulously laying the trap, they spring it – asking Jesus if it is lawful to pay taxes.  Notice they do not make reference to which law.  They could have been talking about the law of Moses, or of Herod, or of Rome, or of God.  They leave this reference unclear so they can combat Him no matter how He answers.  This was the best minds in the country, coming up with the best test, they could imagine.  All to trap Jesus in front of the people.

Matthew continues the story in verse 18 saying … “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?”  Yikes!  It is as if a bright light is turned on in a dirty kitchen late at night, and the cockroaches who were all to happy to feast in the darkness are now revealed by the brilliant light, their antennae darting back and forth as they scream to each other “we must hide, we must hide”.  They run for the corners looking to be rehidden by the darkness, but it will not come.  Jesus perceived their wickedness.  He knows in an instant who did this, who was responsible for this, and what they are trying to do.  He calls out their hypocrisy as He knows they do not believe a word they say to Him, about Him at least.  He knows it is false flattery.  And then in bone chilling words He once used with Satan himself, He asks these wicked men, why they are tempting Him.

And do our prayers that say one thing, and our lives that witness another, earn us a similar response?  When we treat sin like gold, and freedom from sin, like a pain we want to avoid – do we not behave the same way as our Pharisee forefathers?  We have countless requests of our God, for the millions of things we think we need.  But only routine prayers to say thank you for food, and even less so when our other requests are granted.  Our prayer life resembles a child on Santa’s lap at the mall.  Our hearts are revealed to the same God who walked among us, as He walked among these Pharisees.  They did not believe they needed to change; how many of us believe exactly the same thing.  We count ourselves “good” enough already, just like they did.

Jesus responds picking up in verse 19 saying … “Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. [verse 20] And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? [verse 21] They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.”  Hold the phone!!  There is not supposed to be any “good” option in this response.  There is not supposed to be a “good” answer.  This was a trap of bad vs worse, no good option allowed or anticipated.  And this is why you lose.  You, me, the Pharisees back then, all keep looking at situations with human eyes, limited by human thinking, and ideas about what is possible and not possible.  Instead, we could be turning over our “impossible” situations and decisions to God and watch what He can do, instead of trying to dictate to Him what we want Him to do.  Our prayers “telling” God what to do, are as worthless as our trying to take things into our own hands in the first place.  We are in effect, trying to lead God.  When we should be surrendering to God and following whatever He decides – expecting what He does, to not look like anything we would have thought of, and to be a million times better than anything we could have imagined.

The conclusion of this story occurs in verse 22 saying … “When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.”  This response is so strikingly sad.  They heard Him.  They were blown away that He had figured a way out of their trap.  And then they left Him and went their way.  Notice nowhere in that response was any sort of change on their part.  They did not become disciples after that.  They did not repent of their intentions.  They scurried back like the cockroach, to plan another attack in the darkness, for darkness is what they craved.  Make no mistake, when you walk away from the light, you are headed for no other destination than the darkness. 

People who treat Jesus as some kind of option, or some kind of alternative – believing that spirituality is all that counts, and doing good all that matters – walk away from His light, into the darkness of deceit.  Jesus offers you a real change in who you are, how you think, and how you love.  You cannot fix that.  You, on your own, may not even believe that needs fixing.  But it does.  It is the self-love that cripples you, and damages others.  And because self is at the center of it, you are powerless to fix it.  But Jesus is a master at re-creating you from who you are now, into what He knows you are capable of being.  He is not looking to leave you in your misery, making excuses for your pain.  He is looking to lift you out of your misery, freeing you from your pain forever.  That is the kind of change we can all embrace.  The free kind.  The kind that comes from submission, instead of control.  Walk away from your own ideas about bad and good, possible and impossible, and turn it over to Jesus, who can do things, and show you things, and make you into something you could never have imagined.  And the word regret will have meaning to you no more.

But the traps for Jesus were not to be ended just yet …

 

Bad Crap for Christians ...

