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Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird ...Thursday, March 6, 2008
John 5:37-44 "You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; and even they testify on my behalf.
But you do not want to come to me to have life. ...
" How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?"
Four chapters earlier, John the Baptist did hear God point out Jesus. John told Jesus' disciples, "I would not have known him, except ... God told me ..." The Pharisees were so sure of themselves, they had a hard time listening. And nearly everyone Jesus encountered needed something for themselves or their family: if Jesus delivered, they listened. If he didn't, they closed their ears. Two thousand years later, that paragraph describes, as a movie title puts it, "me and you and everyone I know." How can we get beyond these limitations? Jesus has an answer. Stop looking to each other for credit and praise. The standards we set aren't high enough. God has more in store than we can imagine. It helps me to remember the difference between the first cause, the creator, and those that are created. We are all peers, and we are none of us God. Solomon wrote that God is in heaven and we are on earth. That limitation sometimes offends my sense of importance, and I try too hard to find God (or be God) down here. That God entered our world as Jesus is the most important personal historical fact of my life. I don't need to make anything up, or pretend to be anything I'm not, or worship anything any of us has made. Jesus tells me that as clearly as he can. Your examples, Jesus, of obedience and creativity, are all I need to follow. You were humble, confident and assertive. And you knew that you knew that you knew your Father. |
Here's another testy comment from Jesus about the inability of those around him to hear God's voice.