Why do bad things happen to good people?  So that premise is off right from the start.  There are no “good” people, there are just people.  But surely there is a difference between an old fart who has lived a long life and done many misdeeds; and some innocent child who has yet to explore their potential for good or for evil.  Surely the innocent child deserves better outcomes, less pain, less trauma, less anxiety, and a lot less death.  None of us want the old guy to contract cancer, we sympathize with him.  But compare that feeling of empathy with a picture of a toddler in a pediatric oncology unit at a hospital and I dare you to hold back the tears.  Now compound the feeling by imagining that toddler to be your child.  That kind of pain is likely as bad as it gets.  As a parent you would do everything in your power to prevent that scenario from ever happening.  But how?  That disease does not know who you are.  It does not care who you are, or that it is your child who will contract it.  There is no taking their place, because the disease does not move from one victim to spare another.  It stays there, until it kills its host, and never so much as bats an eyelash.  A fully indiscriminate killer, on a murder/suicide mission, with no conscience, and no empathy with which you could plead your case.

Part of the pain you suffer as a parent is helplessness.  Your total inability to do anything to prevent it.  Your total inability to redirect the outcome.  You can participate in treatment.  You can do everything right, and still suffer that ultimate loss.  Where is God then?  Christians who do not understand the nature of God make a distinction between believers and non-believers in cases like this.  Yes, there are Christians who think the value of a believing child is worth more, or deserves more, than the child who does not believe yet.  The disobedient parents must somehow bare responsibility for the suffering of their child.  As if Christian parents make no mistakes, or worse, make the same mistakes as those who do not believe in Jesus, continually.  But this is all wrong.  Cancer does not care if you are a Christian or not.  It ignores belief systems, and lifestyles.  It may be brought on by certain behaviors.  But it is not prevented by any of them.

The vegetarian may avoid the cancers that lay in the meat the rest of us eat.  But the cancers that come from pollution in soil and water, get right into the same food supply we are all eat anyway.  Radiated stuff gets us all, and no government is truthful about where it is, or how well it is controlled.  Sure, smoking is a veritable death sentence from lung cancer, and nearly as lethal is second hand smoke.  But not all air you breathe is as clean as you would wish.  Healthy lifestyles bring a better life, but do nothing to prevent cancer or many other diseases of a lethal variety.  Genetics trumps nearly everything.  You would think Christians can beat most of this, by the power of prayer if nothing else.  And sometimes this is true.  But not ALL the times, so what then.

But if you think your powerlessness is bad, imagine having all the power in the universe, and then dealing with it.  Imagine being able to fix it, but knowing that fixing it now, breaks it later.  Case in point; Joseph the earthly father of Jesus must have been very loved by our Savior.  It is believed Joseph died at some point in the life of Jesus, before His ministry begins.  Jesus could raise the dead.  Why would He leave Joseph, His own earthly dad, to rot in the earth?  Mary would suffer because of this.  There would be less provisions for her because of this.  Do any of us seriously believe Jesus left Joseph in the ground, because of lack of love?  Why not just pull him out like Lazarus, and just keep on going.  Do it quietly, in secret.  Or at least heal Joseph from whatever disease he had before it got him.  But Jesus does not, despite how much He must have loved Joseph.  He left him in the dirt.  You can bet the heart of Mary broke when Joseph died.  You can bet she wept for the only man who ever believed her and “knew” her story was true.  It appears she never remarried, preferring to wait for reunification in heaven at the end of all things.

We should have thought about this case, and realized the outcomes we would want, are not always the outcomes we get.  What if Jesus raised Joseph, and late in life, Joseph abandons his faith?  You could argue that it is the free-will of Joseph to make that choice.  But the same free-will choice Joseph made at the time of his death, was also his choice, and perhaps then he chose to cling to his faith.  Perhaps if Joseph did not see a decade or two more of Roman horror he remains faithful.  But once raised from the grave the horror of life then changes the mind of Joseph over time.  When is it better for Joseph to die, sooner when he believes, or later when he does not?  Hezekiah begged for more time, and got it.  He did not lose that faith, but his heart was broken by what he saw in the lives of his sons, and his nation.  Was it better for Hezekiah to find a peaceful sleep in the Lord earlier, or cling to life and witness the horror of evil so close to home?

We hate the suffering.  So does God.  God sees how evil is responsible for all the suffering.  For everything from the greed that leads to pollution, to the weakness that embraces self-destructive behavior, to the virus’ and diseases that should have never existed.  God sees how hate leads the powerful to destroy the weak for no reason that could ever matter.  God sees the cycle of sin, that begins so small, and ends so horrifically.  And the mind of God must then be on how best to eradicate sin forever in the universe.  God does not just want to kill the patient, but to kill the sin within the patient, and keep the patient alive.  And God does not just measure life in this world, He measures it in the eternal world as that is the ONLY place that actually matters.  As hard as it is for us to taste death in this world, or see our family taste it, it is a far worse thing to see that become something eternal, instead of something so brief.

So Jesus cannot always do what He wants for us in the here and now.  But He ALWAYS does what we need in the eternal point of view, the one that matters.  And as hard as it is for us to endure the bad crap that comes our way, it is harder for Jesus to see us endure it, and let it happen, in order that it works together for our more important good.  Harder for Him, because He has the power to fix it now.  But must delay, in order to fix it forever, later.  Matthew tells the story of a loss like this.  And it is not just some random friend of Jesus, but His cousin.  This was the first Christian.  This was the first person to carry the gospel to the river Jordan, and cry out to the nation to repent, and make straight the way of the Lord.  John had fire.  John was a prophet.  John was the most effective preacher ever born.  He lived His message.  He was absolutely humble.  He recognized Jesus for who Jesus was.  John believed Mary.  John sent his own disciples to follow Jesus.  John nearly convinced Herod to do the right thing.  But for all his belief, John still died, beheaded as the first Christian martyr.  Sometimes bad crap comes right to your doorstep.

Matthew picks up in chapter fourteen of his gospel beginning in verse 01 saying … “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, [verse 2] And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.”  This begins as a ghost story.  Herod thinks Jesus is actually John the Baptist back from the dead, doing miracles only a supernatural being could ever perform.  And Herod is afraid, perhaps very afraid.  Miracles tend to unnerve the guilty who have no way to explain them, and every reason to fear them, particularly when they have yet to repent, and yet to change what they were doing wrong in the first place.  Who but a ghost could pull off the deeds of Jesus in the mind of Herod?  Herod missed redemption entirely, so fear alone gripped him for the guilty conscience he held to.

Matthew enumerates further in verse 3 saying … “For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. [verse 4] For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her. [verse 5] And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet.”  Herod did not enjoy being called out publicly as an adulterer.  At first he was mad and would have killed John to shut him up.  But having John in prison allowed Herod to come visit him, and the more Herod listened to John, the more he became convinced John was right, and he needed to do something to fix the situation.  While the crowds delayed the hand of Herod at first, a growing conscience within him delayed it later.  And that became a situation considered way too dangerous by the adulterous woman to be tolerated.  Herod may no longer have wanted to kill John, in fact he refused to.  But Herodias wanted him dead on a silver platter.

Matthew continues the story in verse 6 saying … “But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. [verse 7] Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask. [verse 8] And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger.”  Salome asks her mom what to ask for, likely interested in jewels or land.  But evil mom knows the truth, if John lives, and Herod repents, they will be sent back to Phillip with nothing, likely ostracized, perhaps stoned.  So if Salone wants to live to spend the wealth Herod may still bestow on her later, they need John dead now.  And a young girl asks for the most horrific thing sin always results in, death.

Matthew continues in verse 9 saying … “ And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her. [verse 10] And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison. [verse 11] And his head was brought in a charger, and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother.”  Herod was sorry.  The king was sorry.  This was not a gleeful Herod bathing himself in the blood of the man who called him out for his sin.  This was a king worried too much about going back on his word, to do what he knew was right.  So for sake of ego and reputation, Herod did the unthinkable to Herod.  And John was beheaded alone in prison.  Bad crap coming the way of John through no fault of his own.  Unless shutting up is considered the alternative by modern Christians.  Better to shut up than lose life, or jobs, or promotions, or friends, or position in society.  Better to keep your Christianity on the down low than lose what you have through the loss of favor with the world.  But when a Christian loves the non-believer, they are compelled to love them.  How can you keep your mouth shut then?

John had a higher mission of conversion and ironically he was right on the doorstep of success with Herod.  It was the wicked women who had no use for God that wanted him killed.  Imagine if this story went differently.  Imagine if Herod had the strength to throw those witches out on their butts, and truly repent of what he was doing.  Herod would have become the first Christian King.  And perhaps the sequence that ended the life of Jesus would have had to leave Herod out of the whole thing, lest Herod protect the Jesus, cousin of John, who John introduces Herod to.  Instead of being part of the bad crap that came to Christ, Herod might have had no part in it at all.  But Herod succumbs to his carnal urges, all too easily satisfied by women seeking to protect wealth and standing.  And John dies now, Jesus later.  And faith altogether is lost.

Matthew concludes in verse 12 saying … “And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus.”  And here begins the worst kick in the faith His disciples will ever suffer.  Dude!  Dude this is your cousin, the greatest preacher this nation has ever seen, until You that is.  Just go put his head back on his body, and breathe life back into him, and let’s get going again.  We know You can do it, we have seen You do it for other folks.  Over time the disciples will do it too.  So why not just resurrect John the Baptist and show the nation how great You truly are.  We know You care about him.  We know You love him.  He is Your cousin for goodness sake.  And while we are at it, let’s go raise up Joseph too, and make a real showing of how great Your power is.  How can You just sit there?  How can You do nothing for one of Your own?  How could You let this bad crap happen to John, and Joseph, and have the ability to fix it, but do nothing … at least now.

But this is where the lens of the vision of God is so much wider and farther than our own.  Jesus knows He will see Joseph again because He intends to raise him up Himself, in just a little while (from His perspective).  Jesus knows He will raise John again, because He intends to do it Himself, in just a little while.  Both of them raised to perfection to a home in heaven, that will forever allow them to be close to Himself.  He will shower them with love.  And no one will ever be able to stop that shower again.  No more bad crap ever.  Raising them up to a world steeped in Roman horror would not be a favor.  Having them face the decades that follow would not be a benefit to them, only a selfish act to Himself so that He could reduce the pain of their loss in the short term.  It was not best for John, or Joseph.  They would sleep and in the blink of an eye find the glory of His second appearing.  They had no concept of the passage of time.  It would be immediate for them, as it is for every believer who has ever died in the 6000 years of our history.  Dying sucks.  But being dead, is like having fallen asleep at night, in the blink of an eye the morning is here, and you wake up.

Cancer sucks.  The suffering it brings sucks.  Cancer was never supposed to exist, and it is decidedly not the will of God, but the invention of His enemy.  As is all disease and suffering and decay and death.  The pain sin has brought to this world, and to us, is the natural result of turning away from the perfect happiness of God to find “another way”.  Here is where “other” ways end up.  And while bad crap does happen to Christians.  There is something Christians have that is an advantage our non-believing friends so desperately need.  While we may sit in the same oncology units, and even mortuaries, we have a hope and a view of the final state of things not everyone else understands.  We know we are loved, even in our pain, by a God who feels every tear ten times more than we ever will.  Our true “Dad” longs to see our pain gone forever, and He is working to see that occur for us, and in us, and in the patient beside us who may have never heard that hope that way before.  Whether He heals us or them now, or drives all the pain away when we wake up in that resurrection morning, there will come a time of no more pain, no more death, and no more bad crap ever again for anyone.  Perhaps our hope is the testimony the patient beside us needs more than anything else in their world, and we have it to offer today.  Can we shut up, and still say we love them?

 

A Different God ...

Atheists make a point; if there is a God, why does He let “you” suffer?  And Christians set about the task of apologizing on behalf of Jesus.  Mind you, there is truth in the notion that in order for free will to be free, it must permit the choice of that which is bad for us, it must permit the choice of sin.  And sin brings with it pain and death from cause and effect.  It is also true that in a world that recognizes the existence of God, we must equally recognize the existence of His enemy Satan, who has no compunction over causing pain and death to as many as he can.  Stacking up the impacts of our own bad choices, compounded with others, and increased by the deceiver of souls; quite a bit of damage ensues.  Imagine greed unrestricted for a moment, or lust, or anger.  Were there not some level of restriction held back by the four angels of the four winds we might have completely self-destructed long ago.  So even our continued existence is possible only because our God must interfere within limits or witness His creation commit suicide on mass.

But the nature of the Atheist’s challenge is more personal than why does pain exist at all, it is why does it exist for “you”; for someone who claims belief in Jesus Christ.  The challenge is simply why does God who must at least at some level interfere to preserve you, not do a better job at it?  Why does He not answer the most desperate prayers, or prevent the most heinous tragedies from happening at all?  When asked this, most Christians punt.  The most common refrain is, it is a mystery, that only faith can overcome, and trust that whatever happens is in our best interest permitted by a God who we know loves us with a passion we may never understand.  But that answer still leaves the victim a victim.  Rape victims will still have been raped.  Abuse victims still abused.  The dead still killed by others, or by the cause and effect of their own choices.  Our modern faith seems poised to deal with the aftermath, but seems to have a problem dealing with prevention through consistent direct divine intervention.

Now most Christians have a story or two about some point in their lives where divine intervention was done on their behalf.  God keeps us out of the car accident, or keeps our health going when the normal course of events should have taken us out of planet earth.  So the modern Christian, despite not having a comprehensive answer, has at least a partial one.  Our God has been preserving us.  Without Him, we would have been dead already, or in far worse shape than we find ourselves today.  And some modern Christians hold out hope to be favored by the God of Job; who while He permits calamity to occur, He restores our lives after the damage to a much greater point than before the damage began.  But Job’s first set of children were still dead.  Having a new baby is awesome.  But it does not replace the hole in your heart of losing even one of your children, let alone all of them.

Some modern Christians just write off anything that happens in this world as meaning “less”.  From the point of view of eternity, of life without the pain of sin and the death it brings, nothing that happens in this world can ever deter from the infinite bliss of perfection we will come to live in the hereafter.  This perspective is perhaps the most healthy, as it keeps the eye and the priority on what is really important, and what is not.  It also has the side effect of recognizing we need an end to the sin inside of us, to experience and enjoy what an eternity of perfection has waiting for us in the plain of existence God had in mind originally, and is restoring us to.  But even this perspective is lacking something.  It presumes that God will “do a better job” preserving us, only when conditions are finally favorable.  Why does He not do it today, is another question.  And ultimately it is a question where “we” question just what kind of God He is.  It would appear modern Christianity has lapsed into the service of a different God.  Why, and how, spring to mind.

Matthew records for us, in his gospel intended for a Jewish audience, a picture of what sure looks like a different God than the one we have come to apologize for.  The Jesus Christ who walked the sands of Israel so long ago sure presents as something completely different than the Jesus Christ we struggle to make excuses for today.  And if Jesus has not, or will not, ever change.  Then perhaps it is us who have shifted while the rock remained right where it has been all along.  Take as an example the story of the immediate aftermath of the Sermon on the Mount in chapter eight of Matthews gospel.  What Jesus had done was simply preach a sermon.  There were many truths within it, most centered on Salvation, and how following Jesus, submitting to Him, sees that occur within us.  There were no quid pro quo sections in His sermon.  There were no fantastic promises of wealth offered there, or of control, or of fame.  In fact, the antidote of these things are found buried in His words.  What He values is not based in wealth, but in service, not in control, but in submission, not in fame, but in humility.  His entire value system is upside down from our perspective.  But what was the response to it?

Matthew opens chapter eight in verse 1 saying … “When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.”  The people got it.  Rape victims, abuse victims, those victimized by a church whose leadership abused their control, got it.  Salvation was possible through Jesus Christ and honestly that was all that mattered.  They saw a different God than us.  They were certain about a different God than we appear to be.  They began to show it, revealing Him to us, and revealing what we truly believe to ourselves.  Matthew continues in verse 2 saying … “And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.”  Aids victim, stage four cancer victim, multiple gun shot victim, pick the terminal condition you equate to the most today, and the ancient equivalent was leprosy.  Highly contagious and not well understood, meant complete social ostracization.  No one wanted you around.  You were going to die.  Any remedy had long been forgotten.  You were dirt.  You were less than dirt.

And at least one of them, comes straight up to Jesus after hearing His sermon from afar, and says to Him Lord, “if thou wilt”.  There will be no medication needed, no team of doctors or nurses required.  The man or woman destined to die will come to the Lord of renewal, and state a fact.  This victim knows what Jesus can do.  Jesus need only will it.  No apologies.  No deterrence of faith.  And what happens next separates the God of that man (or woman) from the God of you or I.  Jesus responds in verse 3 saying … “And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”  There was zero delay in His answer.  There was zero equivocation in His answer.  There was zero pre-conditions that had to be met in His answer.  The dead, or destined to be dead, was to be restored in that instant. 

Further, Jesus was not some cold, removed, uncaring person afraid to interact with what you and I are too afraid to love.  Jesus touches Him (or substitute her as many women had leprosy as well).  I imagine Jesus reaching right out to the most infected part of the victim He could easily see, and began the healing right from there.  I imagine seeing not just a cessation of the disease, or stopping its progression, and leaving the scars and missing sections that had already rotted and fallen off.  I imagine Jesus begins re-creating the victim, replacing every missing part with a new one created from the fingertips of the Creator.  I imagine seeing the scars and blemishes fade into the normality of perfection at the time.  Full restoration.  Full recreation.  A point not too subtle for us to see where it comes to our salvation, and the need we have to be re-created from the inside out.

But this must be a different God, than the one modern Christians claim to serve.  There was no delay in what the will of Jesus was.  There was no pondering about it.  It did not take a committee to decide what to do.  It took a man seeing his own need and reaching out to one He knew not only could do it, but would do it.  And Jesus did what Jesus wanted to do for him, and longs to do for each of us.  Jesus then does something that continues to be relevant to us picking up in verse 4 saying … “And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.”  The way of healing leprosy had been long forgotten by those who ran the church.  They had been given a method of healing it.  But they forgot it, or abandoned it, or perhaps just like modern Christians, began to doubt what their God wanted done in a situation like that.

The leadership of the Jewish faith in the time of Christ served the same God we modern Christians do.  A God whose will is ever in doubt, or cannot be explained.  A God who does not “do” anything, or does not “do” enough.  A different God.  Certainly a different God than Jesus Christ who did not hesitate a single minute healing the man in need right in front of Him.  That God, that Jesus Christ, did not seem to leave us in doubt as to what He will was.  He was asked.  He healed.  End of story.  No doubts.  No difficulty in explanation, but rather extreme clarity.  Jesus does NOT want us to suffer and die.  Jesus came to reverse those conditions within us.  Jesus is NOT only interested in our spiritual condition (though that is the more important one), He is also equally interested in our physical condition.  He restores us, both body and soul.  This is the work Jesus longs to do.  This is that God.  This would by all accounts appear to be someone different than the God we have evolved in our minds is supposed to be Him.  In asking this man to return to the leadership of the church to be a testimony unto them, He is also asking this man to be a testimony unto us.

The rock does not move, only the sands of self do that.  It is not our Jesus who has changed, or wants something different for us than He did for that victim of leprosy.  He wants ALL of His children restored to Him in perfection, not just in mind, or spirituality, but in the bodies He created us to have.  The rock is still there.  It is us who need to return to it.  To conjure a different image of the God we serve, one absent of doubt, and apology.  An image of Jesus as He truly was, not an image of Jesus today masked behind a cloak of invisibility and doubt of intentions.  His intentions have not changed, only our faith in them.  His abilities to restore have not changed, only our perception of our need.  We no longer ask, either with certainty in what He would will, or with faith that an answer will actually be provided.  We ask with doubt, and with coverage in case what we want is rejected with no.  We offer the excuse of “not yet” to our feeble prayers.  But Jesus did not tell the Leper, I will get back to you.  He just healed the victim who needed the healing right in the moment he asked.

If the health of the body of those who are Christians is in disarray today, the responsibility clearly lies on our own doorstep.  The guidance in His word about what is good and what is not for us to eat is clearly outlined.  We know what we need to do from an exercise, sleep, rest and dietary standpoint.  And when disease comes to us in spite of what directions we follow from the word, we have a God whose will it is to heal us immediately, fully, restoratively and on the spot of our question for it.  That is His will.  That is His will for you, for me, and for the entirety of mankind from Adam to us.  Not just for the good people, but for all of them.  Not just for the folks who understand doctrine perfectly, but for those who are mistaken about nearly everything.  The leper did not have doctrinal perfection, he had a singular belief in the “will” of Jesus Christ.  That is the will of that Jesus Christ who scripture bares witness to.  Who is the Jesus Christ you serve?  Is it the same guy? 

Do you serve that God, or have the shifting sands of your perceptions invented a new version of Jesus Christ, a much lesser version, a version we feel the need to apologize for when the tough questions are posed, because the physical proof seems lacking all the time.  Have we, like our Pharisee forefathers, found a different God; or are we ready to serve the Jesus Christ who even today stands right in front of us as He ever was, His will clear to restore what is broken within us, both body and soul.  Are we ready to ask Him now, seeing our need, and “knowing” His will?  Are we prepared for the yes, we have so long believed was only rarely granted, but now will be our regularity?  I am tired of the different God, I have constructed in my mind, I would rather return to the Rock who has not moved, and the certainty in what He wills.  Is anyone else ready as well?